It's been a long, winding road of "misstatements", forged intelligence, botched diplomacy, and spectacular tales of obsessive "kick-down" middle management vengeance, but it's looking like a recess appointment of John Bolton as America's U.N. Ambassador is likely to happen in the next few days.
Current reports are citing officials inside the White House saying Bush wants to get it over with before he leaves for his summer vacation. (No, I'm not kidding. It's like he's a kid packing for camp or something.)
I have mixed feelings about such an appointment. Well, not really -- at this point, I mostly welcome it, and I think most administration critics have been coming to roughly the same conclusions. If you're out to prove spectacular Bush administration incompetence and corruption, Bolton is the yellowcake-dusted gift that keeps on giving. I've grown almost fond of the rhythm of the news cycle, in which once a month or so we find out a new diplomatic effort that Bolton managed to either fantastically botch or intentionally sabotage (Libya, North Korea, nonproliferation efforts, anything remotely having to do with Iraq WMD claims). Every few months, we are treated to news reports describing another administration official who hates his ever-loving guts (Powell and Condi have both allowed themselves to be obliquely marked as being anti-Bolton, in addition to the parade of officials that testified at his hearings. Take a hint, much?)
Already, it looks like we're in for quite a ride. You have to marvel at the corporate desk-thumping audacity of rallying against the bloated bureaucracy of the U.N. -- claiming it wouldn't make much of a difference if the U.N. lost ten floors -- and taking on, as your first act (while your battered nomination is still resting deep in the cold ground), the doubling in size of your own ambassadorial office. Does that sound like a powerful voice of reform, or a corporate management guy who wants to make sure he has the biggest desk and the rollingest chair?
Mostly, however, he's going to be ineffective -- and I expect given the visibility of the post, comically so. No, I'm not thinking Bolton is going to start any wars, any more than I think he's going to "reform" the ambassadors around him. There's not like there's any goodwill among the international community left to squander, so he can expect to be treated, by both friend and foe, with lazily shaded revulsion. They've been following the stories closer than any of us have. They know what they're getting. And, to be honest, John Bolton fits the studious non-diplomacy of George W. Bush like a furry glove. Short of nominating a horse wearing diapers to be his next U.N. Ambassador, I'm not sure how Bush could make his contempt for the international community any more clear.
Honestly, the most remarkable part about all of this -- actually, about most of the administration and Senate events of the last week, all told -- is the utter childishness of it all. Bolton, if appointed to the post, will be installed there because the Bush administration refuses to give the Senate a mere handful of documents which, according to prevalent rumor, demonstrate Bolton to be even worse than we already knew. And even without the additional documents, Bolton doesn't have enough support in the Senate to move forward even another inch because of underground Republican wariness, not just Democratic opposition.
Now, Bush could do what every other modern President has done when a nominee has gone so badly sour; dump him, and nominate someone else. (Even Newt Gingrich has been named as a possible replacement, here.) But Bush is less loyal, his handlers' signature praise line, than just preternaturally lazy. This is, truly, the CEO Presidency, and Bush is the CEO that many of us know far too well from the business world. Can't make decisions. Can't listen to complex issues. Can't handle basic personnel problems or staff infighting to save his life. At this point it looks like the objections to Bolton are near unanimous around those who have worked with and above him -- but Bush doesn't have any way of dealing with it other than giving Bolton what Bolton wants and hoping it just works out somehow. You can bet Rove, when he isn't nervously rummaging under his desk and behind the cabinets for things that might need shredding, would be happier to see the backside of Bolton than pretty much anyone else.
A recess appointment is an act of political weakness, since it accomplishes through fiat what the president doesn't have the coattails to accomplish even through his obsessively loyal Republican-run Senate. And given the eyes on Bolton, I'm betting dollars to donuts such an appointment is going to backfire spectacularly. (Republican Trent Lott is already either sending up warning flares, or sharpening his knives while humming happily to himself, depending on how you read his so-happy-to-speak-on-the-record statements.)
So. Let me be among the first to welcome you to your new, highly visible, highly critical post, John Bolton; look forward to working at you.