The John Bolton Appointment
Posted by Moonage on 01 Aug 2005 | Tagged as: National Politics
Before I start hearing how Bush has circumvented the Constitution again, read this:
And, do note that pretty much every president has done it. Thurgood Marshall would become a Supreme Court justice following a recess appointment. So, there really isn’t anything special about what is happening other than Bush has taken the politics out of it. Given the political agenda seems to be primarily on the Plame scandal and the John Roberts nomination, Bolton probably would never have gotten a vote. I expect the usual rhetoric, just don’t buy it.
5 Comments »
on 01 Aug 2005 at 11:39 am 1.StormWarning
said …
For some time now, I’ve been expecting this recess appointment. Regardless of what anyone (including me) thinks about John Bolton, leaving the post of UN Ambassador vacant (for 6 months) during these times is not in our Nation’s best interests.
So it is not surprising that GW made this move on the first possible day during the Congressional recess. Frankly, by the time Mr. Bolton comes up for a Senate vote in 2006/7, we’ll all know what kind of Ambassador he is and we will have seen how he performs in this position.
I’m glad that at least one of the controversies that are distracting Congress (and especially the Senate) from doing their duty to govern, is finally behind us.
on 01 Aug 2005 at 10:41 pm 2.Moonage
said …
I fully expected it when the Senate started dragging their feet and then the Supreme Court position became an issue. The Dems were more interested in hanging Karl Rove than they were dealing with Bolton. IMO it just shows the overall opinion the Senate has of the United Nations in general. To them the UN’s almost as important as a Supreme Court justice, who’s almost as important as Karl Rove.
So yeah, I figured this would be a recess appointment as well. I figure this will distract the Democrat Senators about two days max before they resume the Plame attacks.
on 02 Aug 2005 at 12:41 am 3.Bryan Kerwick
said …
Who cares what the Senate thinks in 2006-2007. It will have an overwhelming majority of Republicans post 2006 Senate elections and will be a mute point. The real key is that there must be a vote without the usual vetting process the Democrats have made stalling votes into an art form. Not so anymore.
What I would like to see now is for the President to make the same recess appointments to all the Justices the Democrats have been holding up in Congress. That manuver would make filibusters entirely useless since the majority decides when and for how long Congress goes on recess.
Constitutional precedent has already been set, the power of the President is clearly spelled out in the Constitution to do exactly that and historians will note one President in particular placed 3 Justices onto the Supreme Court during recess.
Bush isn’t running for re-election so he may as well stack the court and tell the Liberals to kiss his ass. There is nothing they can do to stop him.
IMO, there is no other business in Congress for the next 3 years that is as important as filling Judicial vacancies with strict Constitutionalists. Let the Liberals legislate and take away their ability to litigate.
on 02 Aug 2005 at 8:22 am 4.StormWarning
said …
IMO, there is no other business in Congress for the next 3 years that is as important as filling Judicial vacancies with strict Constitutionalists. Let the Liberals legislate and take away their ability to litigate.
If I’ve never heard an overstatement (nothing as important???), I think that I just have. A bit overly anxious I think to “stack the court” with overly conservative thinking people (”Constitutionalists”), me thinks.
on 02 Aug 2005 at 8:47 am 5.Moonage
said …
He might be a bit anxious to “stack” the court. However, I do agree I would like to see Bush make a bunch of recess appointments just to make an issue of the abuse of filibusters. The Republicans did master the threat of a filibuster under Clinton, but they had the majority and therefore could honestly say the majority opposed certain issues. What the Republicans did was pick one or two major issues ( usually the budget ), and hammer that one issue even with the majority. What the Democrats are doing now is threatening, and sometimes doing, filibuters on just about everything. Filibusters are no longer a safety valve, they are a routine practice. This gets amazingly tiresome and stalls the entire legislative process needlessly. If Bush were to just take all his stalled appointments and go ahead and stick them in there, he could do so under the defense of obvious failure of the Democrats to confirm or reject. That is their obligation. Sitting on it was never the intent of the Constitution. And, as Bryan does point out, Bush has nothing to lose by doing it. IMO, that would make a lot of Senators a lot more reticent about using filibusters in the future.
And that would be a good thing.