Ambassador John Bolton, fait accompli

I wonder whether Tom Skerritt is available to play me in the made-for-TV "John Bolton Story"?

Things tend not to qualify as news if they come as no surprise. There is no "news alert," for example, when the sun rises in the morning. But I expect there to be a great deal of journalistic hand-wringing about the recess appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN.

The article I linked above helpfully explains that

Bush gave Bolton a "recess appointment," taking advantage of a loophole that allows him to make such appointments when Congress is in recess.

Quite right. That is, if you take the word "loophole" to mean "something explicitly permitted by the United States Constitution." Really. Article II, Section 2 reads, in part,

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Never mind that the Senate is actually in recess, or that there is actually a vacancy, or that Presidents since George Washington have used recess appointments (and for far more significant offices: Ike made three recess appointments for Supreme Court justices, for God's sake!). Never mind that that hero of the Left, and indeed champion of all that is Good and Light Bill Clinton, made 140 of them. Ted Kennedy, whose own brother made a recess appointment of Thurgood Marshall (against the will of the Senate!), had this predictable thing to say:

It's a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent [emphasis mine]

This is the sort of thing we'll doubtless be treated to over the next few days. But all you Democrats, take heart: you'll get another swing at Bolton later on down the road; and if you're right and Bolton burns down the UN headquarters at the first opportunity, you'll have a lot to crow about.

---

2 August: With 24 hours of Bolton coverage behind us, I'm a little surprised at one of the media's foci: the notion that the recess appointment somehow hurts Bolton's credibility at the UN. Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, a fellow Nutmegger, is quoted in this report:

One of Bolton's harshest critics, Sen. Christopher Dodd, predicted Bolton's credibility at the world body would be damaged by the recess appointment, since Bush failed to get the nomination through the Senate.

"I think you're going to have an awfully difficult time with Mr. Bolton building the kind of support the United States needs today at the United Nations," said Dodd, D-Connecticut, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A justified criticism? Think about it: I bet many countries' UN ambassadors serve only at the pleasure of the lcoal strongman. Do they have a tough time because they weren't chosen by bipartisan dealmaking? And keep in mind that Bolton would have been confirmed to his post, and not by a one-vote margin, if he'd simply been presented to the full Senate for a vote.