And this is not about their nuclear ambitions, but something much more frightening. In retrospect, the nuclear nonsense was obviously just a clever subterfuge, a mere red herring while they continued their real work. Work that stands the soon-to-be-quaint phrase “weapons of mass destruction” on its obsolete head.

Here are the dots, just crying out to be connected:

See what I mean? The Iranian regime has secretly developed some unknown non-weapons technology that can be used to take out their enemies, not en-masse but individually. Non-weapons of individual destruction (NWID), if you will.

How does one even fight against such technology? If we delay, will we have any option except learning how to say “Yes, boss!” in Farsi?

Clearly, the time to act is now, before this nascent technology is refined and perfected and aimed against us. And if Obama won’t do it, we’ll just have to push him aside, and replace him with a real manly man. Someone like McCain.

Luckily, refusing to preemptively defend the U.S. against such a chilling threat is a clear act of high treason.

Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

Except that the Republican party seems to be willing to snicker at anything. Here’s a prime example from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.:

This morning, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He tried to up the fear quotient in the room by raising the prospect of an Iranian-sent nuclear attack on an American city. “It’s [a] tiny [threat] compared to the Soviet Union,” Bolton said, “but is the loss of one American city — pick one at random: Chicago — is that a tiny threat?” The audience erupted in cheers and laughter at the idea of Obama’s home city being obliterated.

That’s truly hilarious, isn’t it—the nearly three million Americans who live in the third largest city in the U.S. wiped out in a nuclear holocaust? Definitely worth laughing at and, yes, cheering for.

When the likes of Bolton and Limbaugh and Michael Steele are the presiding deities of the Republican party, the country will be in safe hands for a long time to come.

(I am idly wondering, though, how come this uproarious moment of stand-up comedy didn’t make the networks’ CPAC highlights reel. Surely America deserves to share the joke?)

President George W. Bush is considering renominating John Bolton as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a year after appointing him to the job over Senate objections, aides said on Thursday.

Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who opposed Bolton’s nomination a year ago, said on Thursday he would now support him for the job.
[...]
“Should the president choose to renominate him, I cannot imagine a worse message to send to the terrorists — and to other nations deciding whether to engage in this effort — than to drag out a possible renomination process or even replace the person our president has entrusted to lead our nation at the United Nations,” Voinovich said.

The best possible message, of course, is for Congress to just rubber-stamp every decision of the Decider who Osama bin Laden personally picked out in 2004 as the man he wanted to see presiding over the Global War of Terror for the next four years.

When we last left the story a few days ago, the White House was signaling that Bush would just bypass the Senate entirely and install Bolton with a recess appointment. But things took an interesting turn as it was finally admitted that, yes, Bolton had lied to Congress when asked if he had been interviewed by investigators or testified to a grand jury over the last five years.

John Bolton, President Bush’s nominee for U.N. ambassador, neglected to tell Congress he been interviewed in a government investigation into faulty prewar intelligence that Iraq was seeking nuclear materials in Africa, the State Department said.

(…)

His statement came hours after another State Department official said Bolton had correctly answered a Senate questionnaire when he wrote that he had not testified to a grand jury or been interviewed by investigators in any inquiry over the past five years.

Clay said Bolton “didn’t recall being interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general” when he filled out the form. “Therefore, his form, as submitted, was inaccurate,” Clay said. “He will correct it.”

Bolton, former undersecretary for arms control and international security, had no role in a separate criminal investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA officer’s identity, Clay said.

It’s kind of interesting that Bolton is being preemptively distanced from the CIA leak controversy that has put Karl Rove (among others) under the spotlight glare of a media that is finally showing some backbone. We’ll get back to this later. As for Bolton’s misrepresentation on the Senate questionnaire, the State Department and the rest of Bolton’s supporters would like you to believe that he simply forgot; no harm, no foul. But even if you take this explanation at face value, do we really want a U.N. Ambassador that is incapable of remembering being interviewed a mere two years ago? Sure, people make mistakes sometimes. But it’s not like John Bolton is working the night shift at 7-11 and forgot to clean the Slurpee machine; that he would just “forget” about being interviewed for such a prominent investigation doesn’t seem likely.

In another time, this kind of revelation might have killed a nominee’s chances immediately. But when faced with this new development, the White House gave the order to the engine room: full steam ahead!

From CNN (and posted, you will note, at 11:08 p.m., well after Bolton’s “amnesia” was reported):

President Bush may use a recess appointment early next week to install John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, two senior administration officials told CNN Thursday.

So much for the cautious approach. Considering Bush’s new standard of competence is simply not being convicted of a felony, misrepresentation on a Senate form is pretty small potatoes. But there’s another shape looming in the distance, and hinted at by the comments meant to distance Bolton form the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation.

The following is pretty much speculation (I have no plans to be fitted for a tinfoil hat just yet), but it brings up a very interesting possibility…and a very uncomfortible situation for the White House if there’s any truth to it.

Here’s what we do know: It was recently revealed by Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus that a third administration official—separate from the previously-disclosed Karl Rove or “Scooter” Libby—had provided him with information on Valerie Plame in 2003:

In the same week in July 2003 in which Bush administration officials told a syndicated columnist and a Time magazine reporter that a C.I.A. officer had initiated her husband’s mission to Niger, an administration official provided a Washington Post reporter with a similar account.

The first two episodes, involving the columnist Robert D. Novak and the reporter Matthew Cooper, have become the subjects of intense scrutiny in recent weeks. But little attention has been paid to what The Post reporter, Walter Pincus, has recently described as a separate exchange on July 12, 2003.

In that exchange, Mr. Pincus says, “an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention” to the trip to Niger by Joseph C. Wilson IV “because it was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, an analyst with the agency who was working on weapons of mass destruction.”

Now, how many administration officials would be qualified to comment on matters of Iraqi nuclear activities? It’s a fairly specialized field, but one which would be well known to, say, the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control and international security. In and of itself, this doesn’t mean much of anything. But when you add it to Bolton’s history of sabotaging those who disagree with him (in some cases, by using surveillance and intelligence data) and that the White House has continually stonewalled any request for documents relating to Bolton’s surveillance activities…well, it’s not so absurd to think that something more might be behind the curtain (or mustache, in this case).

In the meantime, grab a life preserver—this is about to get interesting.

Republicans Vow To Punish Clinton If He Appoints Lee (12-97):

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill say they’ll make President Clinton suffer if he sidesteps the U.S. Senate to make Bill Lann Lee the nation’s top civil rights attorney. But Clinton apparently is determined to do just that.

“If they make a recess appointment, then I have to say, it’s a finger in the eye of the Senate,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told FOX on Sunday. “I think you’d find there would be an awful lot of repercussions from that.”
[...]
“I think there’ll be a slowdown on a lot of things from the president,” Hatch said Sunday. “I think you’re going to have difficulty getting judges through. They’re going to have difficulty on the appropriations process. I think there’ll be attempts by some to … really let the president know you don’t do this.”

Hmmmm…wonder if Hatch, no stranger to rank hypocrisy, has changed his mind.

Bush may bypass Senate and appoint Bolton to UN (Reuters):

The White House signaled on Monday that President Bush may bypass the Senate and appoint John Bolton, his embattled nominee for U.N. ambassador, to the post temporarily as hope faded for a Senate vote on the nomination.

A recess appointment could be announced as early as Friday night, immediately after the Senate is scheduled to adjourn for the monthlong August recess, congressional aides said.

John Bolton doesn’t deserve to be a government employee, much less the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. He’s been described as a “kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy”, is mixed up in the Plame investigation (and possibly lied to Congress about it), ordered intelligence intercepts on colleagues and was abusive to subordinates who didn’t necessarily share his political views.

The Senate knows Bolton is not fit for duty, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee forwarded his nomination to the full Senate without recommendation. Democrats have successfully filibustered the nomination on the Senate floor as the White House has stubbornly refused to release documents concerning Bolton’s questionable use of the intelligence intercepts.

After all of this, the White House is still hinting that Bolton will receive a recess appointment, a travesty considering that they could end the filibuster at any time simply by releasing the documents. The irony is that if Bolton is implicated in the Plame story (and his close ties to jailed reporter Judith Miller are a big red flag), or is proven to have lied to Congress about having testified before the Plame grand jury, the White House is going to wish they never even heard of John Bolton. And only then will they have something in common with sane people, something foreign to Orrin Hatch.

When seven Republicans joined seven Democrats earlier this week to create a compromise on judicial nominations and filibuster use, another layer of intrigue was added to the debate over John Bolton‘s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The nature of such compromise agreements are usually less clear than they appear on paper, owing to political repercussions and the balance of power.

Hearing the 14 Senators’ comments in the wake of the announcement made it obvious that there was more substance involved and that only time would reveal how much more. With a major push to get Bolton confirmed before the Memorial Day recess, observers were split over the deal’s effects. Even loyal Republicans are visibly uncomfortable with Bolton, so a deal throwing him over the edge wouldn’t be unheard of. Then again it’s even more likely that Democrats would let him be approved as they have already wounded him, and unlike the judicial nominations that are for life, Bolton would only serve as long as he was wanted.

Since Bolton’s hearings began in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), there have been many revelations about Bolton’s conduct, including trying to have people who didn’t share his outlook fired, giving inflammatory speeches without proper clearance from the State Department, harassment of subordinates, and the use of classified National Security Agency surveillance against other government employees. After trying for weeks to convince the administration and State Department to turn over the surveillance intercepts in order to get a better picture of what Bolton was up to, the SFRC capitulated and sent Bolton’s nomination to the full Senate without recommendation.

Some Senate Democrats attempted to hold up a vote on Bolton until they received the requested documents from the administration, but those holds were disposed of by procedural means. With the Memorial Day recess quickly approaching, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist decided to push a vote late on Thursday. He called for a cloture vote and needed 60 Senators to cut off debate and bring a vote on the nomination. In the wake of the judicial compromise on Monday, many Democrats were hesitant to be seen as filibustering Bolton, but that’s exactly what happened. The final vote saw Frist fall four votes short, 56-42.

Watching Fox News during the cloture vote was a rare pleasure. Clearly they expected cloture and then a quick approval. The whining that followed Frist’s latest failure was world class, if not exactly “fair and balanced.” But the real highlight was watching Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid speaking on the floor after the vote. He made sure to publicly thank Frist for delaying the vote, a beautiful tactic that at the same time made Frist look weak and Reid look magnanimous.

Democrats won’t get the NSA documents they seek, but they have turned an inevitable confirmation into one filled with good questions that have gone unanswered, and proven beyond a doubt that John Bolton is not the best man for the job for which he has been nominated. The Senate has a responsibility to carefully consider Bolton’s record, and to allow the administration to stall or ignore their request weakens the Senate as a whole.

With the Memorial Day recess upon us, don’t be surprised by any Bush recess appointments. Maybe Bolton, but more likely one or more of the judges not guaranteed a vote by Monday’s compromise.

Have a great holiday weekend, and we’ll be back on Tuesday.

Obviously this is a guy well-suited to the intricacies of diplomacy. If Kofi Annan gets out of line, maybe Bolton can hurl a stapler at his head.

The newest Bolton revelations, while not quite as flamboyant as hunting down women in hotel corridors, show a loose cannon who had to almost-literally be muzzled by his superiors at the State Department. According to testimony by Lawrence S. Wilkerson, a former aide to Colin Powell, Bolton would habitually make public statements that were either too extreme or factually suspect. This led to unique restrictions that were placed on Bolton by deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage:

“Therefore, the deputy made a decision, and communicated that decision to me, that John Bolton would not give any testimony, nor would he give any speech, that wasn’t cleared first by Rich,” Mr. Wilkerson said, according to a transcript of an hourlong interview with members of the committee staff last Thursday.

In an e-mail message on Monday, Mr. Wilkerson said of the restrictions imposed on Mr. Bolton that “if anything, they got more stringent” as time went on. “No one else was subjected to these tight restrictions,” he said.

Wilkerson also notes times where Bolton exceeded his authority, especially when dealing with officials of the — you guessed it — United Nations.

Mr. Wilkerson said that Mr. Bolton had been a major cause of tension and resentment at the highest levels of the State Department because of his temperament, his treatment of subordinates and the fact that he had “overstepped his bounds” on a number of occasions, including what Mr. Wilkerson called “his moves and gyrations” aimed at preventing Mohamed ElBaradei from being reappointed as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring body.

“Now, what do I mean by that?” Mr. Wilkerson said. “I mean, going out of his way to bad-mouth him, to make sure that everybody knew that the maximum power of the United States would be brought to bear against them if he were brought back in,” Mr. Wilkerson said of Mr. Bolton’s approach to Dr. ElBaradei.

With Bolton’s nomination hearing scheduled for Thursday, it will be interesting to see if the tide of bad ink (and it’s an awfully strong tide) will convince a few Republicans to break ranks and vote against him. If the intention is to send a bully into the United Nations, a person who has a greater-than-average chance of further souring foreign opinion against the United States, then he’s a great choice. But for anyone who considers diplomacy to be something more than raw intimidation, a better candidate can be found.

Via Think Progress, we see that Matthew Hogan, a former lobbyist for Safari Club International, has been named interim director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As it turns out, Safari Club International isn’t really about safaris as much as killing endangered species:

SCI members shoot prescribed lists of animals to win so-called Grand Slam and Inner Circle titles. … To complete all 29 award categories, a hunter must kill a minimum of 322 separate species and sub-species – enough to populate a large zoo.

The Bush administration really knows where to find the most qualified foxes to guard the henhouse, now don’t they? This is like their own mini-John Bolton, who advocated knocking ten stories off of the United Nations building and is now the President’s nominee to be our ambassador to the same United Nations.

The last few years really remind me of those dreams you get after eating too much Indian food too close to bedtime.

And speaking of endangered species and food, this hits kind of close to home (The Freshman, 1990):

Agent Simpson: Mr Kellogg, have you ever heard mention of the “Gourmet Club?”

Clark: No

Agent Greenwald: Sabatini and Schlegal established the Gourmet Club operation in 1985. It’s a moveable feast, never the same location twice. Dinner is served every three to six months, depending on the catch.

Clark: (Pointing at menu) There’s no prices there.

Agent Greenwald: The minimum price for eating at this club is $200,000 per plate.

Clark: For dinner?

Agent Simpson: Not just dinner, Mr. Kellogg. The entire menu consists of endangered species.

Clark: They cook these animals?!?

Agent Greenwald: They cook these animals, yes sir. For an international clientele of degenerates, scum, eurotrash.

Clark: And people pay $200,000 to eat these animals?

Agent Simpson: At minimum.

Agent Greenwald: The more endangered the species, the higher the price tag. If there is five or less in the world, the entree goes up to half a million. For the privilege of eating the very last of a species…
…cool million. We figure the dragon will go for about $350,000 a plate. It will be served off the bone with a cream basil sauce. That’s Schlegal’s trademark. If they filet it…Schlegal likes to filet, we know that…they can get 60 servings out of one dragon. That’s a $20 million haul.

Clark: I don’t believe Mr. Sabatini would do that.

Agent Simpson: Well, who do you think he is, Bishop Tutu?