The Senate consents.

THE NATION
GOP's DeLay Inquiry Offer Rebuffed


By Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Republican members of the House Ethics Committee offered Wednesday to investigate House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), but Democrats quickly rejected the proposal as a political ploy.

The GOP offer was contingent on Democrats ending a boycott of the Ethics Committee. The Democrats said they would not agree to the request because, in their view, committee rule changes had hamstrung the panel's ability to investigate House members.

The Republican offer to investigate DeLay — the target of recent questions about his travel and links to a controversial lobbyist — intensified the battle over the Ethics Committee. That fight erupted in January when Republicans pushed through the changes to its rules.

The Democrats refused to accept the rules then, and reiterated that position Wednesday — even though it meant passing up a chance to investigate DeLay, the second most powerful man in the House.

"If we were to adopt these rules, we would undermine seriously the ability of the committee to do its job," Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.) said Wednesday. He is the ranking Democrat on the Ethics Committee, which is known officially as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

The response by Democrats sparked a rebuke from House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who accused them of playing politics in the dispute.

In an interview on Fox News Channel, he noted that DeLay had said he was open to an investigation by the ethics panel. But, Hastert said, "as long as the Democrats won't let the Ethics Committee form, they have it both ways" — continuing to criticize DeLay without giving him a chance to clear his name.

Hastert suggested that Democrats may fear that a working ethics panel would train a spotlight on ethics violations by their own members.

There are "probably four or five cases out there dealing with top-level Democrats," Hastert said. "There's a reason they don't want to go to the ethics process."


Then why neuter it you lying piece of sh*t? These lying mofos make me want to wretch. Ex-Contract With America corksockers.



But House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) dismissed the GOP offer as "a charade and an absolute nonstarter with Democrats, who reject it out of hand."

Hoyer said the move was "a calculated attempt to divert attention from the fact that the Republican majority has neutered the Ethics Committee by imposing partisan rules that hamstring any meaningful inquiry."

The roots of the dispute go back to last year when the Ethics Committee — the only House committee divided equally between Democrats and Republicans — unanimously admonished DeLay three times for various political tactics.

Earlier this year, the House Republican leadership removed the Ethics Committee chairman and three other Republican members — replacing them with members considered more loyal to the leadership, including two who had contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund.

The new rules include one requiring the automatic dismissal of a complaint if the committee failed to act on it 45 days after it was filed; another would require a majority vote to initiate investigations.

Previously, the committee faced no deadline for acting. And, if it deadlocked on whether a complaint warranted investigation — a strong possibility given its equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats — the investigation was automatically launched.

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), ethics panel chairman, told a news conference Wednesday that he would provide his "ironclad commitment" that the panel would have at least three months to look into complaints, instead of 45 days.

Hastings then made the surprise announcement that Republicans were willing to demonstrate their commitment to ending the dispute over the ethics panel by supporting the investigation of DeLay.

"I am well aware that one of the principal concerns voiced by the critics of these new rules is an outrageous and completely baseless claim that they are designed to protect Majority Leader DeLay from a formal investigation," Hastings said.

Completely baseless? Go fork yourself you lying assshole. You know for a fact that Republicans changed the rules to protect Mr. Unethical. How can ANYONE trust these lying weasel-eye sacks of dogshit? Morals? Values? Where? I SEE NONE.


The committee has been paralyzed as the ethical clouds surrounding DeLay thickened.

News reports have raised questions about the financing of some of DeLay's overseas trips; about his practice of employing his wife and daughter on his campaign staff; about his association with Jack Abramoff, a powerful lobbyist for Indian gaming interests, who is now under federal investigation for his lobbying practices; and about lobbying efforts by former DeLay staffers.

DeLay has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said he has not violated any House ethics rules. He has said he is the victim of a campaign by Democrats and liberal watchdog groups that wish to destroy the conservative majority in the House.

DeLay said Wednesday he appreciated Hastings' effort to get the Ethics Committee "up and running."

"For more than a month, I've said I hope for a fair process that will afford me the opportunity to get the facts out and set the record straight," he said.

Forking vermin.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...1,4302670.story

Actually, Nomarchy, it appears that professor Kirgis was more correct than I thought but a bit less so than he or you thought. In support of which I offer from the Library of Congress website "Thomas":

"Enactment of a Law

EXECUTIVE BUSINESS AND EXECUTIVE SESSIONS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Executive Matters Generally | Nominations | Treaties |
| Amendments, Reservations, and Other Statements | Ratification of Treaties |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Executive Matters Generally

The executive business of the Senate consists of nominations and treaties submitted to the Senate by the President of the United States for its "advice and consent." This business of the Senate is handled separately from its legislative business.

Treaties are referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. Nominations are referred to one of the various committees of the Senate; usually this is the committee that handled the legislation creating the position. When committees report treaties or nominations to the Senate, they are placed on the Executive Calendar, as distinct from the Calendar of Business, on which legislation is placed. These two calendars are printed separately.

When the Senate considers nominations and treaties, it goes into executive session, as distinct from legislative session, and a separate Journal is kept of the proceedings thereon.

Nominations

The scope of the Senate's authority to confirm Presidential nominations is vast. It includes officers of the Government--specifically, ambassadors, other public ministers and counsels, justices of the Supreme Court, all other officers of the United States as set forth in the Constitution, and such officers as Congress by law may designate.

A Presidential nomination requiring advice and consent must be approved by a majority vote of the Senate. After a nomination is received and referred to the appropriate committee, hearings may be held, and after the committee votes, the nomination may be reported back to the Senate. If the nomination is confirmed, a Resolution of Confirmation is transmitted to the White House and the appointment is then signed by the President.

Presidential nominations may be made during recesses of the Senate. The Constitution authorizes the President to "fill up" vacancies that may happen during such recesses "by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session." Recess appointments to the Supreme Court, however, troubled the Senate enough that it agreed to a sense of the Senate resolution on August 29, 1960, stating that such appointments "may not be wholly consistent with the best interests of the Supreme Court, the nominee who may be involved, the litigants before the Court, nor indeed the people of the United States." It further stated "that such appointments, therefore, should not be made except under unusual circumstances and for the purpose of preventing or ending a demonstrable breakdown in the administration of the Court"s business."

Treaties

All confidential communications made by the President shall be kept secret, and all treaties which may be laid before the Senate, and all remarks, votes and proceedings thereon, shall also be kept secret until the Senate shall, by their resolution, take off the injunction of secrecy. When the Senate is proceeding on treaty ratification, the treaty shall be read a first time. Only a motion to refer it to committee, to print it in confidence for the use of the Senate, or to remove the injunction of secrecy shall be in order.

The rules for the consideration for executive business are different from the rules for the consideration and disposition of legislative business. Rule XXX provides that a treaty shall lie over for one day before the Senate proceeds to consider it in executive session; then it may be read a second time, after which amendments may be proposed. At any stage of these proceedings the Senate may remove the injunction of secrecy from the treaty. When there is no further debate or amendment to be proposed to the treaty, the Senate proceeds to consider a resolution of ratification.

After the resolution of ratification has been proposed, no amendment to the treaty is in order except by unanimous consent. On the other hand, reservations, etc., are in order only during consideration of the resolution of ratification, not while the treaty itself is being considered for amendment. After the Senate completes considering both the treaty and the resolution of ratification, it gives its final consent to the resolution by a two-thirds vote of the Senators present. The vote on a motion to postpone indefinitely requires the same two-thirds majority; all other motions and questions arising in relation to a treaty are decided by a majority vote.

Amendments, Reservations, and Other Statements

The Senate may stipulate conditions to a treaty in the form of amendments, reservations, understandings, declarations, statements, interpretations, and statements in committee reports. An "amendment" makes actual changes in the language of the treaty.

The term "reservation" in treaty-making, according to general international usage, means a formal declaration by a state, when signing, ratifying, of adhering to a treaty, which modifies or limits the substantive effect of one or more of the treaty's provisions as between the reserving state and other states party to the treaty. In addition, the Senate may attach to resolutions of ratification various "understandings," "interpretations," "declarations," and so on. The term "understanding" is often used to designate a statement that is not intended to modify or limit any of the provisions of the treaty in its international operation, but instead is intended merely to clarify or explain the meaning of the treaty or to deal with some matter incidental to the operation of the treaty without constituting a substantive reservation. Any such additions to the resolution are part of the instrument of ratification no matter what they are called, and even if their effect is solely of an internal domestic nature.

Ratification of Treaties

The word "ratification" when used in connection with treaties refers to the formal act by which a nation affirms its willingness to be bound by a specific international agreement. The basic purpose of ratification of a treaty is to confirm that an agreement which two or more countries have negotiated and signed is accepted and recognized as binding by those countries.

The procedure by which nations ratify treaties is a concern of domestic rather than international law. The Constitution does not use the word ratification in regard to treaties. It says only that the President shall have the power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties. The Constitution does not divide up the process into various component parts which can be identified today, such as initiation, negotiation, signing, Senatorial advice and consent, ratification, deposit or exchange of the instruments of ratification, and promulgation. From the beginning, however, the formal act of ratification has been performed by the President acting "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." The President ratifies the treaty, but only upon the authorization of the Senate.

The Senate gives its advice and consent by agreeing to the resolution of ratification. After it does so, the President is not obligated to proceed with the process of ratification. With the President's approval, however, the ratification occurs with the exchange of the instruments of ratification between the parties to the treaty.

Treaties, unlike any other business considered by the Senate, stay before that body once the President submits them until the Senate acts on them or unless the President requests, and/or the Senate adopts an order or resolution authorizing, their return to the President or the Secretary of State. In 1937, 1947, and 1952, the Senate returned numerous treaties, including some dating back as early as 1910, to the Secretary of State or the President.

* * * END * * *"
Source: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/enactment/executive.html

Would Bolton lying to Congress be considered perjury?


Testimony of U.N. Nominee Is Disputed

By Paul Richter and Sonni Efron, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — A former U.S. ambassador to South Korea said Thursday that John R. Bolton, President Bush's choice for U.N. ambassador, might have misled the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about a provocative and controversial 2003 speech on North Korea.

The former ambassador, Thomas Hubbard, also described Bolton yelling and slamming down a telephone on him during a confrontation. It was the latest example of the allegedly confrontational behavior that had helped stall Bolton's nomination.


Hubbard has spoken with Foreign Relations Committee aides, who are expanding an investigation into Bolton's background after senators this week postponed a confirmation vote until mid-May.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

I recall one current Senator throwing an ashtray at the President. The President that set the standard for ignoring perjury as an issue.

The precident I remember was set by Iran/Contra criminals. They got away with it. That's standard Republican operating procedure.


Heard Buchannan on TV this morning saying Powell was being disloyal to the president by talking to Republican senators about Bolton.

WTF?

Republicans show more loyalty to the Republican president and the party than they do to the country as a whole. If Colin Powell has something relevant to say about Bolton it should come out, no matter those Republican loyalists say.

So I hear, from people whose main loyalty is to the Democrat party.

People should be able to say what they want about Bolton, but they ought to hear about their Senators as well. They were ripping "Chuck" Hagel on the radio this AM because of what an asshole he is to people who call him Chuck instead of Senator.

Dems are funny. They whine that nobody gets fired for screwing up, then attack Bolton because he tried to get people fired or reassigned.

It's all politics as usual.

To me, it appears that he had it exactly right. YMMV.

Repubes are funny, they rail on endlessly about returning honor and dignity to DC then turn around and do the opposite.

I remember when the phrase "personal responsibility" was actually used by Republicans. But that was when they were in the minority.

Two-faced lying, opportunistic asssholes is what they are.

Do as I say, not as I do.

I'm sick of it from everyone. Have been since NAFTA. That is why I voted Nader in 2000.

Yeah, Clinton was going to bring the WH back to the people as well. How soon you forget. Nader is just as bad, the difference is he will NEVER EVER EVER get elected so he can be a bit more honest about what he would do if he were elected.

And that was one reason I didn't vote Nader this time. In 2000 I had no clue who Bush was. Knew nothing about him.

Now that I've gotten more familiar with him I don't trust him as far as I can throw our planet.


Sure wish he'd be honest. But that won't happen.

I believe the complaint is over Bolton seeking to intimidate underlings for telling the truth, not for screwing up.

This administration has developed a well deserved reputation for retaliation against truth, and promotion of lies and liars.

Dems are funny, but I don't see how what you said above makes any sense whatsoever. The people that Bolton sought to have fired or reassigned had most certainly NOT screwed up.

Well, good thing you didn't vote for Nader this time around, davis. You, who did not, and I who did, sure showed Bushie, didn't we?

I don't see a lot of process going toward deciding who was right, just to saying Bolton was "mean-spirited". Pardon me if I see that as overused from liberals.

If you think "this administration" is onto something new maybe I should remind you of the "nuts and sluts" defense (until the blue dress), dead people turning up in the park with no bullet, IRS audits of enemies, the firing of Linda Tripp, the travel office affair, poor Jim MCDougall just happening to be denied his heart medicine before he was going to rat on the Clinton's and just a few things like that.

Simply not true. I understand how it's convenient for your argument to assert that, but that doesn't make it so.

Bolton attempted to have career analysts who were doing their job fired or re-assigned for not bowing to his will and signing off on his bullshit assertions.

Declaring it doesn't make it so. I don't care either way about Bolton, but I'm not going to assume he was wrong in every case just because you say so.

Powell Expresses Concerns About Bush Nominee

By DOUGLAS JEHL, The New York Times












WASHINGTON (April 21) - President Bush on Thursday issued a strong new defense of John R. Bolton, his nominee as ambassador to the United Nations. But associates of Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, said he had expressed reservations about Mr. Bolton in conversations with at least two wavering Republican senators.

The associates said Mr. Powell, in private telephone conversations, had made clear his concerns about Mr. Bolton on several fronts, including his harsh treatment of subordinates.

The associates said Mr. Powell had also praised Mr. Bolton's performance on some matters during his tenure as under secretary of state, but they said Mr. Powell had stopped well short of the endorsements offered by Mr. Bush and by Mr. Powell's own successor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The accounts of Mr. Powell's private messages about Mr. Bolton suggested a new gulf between the former secretary of state and Mr. Bush. In a speech in Washington on Thursday, Mr. Bush portrayed Democratic opposition to Mr. Bolton as politically driven, and urged the Senate to confirm the nomination.

Mr. Bush's comment and others by a White House spokesman suggested that the administration was determined to defend Mr. Bolton's nomination, despite crumbling support among Senate Republicans that has left the nomination in peril.

In his speech on Thursday, to the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, Mr. Bush brought up the subject quickly, saying, "I welcome you to the nation's capital, where sometimes politics gets in the way of doing the people's business."

"Take John Bolton, the good man I nominated to represent our country at the United Nations," Mr. Bush said. "John's distinguished career in service to our nation demonstrates that he is the right man at the right time for this important assignment. I urge the Senate to put politics aside and confirm John Bolton to the United Nations."

Mr. Powell has not spoken publicly about the Bolton nomination. But his associates said he had told two Republican senators, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, that he had been troubled by the way Mr. Bolton had treated an intelligence analyst and others at the State Department who had disagreed with him.

Mr. Chafee and Mr. Hagel, both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have expressed concern about Mr. Bolton's temperament, credibility and treatment of intelligence analysts. The senators' concerns, with those of Senator George V. Voinovich, the Ohio Republican, were among the factors that led the committee to postpone a vote on Mr. Bolton's nomination until next month.

Accounts were conflicting as to whether Mr. Powell or the senators had initiated the phone calls. A spokeswoman for Mr. Powell said he had only returned calls from others, but one person familiar with one conversation said it had been Mr. Powell who had reached out to Mr. Hagel.

In testifying against Mr. Bolton's nomination, Carl W. Ford Jr., a former assistant secretary of state, told the committee that Mr. Powell had acted in 2002 to reassure intelligence analysts troubled by Mr. Bolton's harsh treatment of one of their colleagues, Christian P. Westermann, in a dispute related to Cuba. Mr. Powell's former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, said in an interview this week that Mr. Bolton would be an "abysmal ambassador" to the United Nations.

This month, five former Republican secretaries of state signed a letter to the Senate committee that endorsed Mr. Bolton's nomination, but Mr. Powell was not among them. In a telephone conversation with Mr. Chafee, the associates said, Mr. Powell said he had not joined in the endorsement in part because he did not normally sign group letters, but also because he believed such endorsements were appropriate only in cases where his point of view was clear cut.

Told of the accounts provided by Mr. Powell's associates, Peggy Cifrino, a spokeswoman for Mr. Powell, said in an e-mail message: "To be precise, General Powell has returned calls from senators who wanted to discuss specific questions that have been raised. He has not reached out to senators. The general considers the discussions private."

Mr. Powell was secretary of state under Mr. Bush for nearly four years, and told associates in 2004 that he was looking forward to returning to private life. But he was described by some associates as hurt that Mr. Bush, in selecting Ms. Rice as the new secretary, did not ask Mr. Powell if he wanted to stay.



Mr. Powell remains highly regarded by many moderate Republicans, but as secretary of state, his relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney was notably strained, according to many accounts, including a detailed narrative in "Plan of Attack," the latest book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post.

Mr. Cheney is now regarded as Mr. Bolton's chief patron in the administration, and some officials say he has strongly resisted the idea that the White House might withdraw the nomination in the face of Democratic complaints and Republican wavering.

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said Thursday that the White House would try vigorously to answer any questions that Republican senators had about Mr. Bolton's nomination, and he dismissed as unsubstantiated the allegations that Mr. Bolton had behaved inappropriately with intelligence analysts and other subordinates.

In a brief interview this week, Mr. Chafee declined to discuss any conversation with Mr. Powell, saying, "I'm going to keep some things confidential." A spokesman for Mr. Hagel, Mike Buttry, said only: "Senator Hagel and Secretary Powell speak frequently about a lot of things. Senator Hagel doesn't comment on their private conversations."

A spokesman for Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Republican chairman of the committee, said Mr. Lugar, of Indiana, had not spoken with Mr. Powell about the nomination.

The associates of Mr. Powell who discussed the matter did so in response to repeated questions in recent days. They would not allow their names to be used, saying they did not want to add to tensions between Mr. Powell and the White House, but they said they wanted to provide an accurate account of Mr. Powell's views.

One associate said Mr. Powell had used at least one of the conversations to say Mr. Bolton had worked "fairly well" with Mr. Powell on several issues, including Iran; an effort to intercept shipments of dangerous weapons; and the phase-out of the Antiballistic Treaty with Russia and the phase-in of an alternative known as the Moscow Treaty.

But the associate said Mr. Powell had made clear that Mr. Bolton "had problems" with Mr. Westermann and others who disagreed with him.

"In short, he gave the senator a balanced appraisal of Bolton," Mr. Powell's associate said of one call with Mr. Chafee.

On Thursday, committee staff members were working to strike an agreement between Democrats and Republicans to seek further information about a number of disputed issues related to Mr. Bolton, including his requests to the National Security Agency for information about American officials mentioned in communications intercepted by the agency.

Mr. Jehl of the NYT needs a short lesson in etiquette. Just as it is most proper to refer to a former Senator as "Senator", same with a former Ambassador, it is also most proper to refer to a retired General, especially one who carried four stars and was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as General not Mr. Even simply referring to him as Secretary Powell would have been more proper.

But again this is the NYT, so I suppose some latitude for impropriety should be given.

Just galls me sometimes how far from civility and propriety we, as a society, and the Fourth Estate in particular, have fallen.

"Manners are of more importance than laws... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. "
-- Edmund Burke

Tell it to Mr Bush and President Clinton.

You don't have to assume jack poop. And I didn't ask you to. It is established fact that the analysts whom Bolton sought to have removed or re-assigned were not wrong, factually or otherwise.

Come now. I "ma'am and sir" my students, and reserve my most polite and deferential manners for the 'least among us'. That said, the least of our problems today have to do with the lack of proper manners and etiquette by the Fourth Estate.

I note you still continue to merely declare rather than post any proof.

Davis is funny. He keeps repeating the same stupid rant over and over again, redundantly, with so little variation that it became boring long ago.

Tell it to Karol.

Monkey see, monkey do.

http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry...00504220747.asp

The Bolton Dirtfest
A mad hold-up.

Whatever else you think of him, John Bolton is a serious person. Democrats could have acted on their disagreements with President Bush’s pick to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations by making Bolton’s confirmation battle a discussion of, among other things, his well-formed views on enforcement of the Biological Weapons Convention, or the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or the International Criminal Court. Instead, they have gone after him with innuendo and misrepresentations.


Leading the way has been Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking minority member Joseph Biden, one of the Senate’s foremost authorities on taking himself seriously. He has been willing to shred his own credibility in taking the ax to Bolton. Consider his bad faith on procedural matters: Biden had assured Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar two weeks ago that if Bolton’s hearing was delayed a week for Pope John Paul II’s funeral, both the hearing and the committee vote would take place last week. But when it came time to vote last week, Democrats objected. When it came time to vote again this Tuesday, Democrats objected again, forcing Republicans to take extraordinary steps to even allow the committee to convene. When it did, Democrats caterwauled for an hour until Ohio Republican George Voinovich buckled and supported another three-week delay on the vote.

This gives Democrats more time to smear and jeer. On Tuesday, Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd said of Bolton’s conduct in a routine bureaucratic dispute a few years ago, “This ought to be indictable.” How ridiculous. Can we make senatorial hyperbole a federal offense? Biden at one point asked for a private hearing to air the allegations in a letter from a woman who said Bolton was abusive of her. Biden said he didn’t want to harm Bolton’s reputation — but according to the New York Sun, Biden’s staff had already e-mailed the letter to journalists days earlier.

The main charges against Bolton are de minimis. He is said to have intimidated a State Department intelligence analyst who objected to Bolton’s supposedly too-dire assessment of Cuba’s bioweapons program. But Bolton aide Fred Fleitz has testified that the analyst in question, Christian Westerman, wasn’t straight with Bolton or his staff. It was Westerman’s responsibility to run language for a 2002 Bolton Cuba speech by the CIA, but when he did so he attached his own prejudicial language dissenting from Bolton’s views. When Fleitz learned this, Westerman falsely denied having done it, understandably leading to a confrontation in Bolton’s office. Two of Westerman’s supervisors subsequently apologized for how Westerman handled the matter.

Democrats have made a scandal out of the fact that Bolton asked ten times in four years to get the names of Americans — routinely blacked out — captured on National Security Agency intercepts of foreign conversations. It is perfectly legitimate to make such requests. During the same four-year period, other State Department officials made roughly 400 similar requests.

Finally, Democrats are retailing a charge from a partisan Democrat — founder of the Dallas chapter of Mothers Opposing Bush — that Bolton chased her through a Moscow hotel 11 years ago, throwing things and acting like a “madman.” Bolton was working for a company for which the woman, Melody Townsel, was a subcontractor. The head of the company, Jayant Kalotra, says he doesn’t believe it happened and that Bolton was always professional. Townsel’s boss at the subcontractor, Charlie Black, also says he didn’t hear of it at the time, even though Townsel was never shy about complaining.

As the Bolton-nomination fight drags on, even more criticisms of him will surface from the State Department. Bolton vigorously supported Bush’s foreign policy at the incorrigibly weak-kneed department, earning him the enmity of its bureaucrats and their former servant Colin Powell, who appears to be feeding some of the anti-Bolton attacks. And the Democrats are willing to float any trash they are given — anything, anything to avoid discussing the substance of Bolton’s views.

— Rich Lowry

It was SCOTUS justices for me.

I liked Clark myself. Old GW couldn't out military him.

When Kerry said "Reporting for duty" and saluted I just shook my head.

Bolton hates, despises, reviles the UN.


Why the fork would ANY reasonable person appoint HIM of all people? What kind of arrogant sob tries to put someone like that in that position?

It's a no-brainer. The administration hates the UN. Always has. They would love to just shut it down.

"If it lost ten floors it would make no difference whatsoever."


Here is why:

I have no respect for the UN. To despise it would be more effort than it deserves. It's like the fatass sheriff that only shows up to draw the chalk outline.

The UN is Clancy Wiggum with a mouthful of Saddam brand donuts.

Bolton is the administrations hand grenade. They want to chuck him through the door and let him do his damage.

Sounds like you'd like to see the UN taken out too.

Bolton is a poison pill.

Read Burke’s quote to Limbaugh, Coulter, Ollie North, Savage, Liddy, Hannity , Ingraham, O'Reilly, Beck, Dobson and so on…

They have by their horrendous manners and lack of any respect for other’s views or the truth, and supported by the majority of the new Republican radical right led by Rove earned exactly no need to be respected or to be honored by good manners. I’d sooner try an talk civil to a rabid animal. Solid old time Republican conservatives should not have bedded down with these dogs or complain about the fleas acquire as a result.

NS. Now they can't even admit they were wrong because they'd be targeted next. It' s a comination of fear and liking the perks that come with cooperation and party loyalty.

Yep, you lefties are the poster children for civility and decorum.

Sorry pard, but you're mixing entertainers and pundits with the US and the World's newspaper of record.

Liberals and progressives are masters of decorum next to the right wing zealots. I see almost no difference between the manners and methods of the list of right wing media personalities I posted and those of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda…In fact that cur had better manner than some on that list

Tobacco juice is down right polite for these guys.

(McCain has a black baby)

Right, they're entertainers when caught out of school or called to accouint for their manners and methods, and purveyors of the truth otherwise; those sleaze bags have a wider audience than any "newspaper of record" and are as serious as a heart attack about their right wing politics and agenda.

No sale Bart…

Yep. When you get pinned down, you don't like anybody, but when you freelance, you only pick on righties. Not very consistent.

It was your lefty pals that first brought the entertainer thing on when these people, espceially Rush, started getting popular. I'm just throwing it back at you. And gee, how did their audience or readership get soo much bigger than the wonderful, fatual NYT?

Now what's your excuse for the newspaper of record?

Yup. I prefer the hands-on touch you only get with hired goons.

So they scream, I mean say.

McCain IS one of "these guys".

Bt using McCain as an example I show they'll eat each other, if not in public then in the back room.

If I'd have used Cleland as an example you'd probably have insulted him.

Are you calling me on 'form' or on 'substance'?

Ok, so is this your refutation? Again, are you calling me on 'form' or on 'substance'?

formstance.