The Democrats are apparently going to put up a fight against the nomination of John Bolton:

Although Democrats have challenged a number of diplomatic nominees, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "they see this nomination as more distasteful, and they're more united," said one Democratic Senate aide.

The split on the panel is one of several signs that the proceedings, set for April 7, could be acrimonious.

Advocates have organized letter and ad campaigns for and against Bolton. Democrats said they intended to investigate Bolton's comments on a variety of issues, an exercise that Republicans said could stretch the hearing into a second day. Republicans said they were concerned that Democrats might attempt to filibuster the nomination if it reached the Senate floor.

Bolton, undersecretary of State for arms control, is controversial because of his criticism of the United Nations and other international institutions and agreements.

"He's been contemptuous of the U.N.," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record) (D-Calif.). "There's a lot to talk about at this hearing. It's going to be very contentious."

I think they're misreading the mood of the public, and setting themselves up for an Ollie North moment, in which the witness makes fools of them. Bolton will have two messages: 1) the UN is very badly broken, and he will lay out all the evidence for that, from Darfur to Oil-for-Palaces to child sex rings among the "peacekeepers, with a Secretary General who is either incompetent, corrupt, or incompetently corrupt, and defiantly unwilling to step down; and 2) that his job is to reform it, not wreck it, something that cannot be done without a clear recognition of its many problems. In their own blind transnationalist love for the UN as they'd like to fantasize it, rather than as it is, the Donkeys are going to end up looking like defenders of the status quo, and I suspect that this will be quite obvious to anyone watching the hearings. This will not be a smart political move for them.

Heh.

Pass the popcorn. :-D

Rand:

For those who pay attention to this sort of thing, Bolton has been a bete noir of the arms control crowd for years. His generally anti-AC stance earned him the enmity not only of arms controllers, but all those who believe that multilateral is superior to unilateral, and that the UN is the sole repository of the good, the beautiful, and the righteous in international affairs.

Appointing him is essentially saying that the current UN is flawed (and not just in small ways).

"He's been contemptuous of the U.N."

I think that Senator Boxer does not realize that many people will consider that a good reason to support his nomination.

Just how blinded and delusional are the Democrats to pull a stunt like this?

I hope to god the Democrats go through with this. The public needs constant reminding why the Democratic Party is not to be trusted with the conduct of foreign policy or military affairs. At least until that day when the lunacy of the Democratic Party burns itself out from constantly losing elections.

But I fear that day will not come until the current generation of Democratic leaders die off. Which means the Democrats and all the rest of us are stuck with those lunatic leaders for the next twenty years.

I read claims that Karl Rove has a long-term strategy (of which G.W.Bush's election is just a part) to reduce Democratic Party to the status of "permanent minority party". I do not see why Rove would bother. Howard Dean and MoveOn.org are doing it quite nicely for him...