REICH ON BOLTON

Having Otto Reich recommend you to the UN is like having Michael Jackson recommend you as a great babysitter. It depends on what kind of "care" one is looking for.

I loved this:

Too often those hearings are used by senators and their staff to pursue an ideological agenda and engage in personal destruction. If they cannot force a nominee to withdraw, hearings can be blocked by only one senator, while he and his staff spread scurrilous rumors about the nominee--who is unable to counter because he is told that "it will hurt your chances" if a hearing ever takes place. This happened to me in 2001, but I was fortunate to have been nominated by a principled president whose small army of lawyers looked into the false allegations, recognized the campaign as one conducted by moral cowards unwilling to face their victims, and then appointed me to office using his constitutional power of "Recess Appointment."

This is the political equivalent of "You're lucky my mom called me for dinner, otherwise I'd have kicked your butt!" In reality, Bush realized that Reich's record as a death-squad-coddling thug would likely harm Bush politically were Reich subjected to Senate scrutiny, so the president appointed him during Congressional recess. The recess appointment is a device which Republicans whined about unceasingly when President Clinton used it, but when Bush does it it's "principled," understand? What's not clear is exactly which principle we're talking about.