The Way Things Work?

In case any who read this column are unfamiliar with how the United States government is supposed to function, the following helpful bits of information are offered:

• The use of a Constitutionally-approved procedural tactic by the President in order to counter a congressional tactic that is not endorsed in the Constitution is an abuse of power.

• Use of the aforementioned non-Constitutional tactic by a minority in the Senate to prevent a vote on legislation, or an executive nominee, is equivalent to rejection by the Senate.

• Any exercise of power that prevents the will of the minority from obstructing the will of the majority amounts to the “bending of the rules” in order to force the decision of one branch of government on another branch.

Granted, these points may sound strange to those who are not experienced in the way things are supposed to be done in Washington’s halls of power, but they are certainly to be believed if recent comments made by Democrats in response to President Bush’s recess appointment of John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations are the measure of how things are supposed to work.

Incensed by the President’s insistence that his ambassador to, well, any mission be someone who will pursue the President’s goals for that mission, leading voices of the Senate’s left were quick to declare that the recess appointment of Mr. Bolton was the greatest threat to the American way of life since Admiral Yamamoto’s planes were seen winging their way over Oahu.

Leading the way in denouncing the President’s exercise of his power was the ever-reliable Edward Kennedy, declaring that the appointment “evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent” while continuing “the abuse of power and the cloak of secrecy from the White House.” Strange words, since there was nothing secretive about the appointment, or the way in which it was announced.

But even more bizarre than Senator Kennedy’s accusation of secrecy or evasion of any constitutional requirement is the allegation made by his junior partner from Massachusetts, John Kerry, who pointed out that Mr. Bolton’s elevation was all the more deplorable because he has already “been rejected twice by the Senate to serve as our Ambassador to the United Nations.”

Perhaps the man that America declined to give the responsibility for making such appointments to in last year’s election simply needs to explain himself. Perhaps there have been votes taken that no one has heard about. But to this writer’s knowledge, there has been no up or down vote on Mr. Bolton’s nomination. The only votes taken thus far have been over whether or not the minority party’s use of a filibuster to keep the majority from approving the nomination should continue. And while each of those votes has failed to stop the use of the tactic, each of them also revealed that a majority of the Senate’s members want to vote Mr. Bolton in. To say that this is a strained definition of the term “rejected” would be a massive understatement. And yet, statements such as these, as well as Frank Lautenberg’s accusation that President Bush “bends the rules” to get his way on an executive branch nominations are what the leading voices of the left continue to hope, against hope, will be believed by the people who vote in elections.

But these statements go beyond the typical Democrat tactic of cleverly packaging painful truths about what they stand for, or against. These are genuinely, and one can’t be blamed for suspecting intentionally, misleading and dishonest accusations of some kind of Constitutional breach committed by the President. Not by accusing the President of something he hasn’t done, granted, but by falsely asserting that what he has done is a violation of the nation’s highest law.

Once again, one is left to wonder if the Democrats are demonstrating Constitutional ignorance themselves, or simply banking on this type of ignorance on the part of their audience. Either way, to those who know the truth, it does not speak well for their ability, or worthiness, to run the country. But then, here lately, the truth hasn’t been very kind to the Democrat leadership, or its agenda, in almost any circumstance.