First Strike
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Today marks 100 days that President Bush has gone without being represented by the man he wants to speak for American interests at the United Nations, John Bolton. It is too long. The scandal at the U.N. is too deep – both in terms of the oil-for-food scandal and the organization’s basic default when it comes to the war on Islamist terror. America needs a strong voice there.
Mr. Bush’s nominee has been prevented from taking his post in New York by a minority of senators who are filibustering the nomination. They are permitted to do so under the Senate rules, but under the Constitution, the Senate has the right to set its own rules. “Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings,” the Constitution says, referring to both the House of Representatives and the Senate. So the Senate has the right to prevent a minority from blocking a nomination. Under this “constitutional option,” also known as the “nuclear option,” the senators could stop bustering their fils and move immediately to an up or down vote on the Bolton nomination.
If there were ever a case that called for the constitutional option, this is it. Call it “First Strike.” Mr. Bolton’s opponents have come up with nothing more than some complaints from some thin-skinned career bureaucrats who resented taking direction from those appointed by the winner of an election. Well, maybe they have also come up with grumbling from some political appointees who resented being bested by Mr. Bolton on the merits in the foreign policy battles of the first term of the administration of George W. Bush. Or there may be some who still resent Mr. Bolton’s leadership in securing victory against the Zionism-Is-Racism resolution at the U.N. back during the tenure of President George H.W. Bush.
As it is, the longer the Democrats in the Senate and the few Republicans who are their allies delay, the longer it is that America is without a strong voice for change, for freedom, and for counterterrorism at the United Nations. The delay hurts American interests. The Democrats say that the constitutional option is partisan extremism. But what could be more partisan, and more extreme, than leaving a key national security post vacant in wartime for no good reason?
