Still Butchering Bolton

The Dems are so busy these days.

They're juggling a number of different smear campaigns--Rove, Roberts, and Bolton.

Today, it was Biden's task to work on the sliming of John Bolton.

From FOX:

A State Department official said Wednesday that John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, does not need to change his response to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee questionnaire despite questions about the answer's accuracy.

Sen. Joe Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that conducted confirmation hearings on Bolton, had inquired earlier in the day as to whether the undersecretary cooperated with a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity.

Biden, who led the Democratic filibuster last month against Bolton, faxed a letter on Wednesday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking whether a media report last week was correct when it said Bolton was called to testify before the grand jury in the CIA leak case.

"I write to request that you or the nominee inform the committee whether Mr. Bolton did, in fact, appear before the grand jury, or whether he has been interviewed or otherwise asked to provide information by the special prosecutor or his staff in connection with this matter, and if so, when that occurred," Biden wrote in the letter to Rice.

...Opponents suggest that Rove or someone else in the White House may have gotten Plame's name from the classified memo rather than from reporters, as Rove suggested. The cable news channel report that drew Biden's attention suggested that the grand jury sought Bolton's cooperation in connection with the memo, said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who disclosed the existence of the letter during a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Boxer said Biden sought clarification because Bolton had responded in March to a "boilerplate" committee questionnaire that asked if the nominee had been "interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), congressional, or grand jury investigation within the past five years, except routine congressional testimony."

Bolton swore in an accompanying affidavit that the answers to the committee's questionnaire were all true. Boxer declined to state whether Bolton had responded "no" to that question, but said, "He indicated in his form that he had not [been interviewed or asked to supply information in such proceedings]."

Boxer said an attempt on Monday to clarify the matter between committee and State Department staffs had not cleared up the matter, and as a result Biden directly faxed a letter about the matter to Rice.

The State Department responded to the letter on Tuesday.

"The forms submitted by John Bolton were accurate and nothing has changed to require them to be updated," a State Department official told FOX News.

Boxer conceded it was possible that Bolton's answer was true when he gave it, and that any cooperation he might have provided to the special counsel in the CIA leak case could have come after he filled out the questionnaire in March. The Biden letter asked Rice if the State Department could confirm whether Bolton cooperated with the CIA leak probe, "and if so, when that occurred."

Boxer said she believes the special counsel had completed interviewing witnesses by March, and that even if Bolton's alleged cooperation came later, "ethics tells me you go and amend" the questionnaire.

Ethics?

Amend the questionnaire?

Boxer has got to be kidding!

The Dems really are desperate. I think they're spooked by the thought that Bush appears poised to bypass the Senate and give Bolton a recess appointment.

They are powerless. They know it. They've been rejected by the American people.

What have they been doing this summer? They've been faxing letters, insisting on having access to documents, and demanding explanations.

The Dems aren't doing their jobs as legislators. They're just being whiny obstructionists.

Then again, maybe that is what their liberal constituents and the special interest groups expect them to do--obstruct the President's agenda by whining and stomping around like spoiled, cranky toddlers.

I think the Dems should take a nice, long nap.