National Review makes the argument that President Bush should make a recess appointment of John Bolton as UN Ambassador. I would hope it wouldn’t come to that, but it seems clear that the Democrats have no intention of stopping their obstructionist filibusters, and the only way to fill the position is to make a recess appointment.

The charges against Bolton are shameful – shameful on the part of the Democrats. The accusation about intelligence intercepts and the like are nothing more than a smokescreen. The allegations about Bolton’s temper are laughable – if occasionally being rude or mean to a subordinate disqualifies one from government service than every single member of Congress should resign from government immediately.

It is clear that the Democrats do not and never did have any intention of following through with their agreement on the use of the filibuster. The Democrats only strategy is mindless and relentless opposition, and they will dig up whatever dirt they can, no matter how tenuous, in order to hold up the President’s agenda. The Senate Democrats have no intention of performing their Constitutionally-mandated duty to “advise and consent” — instead it has become “obstruct and obfuscate.”

If it takes a recess appointment to get a qualified candidate like Bolton to fill that position, then so be it.

The mystery surrounding the infamous Nixon-era whistleblower Deep Throat has now been revealed – Deep Throat is ex-FBI official W. Mark Felt. Felt, 91, has admitted that he was the source for Woodward and Bernstein’s investigation into the Watergate scandal.

The Senate has struck a deal on fillibusters. Brown, Pryor and Owens get an up-or-down vote, and the rest can only be fillibustered under “extreme circumstances.”

This isn’t the sort of thing I’d care to see. Saad and Myers are more likely than not being left out to dry by this deal, which should not be acceptable. Every one of them deserves a straight up-or-down vote. If defeated, they’re defeated. If they have the votes, they should be confirmed. That’s what the whole concept of “advise and consent” is all about.

On the other hand, I do take solace in the fact that the three judges most vilified by the left will get their floor vote — and likely pass. This isn’t a victory for the Democrats by any means. It’s not a total victory for the Republicans either, but the balance of this deal benefits the GOP more than the Dems. If the most “extreme” of the judges get floor votes, it’s going to be very hard for Harry Reid and his motley crew to paint the nomination of others as fitting into the category of “extreme circumstances.”

Of course, where this will really bite the GOP in the ass is in Supreme Court nominations. This fight hasn’t been ended, just delayed for a bit. We will be seeing this issue reemerge soon.

John Hinderocker of Powerline savages the compromise.

…as does Mitch Berg…

…and Captain Ed…

…and Michelle Malkin…

The GOP blogosphere is not happy about this one.

Personally, I’m more sanguine. This was a stalling tactic. We got Owen, Pryor, and Brown, all three of which deserve an up-or-down vote. I don’t think that neither Saad nor Myers had the votes to pass. Myers was the least impressive of the bunch (although still a good judge), and Saad’s email nastygram disparaging a Senator was probably enough to sink him. (Sad, but true.)

The nuclear option is not off the table. At the very least, we’re back where we were except with three judges passed through. In the virtual certainty that the Democrats try to pull this sort of thing on a SCOTUS nominee, the Republicans have grounds to declare bad faith and return to the nuclear option — which sadly, is probably going to be exactly the outcome we get from all this.

Bob Woodward is saying that Dick Cheney is a serious dark horse candidate for 2008.

Sorry, but it ain’t gonna happen. Age and health preclude it. Although Cheney is an excellent civil servant and exactly the kind of person that would make a fine Commander in Chief in a time of war, I don’t see Cheney having designs on the White House.

I do agree that if you’re looking for dark horse candidates, look towards Saint Paul where a young, dynamic, and popular governor in an increasingly purple state has a bright political future ahead of him.

It’s far too early to start handicapping the 2008 race quite yet (not that such a thing will stop anyone), but I’m rather doubtful that Vice President Cheney is a serious contended for 2008 – although stranger things have happened.

Investigators have determined that there was rampant voter fraud in Wisconsin in 2004:

The Milwaukee investigation has revealed that the number of ballots counted there exceeds, by 4,609, the number of people recorded as voting. There is no evident explanation for this other than ballot box stuffing. In addition, investigators found “more than 200 cases of felons voting illegally and more than 100 people who voted twice, used fake names or false addresses or voted in the name of a dead person.”

And, when the Wisconsin Assembly passed a common-sense amendment that would require photo ID before voting, Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed the bill, and the Assembly didn’t have the votes to override the Governor’s veto.

Democrats certainly want to count every vote – every illegal vote multiple times…

Since appointing Howlin’ Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, DNC funding has taken a nosedive with the DNC raising only half of what the Republicans have.

My guess is that the Deanite radicals are all giving to left-wing groups like MoveOn rather than the Democratic Party – ensuring that either the Democrats will be financially weakened or that the Democrats will be beholden to a radical fringe that ensures electoral defeat. Either way, it’s good for the Republicans, and good for the country.

James Taranto says that he’s rooting for the religious right:

I am not a Christian, or even a religious believer, and my opinions on social issues are decidedly middle-of-the-road. So why do I find myself rooting for the “religious right”? I suppose it is because I am put off by self-righteousness, closed-mindedness, and contempt for democracy and pluralism–all of which characterize the opposition to the religious right.

One can disagree with religious conservatives on abortion, gay rights, school prayer, creationism and any number of other issues, and still recognize that they have good reason to feel disfranchised. This isn’t the same as the oft-heard complaint of “anti-Christian bigotry,” which is at best imprecise, since American Christians are all over the map politically. But those who hold traditionalist views have been shut out of the democratic process by a series of court decisions that, based on constitutional reasoning ranging from plausible to ludicrous, declared the preferred policies of the secular left the law of the land.

The left wants to smear the entire religious right with the actions of the few. I think the people who want to stop the teaching of evolution in schools are nuts. I find the people who get offended by dirty words on cable are prudes. I find that even relatively level-headed commentators like Michelle Malkin have a tendency to take things far too seriously they find offensive. I like South Park and think Deadwood is one of the best shows on TV. I’m most assuredly a South Park conservative.

At the same time, I wouldn’t want to raise kids in an environment with such a corrosive pop culture. I wouldn’t want South Park broadcast on the public airwaves. I understand the concerns of those who fear a culture that teaches 12-year-old girls to dress like streetwalkers and where middle school girls are passing out hummers like candy. It’s hard enough to raise kids these days without a culture that promotes the very worst in the human condition. The Democrats don’t understand these concerns. Their open hostility to people of faith basically alienates them from a majority of the electorate.

The Democrats love to play the church card when it comes to election season, but spend the rest of their time bashing people of faith. What they fail to understand is that there’s a very real cultural backlash in this country that is being completely missed while the Democrats bash a minority of nutballs. The vast majority of evangelical Christians and other voters of faith don’t find much to agree with on the far right, but they see the outright hostility of the left towards their beliefs and the way in which the Hollywood left behaves and are equally disgusted. Given a choice between Republicans who tend to share their values and Democrats who mock them, it’s not at all hard to understand why Bush got a majority of the electorate in his camp.

“Theocracy” isn’t a real fear for the electorate. No one is going to force everyone to become Christian. Christians aren’t suicide bombing mosques and flying planes into buildings. What is a real fear for many Americans is a culture that encourages violence, unchecked and loveless sexuality, and irresponsibility. The “bling bling” culture is a far more prescient concern to parents than some specter of “theocracy.” “Theocracy” doesn’t teach your kids that violence and mysogeny is cool. “Theocracy” doesn’t lead to STDs and unwed mothers. What the left calls “theocracy” teaches respect, decency, and honorable behavior.

The left wants to equate all people of faith with a few nutballs, but in so doing they only expose themselves as being extreme secularists with an agenda that is at best in conflict with real family values and at worst is in open contempt with them. The political split is beginning to overwhelm the old categories. Bush gained among Hispanics and African-Americans, two very strongly religious groups, and won Catholics, something Republicans tend not to do.

The left doesn’t understand people of faith. They have an openly hostile attitude towards faith and religion – and if the Democrats want to win in America, they cannot follow such an example. The hysterical and mindless appeals to the phantom menance of “theocracy” only makes them sound increasingly out of touch with mainstream America — a view that seems to be altogether correct for an increasingly marginalized party.

Scott Johnson of Powerline comes up with an excellent literary reference for an article by Michael Barone on Democratic obstructionism.

Bush’s press conference last week was very good — even though nobody saw it. What people will remember is that Bush has a plan for Social Security. The Democrats don’t. The Democrats have been threatening to shut down the Senate if they don’t get their way — and now they’ve backed off on that threat. There’s a very good reason for this: Bush knows that the Democrats are up against a wall. Shutting down the government nearly brought down the Republicans in 1994, and the Democrats have already been stuck with the obstructionist label. They know full well that if they take this conflict for the next level it’s only going to hurt them.

The Democrats don’t have a plan. The Republicans do. The public recognizes that Social Security is in a crisis. In politics, the advantage is always going to go to the party that has an agenda, which is why the Democratic efforts at the politics of obstruction are going to come back to bite them.