President Bush did another "Bolton" while Congress took a break from their hearings and pork-barreling .... He made three appointments in their absence!

And they will serve until the next Congress convenes -- for the duration of Bush's term, at least.

The president used recess appointments to install Sam Fox, a major Republican donor from Missouri, to be ambassador to Belgium; Andrew G. Biggs of New York to be deputy commissioner of Social Security, and Susan E. Dudley of Virginia to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the office of Management and Budget.

Naming the three while Congress is in recess allows Mr. Bush to avoid the Senate confirmation process. The recess appointments allow the three to remain in their posts until the end of 2008, virtually the end of Mr. Bush’s second term.

Mr. Bush’s use of the recess appointment device, which is authorized in the Constitution, was an unmistakable gesture of defiance against the newly empowered Democrats. He has previously used the tactic to install judicial appointees unpopular with Democrats and to seat John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

Today’s recess-appointment gesture was another sign that he will not easily surrender to lame-duck status despite the Democrats’ control of Congress.

Mr. Fox, a wealthy businessman active in Republican politics, contributed $50,000 to the Swift Boat campaign that attacked Senator John Kerry’s Vietnam War record during the 2004 presidential race. Senator Kerry got a measure of revenge last month as he needled Mr. Fox in a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Bush administration withdrew Mr. Fox’s nomination for the ambassadorship on March 28, after it became clear that Democratic senators were lining up against him to settle a score. Mr. Kerry commented then that Mr. Fox “had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth” and had not done so. “The White House made the right decision to withdraw the nomination,” Mr. Kerry said. “I hope this signals a new day in political discourse.”

Mr. Kerry had a different reaction today. “It’s sad but not surprising that this White House would abuse the power of the presidency to reward a donor over the objections of the Senate,” he said in a statement.

Ms. Dudley was first nominated last August for the management-and-budget post, but she came under heavy criticism from environmental and consumer groups, which said she was hostile to government regulation. Mr. Bush nominated her again on Jan. 9, but her chances for confirmation were dicey at best in the new Democratic-controlled Senate.

An economist, Ms. Dudley worked in the Environmental Protection Agency for two years during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. She has written extensively, and skeptically, about government regulation. In 2005, while she was at George Mason University in Northern Virginia, she wrote that government regulation was generally not warranted “in the absence of a significant market failure.”

And Mr. Biggs, who holds a bachelor’s degree from the Queen’s University of Belfast, a master’s from Cambridge University and a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science, ran afoul of Democrats because they disliked his ideas about privatizing Social Security. He has worked for the Cato Institute, which promotes libertarian views, and served as a staff member for the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security.

He was nominated last year but failed to win confirmation, and Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee, said in February that his panel would not take up his nomination anew.

The White House announced the three appointments in a routine news release that listed a number of personnel moves. The president himself was in California this afternoon, meeting soldiers at Fort Irwin. He made no mention of the impending appointments on Tuesday, when he held a news conference in the Rose Garden.

eh. eh. eh.  That's taking "swiftboating" to a(nother) level.

Hot Air (referencing Gateway Pundit) offers a summary of the facts relating to the messages to/from Nancy. The most relevant and heretofore unreported is warning Olmert gave to Pelosi:  ".... trip to Damascus is a mistake."

If this is accurate, it would explain Israeli leaders efforts to quickly qualify the message Pelosi states she delivered to Syria:   

"[Our] meeting with the president enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks," Pelosi told reporters in Damascus after talks with Assad.

Pelosi said Assad in turn assured her of his willingness to engage in peace talks with Israel.

"We were very pleased with the assurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process," Pelosi said. "He's ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel."

An Israeli government official said that was not the message Olmert had asked Pelosi earlier this week to convey to Assad, who seeks the return of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War."

The prime minister said Israel is interested in peace with Syria, but Syria would first have to abandon the path of terror and providing support for terrorist groups," the official said, in reference to Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Earlier this week, I predicted that Pelosi would "likely" be involved in bringing the UK hostages/detainees home ....

Interestingly, Syrian officials announced today that they were mediating the detainees release.  All that remains is for Pelosi, who was in Syria concurrently, will also takes credit for bringing about their release.

Time will tell.  And I'm confident Pelosi will try to use that time to her advantage -- to further upstage the President.

She best take her own advice and be patient, however. 

Israel may have just given her a deserving come-upance for misrepresenting their position in pursuing peace talks.  U. S. participation in any Israeli-Syrian and Middle East peace plans will not flow through the Speaker of the House.  It will through its rightful venue from the President.

Mitt Romney -- visit and learn more about his qualities.

Thomas Sowell --- the voice of reason and clarity:

Congressman Tom Lantos, who is a member of the delegation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading to Syria, put the mission clearly when he said: "We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy."

Democrats can have any foreign policy they want -- if and when they are elected to the White House.

Until Nancy Pelosi came along, it was understood by all that we had only one president at a time and -- like him or not -- he alone had the Constitutional authority to speak for this country to foreign nations, especially in wartime.

All that Pelosi's trip can accomplish is to advertise American disunity to a terrorist-sponsoring nation in the Middle East while we are in a war there. That in turn can only embolden the Syrians to exploit the lack of unified resolve in Washington by stepping up their efforts to destabilize Iraq and the Middle East in general.

Members of the opposition party, whichever party that might be at a given time, knew that their role was not to intervene abroad themselves to undermine this country's foreign policy, however much they might criticize it at home.

During the Second World War, the defeated Republican presidential candidate, Wendell Wilkie, even acted as President Roosevelt's personal envoy to British Prime Minister Churchill.

He understood that we were all in this together, however we might disagree among ourselves about the best course to follow.

Today, Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats are stepping in to carry out their own foreign policy and even their own military policy on troop deployment -- all the while denying that they are intruding on the president's authority.

They are doing the same thing domestically by making a big media circus over the fact that the Bush administration fired eight U.S. attorneys. These attorneys are among the many officials who serve at the pleasure of the president -- which means that they can be fired at any time for any reason or for no reason.

That is why there was no big hullabaloo in the media when Bill Clinton fired all the U.S. attorneys across the country -- even though that got rid of the U.S. attorneys who were conducting an on-going investigation into corruption in Clinton's own administration as governor of Arkansas.

So much hate has been hyped against George W. Bush that anything that is done against him is unlikely to be questioned in most of the media.

But whatever passing damage is being done to George W. Bush is a relatively minor concern compared to the lasting damage that is being done to the presidency as an institution that will still be here when George W. Bush is gone.

Once it becomes accepted that it is all right to violate both the laws and the traditions of this nation, and to undermine the ability of the United States to speak to other nations of the world with one voice, we will have taken another fateful step downward into the degeneration of this society.

Such a drastic and irresponsible step should remove any lingering doubt that the Democrats' political strategy is to ensure that there is an American defeat in Iraq, in order to ensure their own political victory in 2008.

That these political games are being played while Iran keeps advancing relentlessly toward acquiring nuclear weapons is a fateful sign of the utter unreality of politicians preoccupied with scoring points and a media obsessed with celebrity bimbos, living and dead.

Once Iran has nuclear weapons, that will be an irreversible change that will mark a defining moment in the history of the United States and of Western civilization, which will forever after live at the mercy of hate-filled suicidal fanatics and sadists.

Yet among too many politicians in Washington, it is business as usual. Indeed, it is monkey business as usual, as Congressional Democrats revel in the power of their new and narrow election victory last year to drag people before committee hearings and posture for the television cameras.

It has been said that the world ends not with a bang but with a whimper. But who would have thought that it could end with political clowning in the shadow of a mushroom cloud?

-- Thomas Sowell

Clarice Feldman has followed the Plame investigation and tactics by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald closely. 

She asks questions that others only allude to -- Did Fitzgerald withhold or disregard evidence in order to entrap Libby?

It is well past time for the public to know what Patrick Fitzgerald told the Court. I , for one, have every reason to believe he was as disingenuous and loose with the facts with that Court as he was with the public when he announced the indictment and with the jury in his rebuttal argument at the closing of the Libby trial.And I am not shy about saying what the Wall Street Journal hints at:  The only conceivable reason Fitzgerald is fighting public disclosure of the redacted portions of the affidavit and opinion is to cover up his own failings in an utterly outrageous prosecution of a perfectly innocent man.

I'm confident Clarice Feldman will continue to ask this question until there is an answer.  As there should be.

So why then did this President take the time and trouble to take the hand of his political enemy, a man who has said, "We have heard a lot about revisionist history from the White House of late in answer to those who question whether there was a real threat from Iraq. But, it is the President who appears to me to be intent on revising history."

Why would this President show such deference and respect to a man who has suggested that he, the President, has been guilty of impeachable offenses?

The answer is as simple as the humility of this President. He took the hand of Robert Byrd, to help him into his seat, because Byrd is approaching 90 years of age, and this President is respectful of his elders. He took his hand because he needed help, and this President is not the type of person to turn his back on a fellow human being in need. He took his hand as an act of friendship, because this President does not take his politics personally. He understands that his political enemies are not his personal enemies.

photo credit: Hot Air (with copy credits)

Here we go again .....

The Language of the Feingold-Reid Bill to Redeploy Troops:

(a) Transition of Mission - The President shall promptly transition the mission of United States forces in Iraq to the limited purposes set forth in subsection (d).

(b) Commencement of Safe, Phased Redeployment from Iraq - The President shall commence the safe, phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq that are not essential to the purposes set forth in subsection (d). Such redeployment shall begin not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.

(c) Prohibition on Use of Funds - No funds appropriated or otherwise made available under any provision of law may be obligated or expended to continue the deployment in Iraq of members of the United States Armed Forces after March 31, 2008.

(d) Exception for Limited Purposes - The prohibition under subsection (c) shall not apply to the obligation or expenditure of funds for the limited purposes as follows:

(1) To conduct targeted operations, limited in duration and scope, against members of al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations.

(2) To provide security for United States infrastructure and personnel.

(3) To train and equip Iraqi security services.

Sensing that the Supplemental War Funding Bill will fail to override the President's veto, dems will offer this bill upon return from Spring Break.

What?  No pork????  Or will that come later?

She's already resigned for the MILCON committee.  She needs to resign from Congress OR face the Ethics Committee.

But will she?  Probably not.  Note the bold (for emphasis)  in the article below.

One of the "messages" Nancy Pelosi received from the November vote was (summarized) a national call to remove the culture of corruption in Congress.

Let's see how Pelosi responds to THIS message. 

(CNSNews.com) - Government watchdog groups want more answers as to why Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) stepped down from a military appropriations subcommittee at a time questions were being asked billions of dollars in federal defense contracts going to her husband's companies.

Feinstein resigned her post as chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on Military Construction Appropriations last week.

The decision came less than two months after Metro Newspapers, a group of alternative weekly papers in northern California, detailed the number of defense contracts awarded to Perini Corp. and URS Corp., both of which her husband, Richard C. Blum, has ownership, according to the newspapers.

The investigation was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute, a non-profit organization affiliated with the liberal magazine The Nation.

"This was a critique from the left," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group, told Cybercast News Service. "These were left-leaning papers. The fact that she stepped down from the committee lends credibility to the charges."

Fitton said this is something Judicial Watch wanted to further investigate, possibly by seeking public documents on the matter and by asking the Senate Ethics Committee to look into the matter for a possible conflict of interest on Feinstein's part.

"On the face of it, it seems she at least had influence on how contracts were awarded," Fitton said. "There should be an investigation."

Feinstein's press office was contacted several times Friday by Cybercast News Service, but her office did not provide a statement on the matter at the end of the day.

The California weeklies detailed examples that included a subcommittee hearing in which Feinstein asked Pentagon officials about increasing anti-terrorism protection for Army bases.

The next year, in March 2003, Feinstein asked why the funds for anti-terror protection had not been spent. Just over a month later, URS announced a $600 million contract to provide services for U.S. Army bases that included anti-terrorism force protection.

In another instance, Feinstein asked another military official when money would be spent on a maintenance facility for the C-17 Hickam Air Base in Hawaii. URS later announced a $42 million contract to build it.

Also, Feinstein's subcommittee in mid-2005 approved funds to reinforce roofs at military stations in Iraq, and in October of that year, Perini got a $185 million federal contract for that purpose, the papers reported.

The matter should be probed further, said Kenneth Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative government watchdog group. However, he isn't that confident in the Senate's ability to police itself.

"The real problem is there is too little objectivity," Boehm told Cybercast News Service. "Congress needs an independent watchdog. The ethics committees are partisan. They have an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, but the reality is that things don't get looked at that should get looked at."

Meanwhile, Melanie Sloan, executive director of the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, reportedly said the Feinstein matter could eclipse other congressional scandals.

"There are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest," Sloan told Metro Newspapers. "But because of the amount of money involved, Feinstein's conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts."

The paper proudly reported Feinstein's exit from the Senate panel on its website last week, as reporter Peter Byrne stressed that Feinstein's subcommittee had jurisdiction over medical treatment for veterans long before the poor conditions were exposed at the Walter Reed Army Hospital.

"You would think that, considering all the money Feinstein's family has pocketed by waging global warfare while ignoring the plight of wounded American soldiers, she would show a smidgeon of shame and resign from the entire Senate, not just a subcommittee," Byrne wrote.

"Conversely, you'd think she might stick around [the subcommittee] to try to fix the medical-care disaster she helped engineer for the vets who were suckered into fighting her and [President] Bush's panoply of unjust wars," Byrne added.

If Pelosi needs a reminder --- let's give her one.  Express your concern for a hearing to Pelosi by email, snail-mail, fax and telephone -- with copies to your local representatives. 

I followed a link from a regular read this morning (my daily read list is long and I don't take notes) and commented thusly on Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria, Israel and ME parts-unknown:

Pelosi in Syria?  Red carpet with flowers, no less.  Her only "stumbling block" will be what she says to the Israeli Parliament today in her "I-have-a-dream-scheme" speech. 

Even Syrians are familiar with the "When in Rome, do/say as the Romans," so they will forgive her -- plus she's traveling with our only congressman of Muslim faith, Mr. can't-we-just-get-along Ellison.

Holocaust survivor/congressman Lantos may have to stay on the plane, but he won't be alone for long ..... 

Look for Republican Hobson to be the designated-escort for the British hostages that Pelosi (up-staging Jesse Jackson/Jimmah Cartah -- much to Hillary's dismay) will extricate single-handedly from the grasp of rioting Iranians and a short little guy wearing an Eisenhower jacket. 

Can you smell spell Nobel?  How about nefarious?  Nonsense?

** Upstaging Pelosi's trip, however, are U.S. House REPUBLICANS Virginia's Frank Wolf, Pennsylvania's Joe Pitts and Alabama's Robert Aderholt, who have already held their "spring break" meetings with Syrian officials to discuss stopping the alleged flow of foreign fighters from Syria to Iraq.

In a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, the congressmen said they had talked about "ending support for Hezbollah and Hamas, recognizing Israel's right to exist in peace and security, and ceasing interference in Lebanon."

"We came because we believe there is an opportunity for dialogue," the statement said. "We are following in the lead of Ronald Reagan, who reached out to the Soviets during the Cold War," it added.

Psssst:  Don't look now, but the U.S. has been engaged in "unofficial" diplomatic discourse with Syria and several other ME countries for a long, long time.  Your rhetoric and hype have about as much effect as shoveling water.   

** Captain Ed comments on the potentially volatile decision by the Iraqi government to move Arabs out of the Kirkuk, from the northern Kurdish region of Iraq (relocated there by Saddam when he attempted to annihilate the Kurdish people).  The Kurdish region, rich in untapped oil reserves, is by far the most progressive, self-contained and relatively peaceful region in Iraq.  Kurds have long claimed the right to nationalize -- to include expansive Kurdish regions in Turkey, Syria and Iran .... After WWI, France and GB "aligned" the Kurds across four ME countries and referred to the region as Kurdistan.  Thousands if not millions of Kurds have been murdered by each nation respectively:  Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran.  The Kurds have unified guerrilla components within their resistance, but on the whole, these noble people deserve their own national boundaries -- even if one is a "province" within another nation -- such as Turkey.

Where am I going with this?

In the near future (if not already under-way) the U.S. will negotiate with Turkey (for a pretty penny to be paid by the Kurds and continued U.S. support for Turkey to join either the EU or NATO ....) a separate Kurdish "province" within Turkey --- allowing the Turkish-Kurds quasi-atonomy AND giving Iraqi-Kurds a narrow access to The Black Sea via this Turkish  province. 

Kurdistan has the potential to be a reliable U.S. ally.   Involving Turkey as a peaceful conduit for transporting northern Iraqi oil supplies to Europe and beyond will enhance Turkey's global standing.   It may even go a ways in saying, "We're sorry" to the Kurds. 

What about the Kurds located in Iran and Syria?  My assumption is that they will have to relocate to Iraq-Kurdistan.  Iran and Syria will never recognize their right to exist -- much less provide them a designated "province-homeland."

My prediction:  a large contingent of U.S. forces will soon be relocated to the Kurdish region to assist in securing northern borders and to aid Kurds in developing their natural resources -- specifically oil refineries and related infrastructures.  The mountains, river basins and foothills within the Kurdish region are already "home" to established farms, co-ops and once nomadic herders.  The region already offers reputable educational institutions at local and university levels; sanitation, utility, welfare and social systems are in place.  Small business development is a growing economic main-stay. 

A fairly far-fetched, but realistic prediction:  in the near future, more ME nations will take a hands-on role in assisting/supporting the Iraqi government through regional "advisory" teams as U.S. troops are re-aligned to the Airport/Green Zone and along the northern Kurdistan borders.

Supposedly -- additional oil reserves have been found in the southern regions of Iraq.  These discoveries may at least take the greed-pressure off the Kurds; however, control of these new-found resources may not bode well for relations between Sunnis and Shiites -- but what's new?  With Saudia Arabia and other leading ME powers involved -- they will have to "deal" with sectarian violence on their own. 

From all of this will scuttle a stronger global front against terrorism.  Now if the Dems will just stop meddling, the front will be less scuttled.

** By the way --- folks are asking why Democrats are talking about the injustices suffered by Armenians at the hands of Turkey?

Scroll up ..... Word is filtering down from intelligence and foreign affairs circles that the Bush Administration is already negotiating with Turkey on behalf of the Kurds .....  The dems just want a piece of the pie on their plate when 2008 rolls around ....

Stay tuned!!!!

--------------------------

On other matters of interest:

** I'm trying to locate a transcript or video of the Gridiron Club roast (by DC journalists) last night.  The blurbs on comments by (and about) Mitt, Cheney et al are hilarious.  If you hadn't noticed, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Mitt Romney supporter.  Some of the quips were reported, but I want the transcript .... Romney represents the total package:  demeanor, intelligence, wit.  Did I mention sense of humor?

** The un-total package award this week goes to Rosie Blowsie O'D.    Popular Mechanics took up her offer to explain WHY she's nutso in her WTC Building Seven collapse theory .... Where does this woman get her material?  Must come from hanging upside down (not a pretty sight, by the way --- second only to that up close and personal view of Cutsie Curic's rectal exam).  As someone observed, Blowsie, you actually resemble a bat in that upside-down position wearing your black spandex slacks.  Maybe some cable channel will give you a reallllly late nite spot and let you ramble to your heart's content -- while hanging upside down, of course.

** The Captain has an insightful review of Matthew Dowd's kiss and tell turn against the Bush Administration.  Although not unheard of, folks who seek to remove themselves from lame-ducks administrations sometimes take the back-door out.  I commented thusly:

1) I'm wondering if this man is not transferring his "emotionalism" from a) the recent loss of a child and b) his divorce to dissatisfaction with his current (and future) employment status.

2) It's easy to make excuses and set yourself up for possible book contract -- especially when the political market is not too accepting of a speech writer/adviser who kisses and tells ....

More on the kiss-up's and kiss-off's later ....

Don't trust her.  Never trusted her.  She's likely the most dangerous politico to ever weasel herself to the Speakership.  Operative word: dangerous.

Now she's moved herself from House podium to the foreign policy stage.  One of her goals, no less, will be to embarrass President Bush. 

In her Spring Break tour of the Middle East, Nancy Pelosi has scheduled stops in Syria, the West Bank (with Abbas) and Israel. 

There is more than a photo op on her agenda, you can bet.

She'll be making her first foreign policy speech to the Israeli Parliament on Sunday.

I have the eerie feeling that Nancy Pelosi has already made "arrangements" to involve herself in the release of the 15 British hostages held by Iran.  Wait and see .....

Others traveling with Pelosi are Democratic Reps. Tom Lantos of San Mateo, Henry Waxman of Los Angeles, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Louise Slaughter of New York and Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and Ohio Republican David Hobson. Ellison is the first Muslim member of Congress; Lantos is the first Holocaust Survivor to serve in Congress.