The icing on the Bolton cake

There was always something that troubled me about the Boulton nomination. That is a plum assignment, and I didn't see how he had done anything that merited such an honor by Bush standards. I mean sure, there were his immortal words in Florida: "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count." And there was the time he chased a female NGO worker down the halls of a Russian hotel. And who could forget his yeoman efforts in Korea.

As laudable as those things were, I thought they wouldn't be enough to get him into the club. If he wanted to crack the Bremer/Tenet/Franks echelon, I figured he needed something more.

John Bolton, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, inaccurately told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday.

Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency into prewar Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said.

The admission came hours after another State Department official said Bolton had correctly answered a Senate questionnaire when he wrote that he has not testified to a grand jury or been interviewed by investigators in any inquiry over the past five years.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Unless there are a few extra Medals of Freedom sitting around the Oval, I think a recess appointment is now a done deal.

Attaboy, John!