We Won’t Have John Bolton to Kick Around Anymore..

As The Washington Note confirms, the nomination of John Bolton as U.N. Ambassador from the United States is dead. While that’s great, Bolton is dangerously angry ideologue who had no business in diplomacy, the real story is who killed him.

It was the GOP Senator from Rhode Island, Lincoln Chaffee, that put the bullet in him by placing a hold on Bolton’s nomination and submitting an interrogatory letter. I don’t know what was in that letter, but Chaffee’s opposition prompted withdrawal of the nomination.

So you might think that there is going to be some payback for Mr. Chaffee in his primary contest. You’d be wrong.

What is really extraordinary about this episode is how Sen. Chaffee used his political capital. Chaffee is locked in a GOP primary contest which he is losing to a much more conservative opponent. Yet the White House and the Republican Senate Campaign are plowing money and support into Chaffee’s campaign – they’re even running negative ads against Chaffee’s more conservative rival.

The reason is simple, no more conservative a Republican than Chaffee could possibly hold Rhode Island: the whole damn state only has 69K registered Republicans. If Chaffee goes down in the pimary, the Democratic candidate, Whitehouse, will win the seat in a landslide.

The result is that Chaffee is absolutely immune from his own party. He could go seduce Bush’s daughters and have them on the East Lawn in front of the press corps, it wouldn’t matter. And what did Chaffee decide would be his first thumb in the Administration’s eye? Stopping Bolton. The guy is just that dangerous to American security in that position.

So, I’m torn. I’m loving Lincoln Chaffee right now, but I know he’ll never switch parties like Jeffords (he was courted by Jeffords in 2002). So I have to hope he’ll go down in the primary to his NeaderGOP opponent so we Democrats can pick up the seat. It’s guys like Chaffee that make ruthless partisanship so damn difficult.