The Bolton Nomination was a very stupid move.

At first it seemed that the main problem was that it was an affront to our allies. It was especially unwise to nominate Bolton right after Bush's let's make up tour of Europe. The combination means that every European leader must understand that he can not trust Bush. It was such a bad move that Blair let it be known that he was furious, which is pretty remarkable given the things he has put up with.

Now I think the reason that the Bolton nomination was a very bad poltical mistake is that it blew the cover up of the true cause of intelligence failures. The Bush administration, Senator Roberts and Judge Silverman have put a huge amount of effort into placing the blame on intelligence professionals. Poltical junkies have always known that this is nonsense. However, when an assistant secretary of state tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that an undersecretary was so angry that an intelligence analyst wouldn't tell him what he wanted to hear that he "reamed him another one" people notice. People whose interest is piqued by such language will have trouble failing to notice that Bolton was demanding exactly the sort of intelligence failures which the Bush administration is trying to blame on the professionals. I'm sure many will manage not to notice or won't care, but it is very dumb to nominate intelligence failure personified to a post which requires Senate confirmation.

It seems quite possible that Bolton's nomination will be rejected. This would make Bush look like a lame duck. I think confirmation of Bolton's nomination is likely to be even worse for Bush than rejection. Bolton is now the focus of considerable media attention. The ambassador to the UN is often not a really important foreign policy figure but he or she is a very public figure. Disapproval of the UN ambassador can be very costly to a president (ask Jimmy Carter). It is clear that Bolton will make trouble for his bosses and his subordinates until he retires. By the way this meanst that I think Ford's characterization of him as a "kiss up kick down" kind of guy is unfair, since he seems to be more of a kick up kick down kick North, East, South, and West kind of guy).

The thing which really strikes me is that a President capable of such a deeply stupid move won re-election. As Dr Antonello Solinas said (in another context and language) "to lose is always painful but to lose to those buffoons is humiliating."

update: and what about the mustache ? If you are going to try to sneak an aweful nomination past, don't nominate a guy with a mustache which makes deer freaze in their tracks.