Demagogue

From the New York Times

In an unusual rebuke of a senior senator from his own party, President Bush announced on Friday that by making recess appointments he had completed creation of a nine-member independent commission to review the Pentagon's list of proposed base closings this year.

Senator Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican who strongly opposes the coming round of base closings, has been holding up a vote by the full Senate since last month on Mr. Bush's choice to lead the panel, Anthony J. Principi, a former secretary of veterans affairs, senior Republican aides said. Mr. Lott was expected to do the same to the panel's eight other members if the Senate Armed Services Committee approved them, as expected, as early as next week, the aides said.

But Mr. Bush dashed any plan Mr. Lott may have had to stymie the process, a precursor to the first major round of base closings in a decade, by appointing members to the panel while the Senate was in its spring recess, thus eliminating the requirement of Senate confirmation.

Considering that Trent Lott is one of the principle architects of the "nuclear option" - a maneuver designed to completely negate the Democrats' role in confirming administration nominees - you have to wonder if he noticed the irony in the fact that Bush just pretty much went nuclear on him.