If you are a Sunday Talk Show watcher then you already know, as Reuters reported, that the White House made a big stink this weekend about advancing the Bolton nomination to confirmation by our lame duck Senate. It's a sign of how little the White House is seriously hoping to get anything done in the weeks to come that they'd make so much noise about all of this right now. To really get a sign of how high a priority the Bolton nomination is, see the Human Events list of priorities for the lame duck Congress - it's #9, behind confirming Gates as Secretary of Defense, and just ahead of confirming all those judges who prefer what Ministers say on Sunday to what the Framers of our Constitution divined more than two centuries ago.

Why this cynical move at this time?

I think the Bush administration knows how disheartening it is to so much of its political class, it's party faithful, that they suffered such a serious defeat last Tuesday. Sacking Rumsfeld is a good way to tell the American people, who voted against the Bush administration by launching so many GOP Senators and Representatives out of office, that a change is coming. But it also must create a fear of malleability and weakness among the party faithful, discouraging them from backing controversial administration moves in the months to come.

It also sets up a weakening of the Bush White House's hand in the GOP's internal party politics. Dick Cheney and Karl Rove will no doubt have their chosen successor to George W. Bush as President, and we know it won't be John McCain.

Backing Bolton is a way for the White House to say that they still care about what the GOP organization thinks, and that they will still go to bat for party faithful within the government.

Ultimately, Bolton can't be confirmed in the Senate. Expect a second recess appointment in January to boot, although I am interested to see if it will be Steve's theory or mine that pays the rent for Bolton's apartment in the Waldorf-Astoria.

That's a shame. Ultimately, leave it to the English to say it best in Monday's Guardian on why it's time to "see the back of Mr. Bolton":

One signal that the new Congress should immediately send to the president and the outside world is the replacement of America's United Nations ambassador John Bolton. Mr Bolton is a unabashed relic of the failed neoconservative era in foreign policy which was so emphatically defeated last week. He has never concealed his contempt for the UN. His presence as the US's chief representative at the most important of international organisations sends a message which is not, and never was, in America's interests. Even timid Downing Street would like to see the back of Mr Bolton so that diplomacy can make a fresh start. Mr Bolton's nomination has never received the congressional confirmation that it ultimately requires; President Bush resubmitted it last week. Senator Biden and his colleagues should ensure that Mr Bolton is rejected, so that the administration is forced to nominate a candidate whose approach is more in tune with the changed times in Washington.