By and large, it is a good thing that John Bolton is no longer in government, where he worked overtime to undermine any number of worthwhile agreements, such as the effort to cap and roll back North Korea's nuclear program. But his fall from power has come at a price. He is now the mainstream media's neocon of choice, widely quoted in news articles and placed prominently on op-ed pages as if he were just another pundit, not the co-author of some of the most disastrous policies in our nation's history. The last straw may have come today, when Bolton simultaneously had articles on the op-ed pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times (an impressive "daily double").

The New York Times piece, co-authored with the infamous former Justice Department attorney John Yoo, is entitled "Restore the Senate's Treaty Power." Incredibly, coming from two men who worked overtime to subvert the ability of Congress to play its constitutional role while serving in the Bush administration, they are suddenly concerned to restore the role of the Senate as "a bulwark against presidential inclinations to lock the United States into unwise foreign commitments." They even have the nerve to urge Obama to "strike the proper balance between the legislative and executive branches that so many have called for in recent years." I don't recall too many Bush administration officials seeking such "balance," certainly not Bolton or Yoo.

What has changed? George W. Bush is about to be replaced by Barack Obama. Suddenly, the Senate is the neocon's political refuge of last resort, a place from which they can try to obstruct action on everything from curbing climate change to ending nuclear testing. They should not be allowed to do so, particularly not on the strength of the kinds of flimsy arguments put forward by Bolton and Yoo. For starters, they describe agreements on these two urgent issues as initiatives that might be pursued "by an administration determined to tie one hand behind America's back." On the contrary, climate change can only be effectively addressed by joining hands with other countries towards a cooperative solution. It is not a competition in which America needs to box its way to "supremacy," whatever that would mean in this context. And a Comprehensive Test Ban would make it easier for the United States to dissuade other nations from pursuing nuclear weapons -- hardly an exercise in tying one's hands behind one's back. For good measure, Bolton falsely claims that a test ban treaty would somehow "undermine" the ability of the United States to "verify the reliability and effectiveness of its nuclear deterrent." Not even Bush's own bomb makers are making such a claim at this late date.

As for Bolton's second piece of the day, it is in some ways even more outrageous, albeit easier to summarize. In "The Three-State Option," Bolton suggests that all talk of a Palestinian state be abandoned in favor of a solution that cedes the Gaza strip to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan. Never mind that the governments of Egypt and Jordan adamantly oppose any such moves -- not to mention the vast majority of Palestinians -- Bolton suggests that they can somehow be bought off if U.S. aid is supplemented with support from the Arab League and "the West" (presumably meaning the EU, since the United States is already a major provider of aid to both Jordan and Egypt). This might make for provocative parlor talk, but it is not the kind of serious discussion one might expect from the Washington Post's op-ed page at a time of renewed bloodshed in Gaza and Israel.

I wish I knew why the country's two newspapers of record are so "soft on Bolton," in the sense that they seem willing to publish anything from his most unapologetic exercises in hypocrisy (the Times piece) to his most unhinged flights of fancy (the Washington Post piece). A colleague suggested that it is being done out of some sense of "balance" -- conservative versus liberal, Democrat versus Republican -- but if so, it is a deeply misguided instinct. There are any number of serious conservatives and thoughtful Republicans (moderate-to-conservative) who could address these issues more honestly and intelligently than John Bolton can. If there must be balance, at least balance substance with substance. Our newspapers of record should be embarrassed at having run these articles, but I'm not holding my breath.