Things that interest me - 5/3

1. Soccer Dad wonders how Hamas could be worried about its good name, as if it had one. But there's this: "Hamas is good, because it's no al-Qaida." Now, that's setting the bar low!

2. Paul Mirengoff at Power Line stomps on his congressman and mine, Chris van Hollen, for suggesting that we need to assure Russia and China that we won't attack Iran if we get a U.N. resolution calling for tough action against Iran. Van Hollen suggested that we're having trouble because we cited the U.N. resolutions against Iraq when we invaded Iraq. Mirengoff writes:

But Van Hollen took things to a more craven level when he asked Bolton whether the Bush administration would assure the Russians and the Red Chinese that if they backed a U.N. resolution on Iran we would not later cite the resolution as support for military action against Iran. In effect, a member of Congress almost seemed to be acting as a self-appointed intermediary between one or more hostile foreign power and the United States government.

Bolton responded that the U.S. would not give Russia and China a say in our decisions about how to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Van Hollen claimed that this is not what he wants.

All of this is enough to make me nostalgic for "Commie" Morella, our former congressperson.

3. Via Jeff Goldstein, I see that Expose the Left has a transcript of John Bolton's testimony before the House subcommittee on international relations, the subcommittee on which Chris Van Hollen sits. The transcript is of an exchange between Bolton and Dennis Kucinich, who wanted Bolton to opine on a New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh that alleges that we have U.S. Marines in Iran right now. Bolton refused to respond, both because it would be inappropriate and because, well, he didn't think much of Mr. Hersh:

KUCINICH: Have you ever heard of that report?

BOLTON: I’d never heard of the report, I never read the article, nor do I intend to.

KUCINICH: Do you have any interest as to whether or not—as the U.S. Ambassador, you don’t have any interest as to whether or not U.S. Marines are actually operating in Iran right now?

BOLTON: I said I had not heard of the report and I didn’t intend to read the article in “The New Yorker.”

KUCINICH: If I gave you this article right now, walked it over, would you look at it?

BOLTON: I don’t think so, honestly, Congressman, because I don’t have time to read much fiction.

KUCINICH: We know that U.S. Troops are in Iran. How does this affect U.N. Negotiations?

BOLTON: Congressman, you know more than I do, that’s all I can say.

I'm glad to see that Bolton is doing what we expected of him. For the record, here are the "Bolty" awards I announced upon his initial nomination.