Send Bolton Where?

Condi, watch your back. Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page floats a horrifying idea -- to send Stephen J. Hadley, the quiet national security advisor who was formerly Condoleezza Rice’s deputy, to the U.N. and plug John Bolton into Hadley’s job, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation. That will show those pesky Democrats who’s in charge: A recess appointment of Bolton as U.N. envoy, the editorial argues, would be a sign of weakness on President Bush’s part and he “now has to decide how to respond in a way that shows he’s not a lame duck.” But putting Bolton in the White House? Yikes. Wasn’t Condi’s point in sending him to New York that she no longer wants him around?

Speaking of Rice, editorials in today’s Journal and Financial Times -- two papers that rarely agree on their assessment of the Bush administration -- give her speech in Cairo on Monday high marks. The Journal calls it one of the most important speeches by a recent secretary of State. The FT writes that although the reaction was mostly cynical when Bush first sounded “the trumpet call” for Arab democracy a couple of years ago, it is becoming “a consistent theme of this administration.”

The lead editorial in today’s New York Times, “Abu Ghraib, Rewarded,” tears into the Pentagon for feeling so confident that it has achieved closure on prisoner abuse issues that it can consider a promotion for Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq at the time of the abuses. The editorial rightly says this would further the “pervasive lack of accountability.” Et tu, Alberto Gonzales?