Roberts Urges Recess Appointment

Doug Jehl, finally back on the Bolton beat for the New York Times, reports in Saturday editions that Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is bucking the current trend and urging President Bush not to allow Democrats to see information they've requested regarding NSA intercepts and the use of intelligence information related to Syrian weapons programs.

Jehl writes that Roberts expects Bush will appoint Bolton to the UN post during the Senate's July 4 recess, and that this "would be preferable to the potential security risks of providing Congress with wider access to names in the NSA reports." There is certainly reason for Roberts to be concerned with the leaking of the information in the intercepts: if I were him, I'd be concerned with that too. But safeguards are in place, and those concerns, frankly, should not override the Senate's right to examine materials related to this nomination.