State Department: "Whoops"

Following up on my earlier posts, the Associated Press reports tonight that John Bolton WAS interviewed by the State Department's Inspector General back in 2003. Spokesman Noel Clay says that when Bolton filed out his paperwork for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he "didn't recall being interviewed by the State Department's inspector general. Therefore, his form, as submitted, was inaccurate. He will correct it."

Score one for honesty. This is a very important revelation. Didn't recall? Shouldn't there be staff to check things like that? Why has it taken until now to realize this?

[Update: The New York Times weighs in on this for Friday, with Elisabeth Bumiller poaching Doug Jehl's Bolton-turf, headlining her piece "U.N. Nominee Omitted Data at Hearings in the Senate." She leads off with "John R. Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, failed to tell the Senate during his confirmation hearings that he had been interviewed by the State Department's inspector general looking into how American intelligence agencies came to rely on fabricated reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa, the State Department said Thursday."

Sadly, there's not much else new in the NYT piece. But at least the word is out. -- 11:35 p.m.]