THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Which could be used as the motto for this president and his administration. Prezident Spanky has shown a remarkable constancy in his ability and willingness to be an asshole. While they may not have the range and depth of Spanky, his cabinet have all shown their own talents for assholery. And the latest add to his staff, The Menacing Moustache of Mediocrity John Bolton should fit right in.

The last time — perhaps the only time — John R. Bolton inspired bipartisan agreement, it was over the shared conclusion that he was perhaps the least diplomatic personality a president could have ever picked to be an American diplomat.

That was in 2005, when Mr. Bolton was last considered for a government job. Accounts of his red-faced tirades against intelligence analysts whose findings he disagreed with so concerned members of the Senate that they refused to approve his nomination as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations.

He wound up getting the job anyway through a recess appointment by Mr. Bush, who later regretted spending the political capital on such a divisive figure, telling conservatives, “I don’t consider Bolton credible.”

Thirteen years later, another president has given Mr. Bolton the far more consequential job of national security adviser. But because that post does not require Senate confirmation, the five months in 2005 that the Senate took to decide whether Mr. Bolton should go to the United Nations remain the only extensive examination of his record and his temperament.

Those who opposed him then, like Carl W. Ford Jr., along with many who supported him, say Mr. Bolton has not changed.

In an appearance before a Senate committee vetting Mr. Bolton’s nomination in 2005, Mr. Ford, a former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research in the Bush administration, summed up Mr. Bolton, then an under secretary of state for arms control and international security, as a “kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.”

“I believed then, as I believe now, he lacks any of the qualities to be a senior government official,” Mr. Ford said last week. “It has been my experience that his mouth is much bigger than his brain.”

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, told the committee that “trying to remove someone as an analyst from their job because you disagree with what they’re saying, I think, is dreadfully wrong.”

Mr. Bolton responded that he had targeted the two officers for reassignment, not for firing, because “If I may say so, their conduct was unprofessional and broke my confidence and trust.”

The next day, Mr. Ford, who had run the bureau where Mr. Westermann worked, rattled the committee by describing Mr. Bolton as a “serial abuser” of lower-level staffers.

“There are a lot of screamers that work in government,” Mr. Ford said. “But you don’t pull somebody so low down the bureaucracy that they are completely defenseless. It’s an 800-pound gorilla devouring a banana.”

Reflecting on the hearing in an interview this week, Mr. Dodd called Mr. Ford’s testimony “a galvanizing moment.”

During the week after Mr. Ford’s appearance, more testimony emerged about Mr. Bolton’s efforts to tailor, suppress or selectively use intelligence as well as intimidate intelligence analysts and other professionals who disagreed with the views held by him or Mr. Cheney and his allies.

Rexon Ryu, a former State Department official, told the panel he encountered Mr. Bolton’s ire after he neglected to forward a cable related to United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq. Mr. Bolton then tried to block Mr. Ryu’s appointment as a liaison on nonproliferation issues. Mr. Ryu was transferred elsewhere at the State Department, and then recently joined the staff of Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a committee Republican.

The unnamed national intelligence officer for Latin America was revealed to be Fulton Armstrong, who in an interview last week said that Mr. Bolton had targeted him for “vicious attacks,” “rumor campaigns” and “infantile” character assassination.

Proficient at the bureacratic art of "Kiss Up, Kick Down" and a real screamer. He should fit right in until he chaps Spanky's ass with all his kissing.