From Reihan Salam, in making fun of Sen. Joe Biden's ripping of John Bolton for his practice of confronting a subordinate and "reaming him a new one":
What if the lower-level official badly needed "a new one"? Is the senior official not obliged to ream him one? Recall that Joe Biden is one of the tough-talking "national security Democrats." If he's unwilling to "ream" low-level officials "a new one," how does he plan on dealing with the Outposts of Tyranny (OoT), let alone the Axis of Evil (AoE)? Far be it from me to endorse bullying, but I dare say that there comes a time in a bureaucracy's life when "new ones" must be "reamed."Exactly. And the Weekly Standard thought so too. Posted by Stephen Silver at April 18, 2005 09:28 PM