The White Housewithdrew the nomination of Sam Fox to be Ambassador to Belgium this week, after it became clear the nominee would be defeated on a partisan vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John Kerry led the opposition to Mr. Fox, a wealthy St. Louis businessman who had donated $50,000 to “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” in 2004. But Mr. Fox may get the job anyway: Look for President Bush to send him to Belgium with a recess appointment sometime this year.

That would infuriate Democrats, who have been trying to stay in formal session even when they’re out of town to deny Mr. Bush recess appointment opportunities. But eventually the President will get his chance, and, at age 77, Mr. Fox has nothing to lose by accepting such an appointment. I’m told he’s amenable.

Mr. Kerry’s treatment of Mr. Fox hasn’t received much coverage outside the Wall Street Journal, but it deserves attention for the precedent it sets if Democrats take back the White House in 2008. Mr. Kerry demanded that Mr. Fox come to see him, bring his family, attend a meeting with the Senator’s Vietnam-era colleagues to hear their version of the Vietnam truth, and then publicly apologize. Mr. Fox declined the honor, saying the Swift Boat campaign was part of the normal give and take of modern politics.

Mr. Kerry called his defeat of Mr. Fox “a new day in political discourse.” I doubt it. More likely he has set a new standard of retribution for government service that will have Republicans sifting through the contributor lists to MoveOn.org and the like during the next Democratic Administration.

~Paul A. Gigot at OpinionJournal’s Political Diary [Subscribe here]