Pork or principle?

Politics | John Thune is on a mission to save Ellsworth Air Force Base, and he may even disrupt the president's agenda to do it | John Dawson

It’s June 8, and South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune has found himself in a tenuous position. No longer is he hero of 2004 for picking off former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in a knock-down, drag-out in the November election.

He’s at an off-the-record luncheon with the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank, to record a 42-second sound bite for the FCF’s website and also, apparently, to answer for his sins. The meeting, staged at the Kriebel Center on Capitol Hill, takes a sharp turn when attendees begin asking Mr. Thune about his campaign to save Ellsworth Air Force Base from the Pentagon’s chopping block. Why would he withhold support for John Bolton, nominated to be the next UN ambassador, just because Ellsworth was going down? they probe.