Meanwhile, anyone noticed the bizarre John Bolton hearing meltdown?

anyway, i'm hoping this all works out so that he doesn't come up for a vote. one little tiny iota of sanity, please.

Ha.

Some days it just doesn't pay to be a Republican Senator...

see also: the HILARIOUS ad that Move Ameica Forward put out, attacking that "disloyal" Senator from Ohio...

considering what assholes biglaw firm partners generally are, you must be an über-asshole for THAT bunch to shit-can you for being an asshole.

Wife: Honey, were you watching C-SPAN today? Did you hear how disloyal Senator Voinovich was to Republicans and President Bush? Voinovich stood with the Democrats and refused to vote for John Bolton, the man President Bush has chosen to fight for the United States at the UN

Husband: No, I was streaming it on the Internet at the office, but from what I could tell, Senator Voinovich played hookey from the hearings?

Wife: Yeah that’s right. He’s missed most of the Bolton confirmation hearings, but then shows up at the last minute and stabs the President and Republicans right in the back.

Husband: That’s ridiculous – the United Nations needs reform, we need someone who will stand up for the United States and fight the UN’s corruption and anti-Americanism.

Wife: Shame on Senator Voinovich. After the Democrats smeared Condoleeza Rice for Secretary of State and Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, how could Voinovich side with the Democrats in smearing John Bolton?

[...]

"streaming it on the Internet" "hookey"

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050422/ts_nm/bush_bolton_dc_31

Clashes Growing Between Bush and GOP Moderates

Tue Apr 26, 7:55 AM ET

By Ronald Brownstein
LA Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Conflicts are multiplying between congressional Republican moderates and the White House as President Bush pursues his aggressively conservative second-term agenda.

The unexpected resistance to Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton as U.N. ambassador from several Senate Republicans marks the latest, and potentially most intense, clash. But battles over Social Security, Bush's budget proposal and ending the filibuster for judicial nominations also are raising tensions inside the party.

The divisions do not appear as pronounced as the ideological divides among Democrats during Bill Clinton's presidency. But GOP moderates, especially in the Senate, seem more willing to challenge the administration than during Bush's first term, which was characterized by historic levels of party unity.

"A lot of the moderates were willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt prior to the election, but now that he's no longer going to be on the ballot, they are putting their own interest somewhat before the White House's," said Marshall Wittmann, a former GOP Senate aide who is an official at the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist party group.

[...]

The signs of insurrection have reached a point where some conservatives believe the White House must confront the dissenting voices more forcefully — especially as some Republicans' doubts about Bolton threaten the administration with its first defeat on a top-tier executive branch appointment.

"If the moderates take down Bolton … then you are really starting to get into threatening the party's ability to govern," said Jeff Bell, a veteran conservative strategist. "I think Bush has to call the moderates' bluff in some way."

Similarly, conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt predicted dire consequences for the GOP if Republican defectors thwarted the expected effort by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to ban the filibuster for judicial nominations.

"Fundraising for the National Republican Senatorial Committee will crater, and the majority so recently and dearly won could well vanish in a matter of 18 months," Hewitt said on his Web log last week.

[...]

Presidents usually find it tougher to herd their party during a second term.

"There is a certain degree of 'lame-duck-itis' that sets in," said Wittmann, who was an aide to McCain before joining the Democratic Leadership Council.

But on several fronts — such as restructuring Social Security, limiting federal spending and nominating the unwavering conservative Bolton for the U.N. — Bush is pushing moderates to the limits of their political and philosophical comfort levels.

Antonia Ferrier, Snowe's communications director, expressed a common sentiment among GOP moderates when she said, "The senator will try to support the president when she can, but there are times when she has to do what is in the best interest of her state."

Note: LA Times writers still do not employ the abbreviation, "blog."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1585546,00.html

On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told her senior staff she was disappointed about the stream of allegations and said she did not want any information coming out of the department that could adversely affect the nomination, said officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

yay, free speech lives in foggy bottom! ugh.

And now Voinovich says, “I believe John Bolton would have been fired if he worked for a major corporation.”

Voinovich added, “He is just the kind of example of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be.”

Voinovich also added that he did not attend the earlier Bolton hearings. He says in normal circumstances he is “inclined” to support the president’s nominees, but that Bolton does not fall under these guidelines.

Earlier:

“What kind of message are we sending to the world when we nominate someone who has been accused of being arrogant … acting unilaterally … the very characteristics we are trying to dispel.”

Voinovich notes he met with Bolton this week, stating, “I have a particular concern about this nominee and it is in the issue … of public diplomacy.”

NRO world is having shit fits. I am laughing. I mean, he might still get through but this is rich. C-SPAN coverage here.

Bolton will be appointed after some orchestrated mea cuplas and faux soul searching (Where is it? where is it? whines the GOP hivemind.)

Also, note that no one has mentioned the name of Benard K in months, the first nominee for Homeland Security...

Published: May 13, 2005
Many passionate arguments were offered yesterday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, but Paul Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland, made one of the most dramatic by simply reading the names of those who have held the post. Among them are Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Adlai Stevenson, Arthur Goldberg, George Ball, George H. W. Bush, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, William Scranton, Andrew Young, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Vernon Walters, Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke and John Danforth.

Mr. Bolton does not belong in this distinguished company of Republicans and Democrats, and the issue is not his "interpersonal style," as his supporters would like Americans to believe. Senator George Allen, a Republican, sneeringly suggested that the U.N. ambassador should not be one of those diplomats who are happy "drinking tea with their pinkies up." That was hardly a description of Mr. Moynihan and Ms. Kirkpatrick.

The post of U.N. ambassador is, as Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, put it, "one of the most important jobs in our government." After the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, that official is the face of the United States to the rest of the world. The job should not go to a man who has repeatedly demonstrated his contempt for the United Nations. In 1999, for example, Mr. Bolton ridiculed the notion that the Security Council is the only body that can legitimize one country's use of force against another when it has not been attacked, which, of course, the Council is. He derided as wishful thinking the idea that "force is no longer a serious option for responsible nations, except to swat the occasional dictator and prevent human rights abuses." Those are, of course, the only remaining justifications for invading Iraq.

The Senate committee hearings have also exhaustively documented Mr. Bolton's habit of trying to force intelligence analysts to conform to his ideological preconceptions and then trying to punish them when they refuse to comply. That Mr. Bolton did not succeed in taking revenge is no comfort - only a sign that he did not wield as much power as other officials who did manage to skew intelligence reports to suit an ideological agenda.

His Republican supporters want us to accept the "no harm, no foul" argument - a hollow theory in any case, but one that doesn't apply here. Mr. Bolton did cause harm. Several Bush administration officials testified that his assault on the intelligence analysts who disagreed with him had a serious chilling effect. Mr. Bolton was such a loose cannon that Colin Powell had his chief of staff keep an eye on him. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage eventually said Mr. Bolton could not testify in Congress or make a speech unless he had personally cleared it.

If North Korea tests a nuclear bomb on Mr. Bush's watch, no American will bear a larger share of responsibility than Mr. Bolton. His irresponsible public comments and advocacy of the disastrous policy of refusing to engage in serious bargaining with North Korea were major factors in scuttling efforts to stop that country's nuclear efforts.

It's not hard to imagine that the next U.N. ambassador will be called upon to defend American policy on Iran and North Korea and to present the United States' intelligence on their nuclear programs to a highly skeptical world. It is hard to imagine a worse choice for that than Mr. Bolton.

Senator George Voinovich said yesterday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had assured him that Mr. Bolton would be closely supervised at the U.N. Ms. Rice's eagerness to get Mr. Bolton out of town is understandable, but, as Mr. Voinovich put it so well, "Why in the world would you want to send somebody up to the U.N. that has to be supervised?"

Like Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Hagel dismissed as "nonsense" his fellow Republicans' argument that opposing Mr. Bolton would mean opposing U.N. reform. Unlike Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Hagel said he was supporting the Bolton nomination. We agreed strongly when he said this issue should not be partisan. But Mr. Hagel couldn't come up with much to explain his decision beyond a partisan desire to support his president. Another Republican, Norm Coleman, said bluntly that Mr. Bolton should be confirmed simply because Mr. Bush won the election.

That's the weak argument that has already led to the promotion of too many administration officials whose efforts to make reality conform to the White House's policy preferences have caused untold harm to American interests. Now that the Foreign Relations Committee has forwarded the Bolton nomination to the Senate floor without any recommendation, we hope that enough Republicans care enough about America's image and national security to refuse to go down that road again.

Should the reasons given by Republican Senators who don't approve of Bolton but who voted to approve the nomination be taken at face value? Do you agree with the principles? When should you vote based on principle (isolated) and when should you vote based on desired outcome (in context)? Are these considerations different when voting for people vs. policies/legislation?

http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr2143/news_video/boltonun_300k.mov

Dan, I don't remember it but I take your word for it. I've seen the first part, where he says the UN doesn't exist, but I've never seen the hilariously entertaining "flipping the fuck out" part.

Rice: Bush May Bypass Senate on Bolton
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 54 minutes ago

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is keeping open the possibility that President Bush will bypass the Senate to get John R. Bolton installed as U.N. ambassador temporarily if Democrats persist in holding up a confirmation vote.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan did not rule out that Bush would consider a recess appointment if the Senate does not approve Bolton's nomination. He blamed the Democrats for "obstructing progress" by stalling a vote on Bolton.

"We continue to urge the Senate to let him have an up or down vote on the floor," McClellan said Monday. "It's unfortunate that the democratic leadership continues to block his nomination, particularly when he has majority support. It is critical that we get him in place."

Rice, on a trip to the Middle East and Europe, commented in a round of television interviews Sunday as Democrats defended their attempt to block a vote on Bolton's nomination. They said the administration's refusal to turn over information they seek is delaying an up-or-down decision.

To determine whether Bolton improperly used intelligence to intimidate officials who didn't agree with his views, Democrats say they want to check a list of 36 U.S. officials against names — initially blacked out — that Bolton requested and received from national security intercepts he reviewed. They rejected a list of seven names offered last week by Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Roberts and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the lead Democrat on the committee, previously were briefed on the intercept issue and said there was no indication Bolton acted improperly.

Democrats also want documents related to the preparation of testimony that Bolton, as the State Department's arms control chief, planned to give in the House in July 2003 about Syria's weapons capability. They want to know if Bolton misled the Senate during his confirmation hearings when he said he was not involved in the preparation of that testimony.

Rice, in Jerusalem, said Roberts "has already spoken to the issue of the nature of those inquiries."

Asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether Bush would consider a recess appointment of Bolton — a temporary placement that does not require Senate approval — Rice said: "We'll see what happens this week."

The Senate plans to take a July Fourth recess in two weeks. Under the Constitution, a president can make an appointment during a Senate recess without the chamber's approval of the nominee. That appointment lasts only through the next one-year session of Congress — which in this case would mean until January 2007.

It was unclear whether Rice's statement was an indication that the administration would seriously consider a recess appointment for Bolton or whether it was meant to increase leverage for White House bargaining with Senate Democrats.

"What we need to do is we need to get an up-or-down vote on John Bolton," Rice said on ABC's "This Week." "Let's find out whether, in fact, the Senate — in its whole, in its entirety — intends and wants to confirm him. That's all that we're asking."

Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., predicted that Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., would fail in an effort late Monday to end the filibuster. He said Democrats are standing for principle by delaying the vote until the administration provides what they seek.

"Once we get it, we can have an up-and-down vote immediately," Biden said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We're not going to let the administration tell us we're not entitled to exercise our oversight responsibility. If we give up on this, we might as well forget about oversight."

Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., told ABC that a recess appointment would send to the United Nations an ambassador "who lacks the confidence of the United States Senate." That, he said, would "cripple" Bolton as he goes to the world body and damage his standing with the Senate.

Yes, of course, it's always "their" fault now, innit? Especially when you don't wanna cough up docs that may or may not sink the guy even further....

Frist Says No New Vote Planned for Bolton

and, of course, no mention in that AP bit about the docs(requested by Repub Senator Lugar) that the White House is stalling on turning over...

I think this is also called, "There's no way to go but up, especially when the other guy is busily digging downward."

and the shitty thing is the UN does need some serious housecleaning, wherein a little contempt is no bad thing. but outright disgust with the basic idea of the "international community" is another thing entirely.

Frist Says No New Vote Planned for Bolton

I was gonna post that Frist got a call from Bush and an hour later announced that he will try again.

I mean, [Frist]really does function a bit more like a souped-up White House legislative liaison. Or perhaps a First Minister, in our newly parliamentarized system. Only before the Glorious Revolution.

And is Karl Rove secretly working behind the scenes to make absolutely certain that Bill Frist's mockery quotient is simply too high even to get a hearing in Republican primaries? We're simply not supposed to have a gelding-in-chief ...

actually, check that. "MAY APPROVE". the AP is being very helpful here with an article about how nothing new has happened, but by gum it might!

Maybe.

I don't know why it's taken me months to bring it up here.

Hell yeah pic.twitter.com/mHTlc5k2TW

— Katherine Miller (@katherinemiller) January 28, 2020