WSJ: A Bolton Response - NSC Adviser Hadley as the 4th option for Bush

Does Bolton have Hadley's ear? Any idea?

Recess appointment is best, and when that expires, re-nominate Bolton and keep him on as "Acting" (like Clinton did Bill Lann Lee). Anything less than having Bolton at the UN would be caving to the 'Rats.

I agree...Bush should follow Sun Tzu's advice on this one..."when your opponent is angry, taunt them." The Dims are ALWAYS angry! It is amazing to watch.

(Bio on S. Hadley)

[snip]Mr. Hadley has been a member of the Department of Defense Policy Board, the National Security Advisory Panel to the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Board of Trustees of Analytical Services, Inc. ("ANSER"). His professional legal practice focused on business problems of U.S. and foreign corporations particularly as they involve international business, regulatory, and strategy issues. He received a BA degree from Cornell University and a law degree from Yale Law School.

Call for another vote with cheney in the chamber, let the donks obstruct and nuke the idiots. Let the donks know that filibusters are for their chamber to decide legislative matters but will not be tolerated in the role of advice and consent for executive branch appointments (and of course, judges are covered here as well).

Enough with the recess appointment idea. Finish this once and for all.

I read in another article that Bolton supposedly "will not accept" a recess appointment.

But that article was written by a leftist reporter, so I take it with a ton of salt.

I could live with that, as long as Bolton is in a critical position.

Call for another vote with cheney in the chamber, let the donks obstruct and nuke the idiots.

Nice idea. Are their 50 Senators willing to do this? Sadly, I don't think so.

Who cares what their fifty senators do or what they think? The vote on cloture fails, Frist calls for "point of order" with cheney in the chair and we nuke them.

Then and there.

Sorry, I misspelled "their". What I meant to write was that I don't think there are 50 Senators willing to launch if Frist calls for a nuke. I believe at least six of our Senators would balk - especially over Bolton.

I think the only way a nuke actually leaves the silo is if it's over a SCOTUS nomination. That's not to say a filibustered SCOTUS nomination will result in a nuke; it's just that I seriesly doubt there are 50 votes for any other circumstance -- whether it's a Circuit Judge, UN Ambassador, or any other appointment.

Oh. I did not reaize you meant the other "there". Sorry. None of our senators should balk, because in principle there is NO difference between appointing bolton and appointing a judge as far as the constitution is concerned. The fact that it will come to a vote again should offer a pretty strong indication of what the president expects from the repubs in the senate.

It's time for the repubs to have a come to Jesus meeting, take a whip count, offer thune a way to keep Elsworth from getting cut, and bring it to a vote after the 4th of July with Cheney in the chamber.

Leave the position unfilled, and leave the nomination in place.

The postion is open because of the Senate. They haven't voted on the nomination yet.

The only way to keep the heat on the Senate is to reject their attempt to return the nomination without voting on it.

A Confirmation Solution

It looked yesterday as though a recess appointment was likely for U.N. Ambassador-designate John Bolton; Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had said there was nothing he could do to break a Democratic filibuster. Then Frist flip-flopped after talking to the White House and said, "The president made it very clear that he expects an up-or-down vote." Long Island's Newsday gives a possible reason:

The problem, according to diplomats at the State Department and the UN, is that Bolton may not be willing to accept a recess appointment, which would be good until the next Congress convenes in January 2007. That could not be confirmed yesterday, but sources said it is widely believed to be true at both institutions.

It also seemed to Republicans and Democrats here [in Washington] to be consistent with his character.

"The constitution provided for recess appointments because, at the time it was written, the Senate was not in session for long periods, and the difficulty of travel made it hard to convene a special session," Newsday notes.

If the president did give Bolton a recess appointment, Democrats would cry abuse of power. The New York Times reports that the Dems "say sending Mr. Bolton to the United Nations without the imprimatur of the Senate would only weaken Mr. Bolton and the Bush administration." If the Senate had actually rejected Bolton, the Democrats would have a point. But in fact the lack of such an imprimatur is the result of an obstructionist minority's blocking a Senate vote. It is the Senate Democrats, then, not the president, who are evading the Senate's advise-and-consent responsibility.

The Bolton problem will have to be resolved politically, but it seems clear from this and the dispute over judicial nominees that there is a problem in the confirmation process, and perhaps it's time to start thinking about a long-term constitutional solution. Why not a constitutional amendment that would go something like this:

Section 1. The President's power to fill vacancies during a recess of the Senate shall apply only in the case of a recess lasting ninety days or longer.

Section 2. The Senate shall vote on all presidential appointments within ninety days of the first day the Senate is in session after the President submits an appointment. The Senate's failure to fulfill this obligation shall be construed as consenting to the appointment.

Section 3. The provisions of this Article shall take effect at the beginning of the next Presidential term after the ratification of this Article.

The effect of this would be to render ineffective all of the obstructionist tactics--blue slips, delayed committee hearings, filibusters--that Republicans used to block nominees during the Clinton years and Democrats are using now, while having no effect on the Senate's constitutional prerogative to set its own rules vis-à-vis legislation. Section 3, by deferring the change until the next presidential term, would avoid any consideration of short-term partisan advantage.

One objection to this proposal is that it might allow confirmation by filibuster. That is, if more than 40 but fewer than 50 senators favored a nominee, they could refuse to allow cloture, thus preventing a "no" vote and running out the clock on the Senate's power to reject a nominee.

Doing so, however, would put the Senate in the position of explicitly failing to do its constitutional duty--and if the Senate fails to fulfill its obligation, it seems only fair to resolve a dispute with the president in the latter's favor. This prospect would give the Senate an incentive to reform its own rules to ensure an up-or-down vote on every nominee.

If someone in Congress were to introduce such an amendment, the biggest obstacle to ratification would probably be the Senate itself, two-thirds of whose members would have to approve, since on balance it would enhance the president's powers and diminish the Senate's. But most senators of both parties have the experience of being on the wrong side of such obstructionism during either the Clinton or Bush years, and of course every senator dreams of being president someday. So perhaps they could find common ground on a reform whose partisan effects would become clear only after future elections.

-- BEST OF THE WEB TODAY

JOHN BOLTON NOMINATION
Mr. REID. Mr. President, yesterday at the White House it was reported that President Bush told Republican leaders to keep fighting to get Mr. Bolton, the President's nominee to be U.N. ambassador, an up-or-down vote. Keep fighting--that was the message delivered by the President.
I understand the need for an occasional pep rally to bolster discouraged members of his party, but the American people are tired of the fighting and the bickering. They want us to tackle the hard issues confronting this country and deal with the crisis in health care where 45 million people have no health insurance and millions of others are underinsured, to deal with education, the ability of parents to send their children to college and then the deteriorating nature of our public school system, part of which is directly related to the Leave No Child Behind Act. We are approaching 1,800 dead American soldiers in the war in Iraq. We are approaching 20,000 who have been wounded. We do not know the exact number of Iraqis who are dead, but it is well over 100,000.
Of course, we have the President's ongoing direction to privatize Social Security. He has not directed his attention at all, as we should, to retirement security. United Airlines basically defaulted on their pension obligations to their employees. Delta, Northwest, other airlines, and other companies are standing by. Unless they get help from the Congress, they too will default on their obligations to their employees' retirement programs.
They, the White House, want the John Bolton matter resolved. It can be resolved easily and quickly in two ways. First, the President can take the advice of the distinguished Republican, the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Voinovich, and offer a new nominee. Over the course of the Foreign Relations Committee hearings, it became quite clear that John Bolton is simply not the right man for this most important job. John Bolton has attempted to manipulate intelligence, intimidate intelligence analysts, and has shown outright disdain for the international system and the institution for which he was nominated to serve.
The administration would have everyone believe that Mr. Bolton is the only man capable of delivering the reform message to the United Nations. We all agree that the United Nations needs reform, but I would submit that there are dozens, scores of tough reform-minded conservatives who could be confirmed rapidly with broad bipartisan support.
We have quickly approved the White House's two previous selections to this post, Negroponte and Danforth, and we are prepared to do so again.
When Senator Danforth decided to step down as our Representative to the United Nations, the administration had a choice to make: Did it want to pick someone along the lines of its two previous nominees who could have been quickly confirmed and on the job fixing the U.N. or did it want a fight in the Senate? It appears a fight was more in line with what they felt was appropriate.
Unfortunately, the administration, as I have said, knowingly chose a fight. They were told prior to sending his name to the Senate that it was a problem. The White House's choice and subsequent actions demonstrate that reform in Washington is needed as much as it is at the United Nations.
If the administration does not want to withdraw Mr. Bolton's nomination, and that appears to be clear, there is another path. It can take the advice of former majority leader Trent Lott, who said yesterday on Fox News that the administration should provide the information that has been requested by the Senate. This is Senator Lott saying this, not me, even though I have said it also. Speaking to Fox News, the Senator from Mississippi further said:

My colleagues have a right to know that information. . . . I think the [Administration] ought to give the [Senate] the information.

The distinguished Senator from Mississippi, my friend, also went on to say what this fight is really all about:

We are saying to the White House, we're a coequal branch of government here, other Senators have done this in the past, we're seeking this information which we have a right to . . .

That is also a view shared by the Republican Senator from Rhode Island who sits on the committee, Lincoln Chafee, who, when asked whether the White House should turn over the information about Mr. Bolton, said, as he usually does, in very short, concise statements:
``I like full disclosure.''
Full disclosure is exactly what we need. We should shed light on whether this nominee tried to stretch the truth about Syria's weapons of mass destruction programs, and it should explain why Mr. Bolton needed to see what Americans--perhaps his own superiors at the State Department--were saying about him in these NSA intercepts.
I have said it before and I will say it again: This fight is not about Mr. Bolton. It is about whether this administration will recognize that the Constitution established that Congress is a coequal branch of Government with certain powers and responsibilities. If the President turns over the information, not part of it or a summary of it but turns over all of the information requested, the White House will get their up-or-down vote on Mr. Bolton.
Unlike the advice offered by the President yesterday, continued fighting will not advance his troubled nominee. Working with the Senate will. By taking the advice of my friends from Ohio, Senator Voinovich; Mississippi, Trent Lott; and Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island, all Republicans, the President and the Congress can put this matter behind them and move on to the critical issues facing the Nation and the United Nations.
109th Congress - Page S6980 - June 22, 2005