Posted on 04/20/2005 12:00:48 PM PDT by Republican Red
Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich rolled like a marble yesterday. After an hour of ranting by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats about the nomination of John Bolton as United Nations ambassador, Voinovich pronounced himself in need of more information about Bolton before he could vote, even though he didn't attend either of the hearings related to the nomination last week and even though the committee has conducted extensive interviews about the (minor) controversies swirling around Bolton. If Voinovich still hasn't gotten a chance to read the transcripts — we know how busy he is — he should check out the committee's website at http://foreign.senate.gov/. Democrats figured if they did enough caterwauling yesterday and threw out enough new dirt on Bolton — including a decade-old charge from a woman who founded the Dallas chapter of "Mothers Against Bush" — maybe a Republican would roll. Voinovich obliged.
His refusal to vote gave Democrats a key procedural victory. All along their strategy has been, if they can't defeat the nomination outright, at least to delay it as much possible, in the hopes of eventually coming up with something, anything to derail it. Ranking minority member Joseph Biden has pursued this course at the price of his own personal credibility. He had assured Chairman Richard Lugar two weeks ago that if Bolton's hearing were delayed a week that both the hearing and the committee vote would take place last week. But when it came time to vote last week, Democrats objected. When it came time to vote yesterday, Democrats objected again, forcing Republicans to take extraordinary parliamentary steps to allow the committee even to meet. And when it finally did, Voinovich came to Biden's rescue.
Committee chairman Richard Lugar had no choice but to put off the vote again, because otherwise — with Voinovich voting nay — the committee would have deadlocked 9-9, defeating the nomination. But we have no faith in the agreement Lugar cut with Democrats during the meeting to hold — after more questioning of Bolton — a vote three weeks from now. Given Biden's bad faith to this point, this agreement is not worth the paper it's not written on.
“Some Republicans are acting shamefully.”
Democrats will use the extra time to pick away at every possible Bolton peccadillo to prove he lacks the "temperament" to serve at the U.N. They have been investigating a dispute Bolton had with a woman over her maternity leave when she worked for him at the Justice Department — in 1988. This is silly. Next we'll hear that Bolton shoved someone during recess when he was a schoolboy. The attack on Bolton's temperament is an obvious misdirection anyway. Democrats simply object to his kind of multilateralism that aggressively pursues international support for the goals of President Bush's foreign policy rather than simply kowtowing to international institutions for its own sake. In other words, Bolton will "serve" the president rather than the U.N.
That some Republicans are willing to take at face value the Democrats' personal attacks on Bolton is shameful. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Furrowed Brow) pronounces himself troubled by the allegations. But he supported John McCain for president in 2000 — since when is a docile temperament his test of whether someone can be an important public servant? Hagel is a fairly reliable conservative vote on routine matters. It's just when the chips are down that you can't count on him.
In the key allegation against Bolton, he is said to have intimidated a State Department intelligence analyst who objected to Bolton's supposedly too-dire assessment of Cuba's bioweapons program. But Bolton aide Fred Fleitz has testified that the analyst in question, Christian Westerman, wasn't straight with Bolton or his staff — giving Bolton plenty of reason to be upset. At issue was language in a speech Bolton was to deliver about Cuba. It was Westerman's responsibility to run the proposed language by the CIA, but when he did so he attached his own prejudicial language dissenting from Bolton's views. When Fleitz learned this, Westerman falsely denied having done it, leading to the infamous confrontation in Bolton's office. Two of Westerman's supervisors subsequently apologized for how he handled the matter. That Bolton is now the one being pilloried for this spat — Sen. Chris Dodd said his conduct should be "indictable" — is absurd. In any case, as Lugar pointed out in a statement earlier this week, in an environment characterized by contentious policy disputes — as Bush's foreign policy team was in the first term — you can expect some personal contention.
Those policy disputes are at the bottom of the charges against Bolton. This is the revenge of the State department bureaucracy and its former servants Colin Powell and Dick Armitage. Contrary to former State department bureaucrat Carl Ford's smear of Bolton as a "kiss up, kick down" kind of guy, Bolton repeatedly clashed with Powell and Armitage over substance. Now they are hitting back. It is difficult to believe that Powell's former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson would viciously attack Bolton on the record in the New York Times without Powell's assent. Although perhaps we should be grateful for an on-the-record Times quote by a Powell loyalist for a change. If the Bolton nomination is beaten, it will be a lesson to conservatives that they dare clash with a recalcitrant Washington bureaucracy only at great potential personal cost. Which is one of just many reasons why President Bush should use every bit of leverage at his disposal to win Bolton's confirmation. — The Editors
Add another Senator to the list of Senators suffering from Shriveled Gnads syndrome. It seem to be epidemic among cowardly Republican Senators , especially Rino's
The Powell/Armitage connection against Bolton was being floated last night. Disgusting petty revenge.
Bad form, General Powell. Bad form indeed.
FWIW, I think the Dems,as usual, overplayed their hand, and it will blow up in their faces big time, like the Wellstone memorial service. Bolton will be confirmed, but he has been maligned, and he will want to confront his accusers, and the Dem senators, in an open forum..
Pardon for the mis-ping. Meant to type in Dog.
Pingeroo.
I doubt that the SFRC will even convene another meeting on Bolton. He'll be withdrawn. The GOP cowards on the committee and the chair don't have the stomach for a fight with committed RATs like Biden, Boxer and Dodd. They are completely outgunned.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1387448/posts
Doesn't sound like he's backing off.
Thanks for the ping--
I hope that if Powell and Armitage had ANYTHING to do with this, it is brought out because for the last four years the dems and lib pundits just bashed Bush, Cheney, Rummy, but they always talked glowingly about Powell---
I always thought it was wrong for them to completely absolve Powell of any blame, if they were SO against everything said or done re: Iraq---Powell wasn't a puppet after all!
I would love to see him confirmed, but after yesterday's pathetic performance by the RAT-owned RINOs, I have little hope.
If there is, it might well come to light; Mr. Armitage has been fairly brazen about going to the press, both in his efforts against Mr. Bush's policies and initiatives during Mr. Armitage's tenure at State, and bragging about such after he left State. He may well feel that he will get more approbation from the MSM if he fesses up to any role that he might have had in this nomination fight.
The GOP cowards on the committee and the chair don't have the stomach for a fight with committed RATs like Biden, Boxer and Dodd. They are completely outgunned.
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This is a HUGE PROBLEM we have. The scumbag Dems are taking every advantage of the wimpy Repubs who DO NOT FIGHT HARD! This is a classic example. If these RINOs (and yes they are NOT party material) were worth a crap, they would kick butt on these losers like Biden and Boxer -- God, what a couple of maggots -- and these weaklings that call themselves Repubs just let them tromp all over them.
Come on guys, FIGHT THESE GUTTER RATS!!!
Click here to see what Biden had to say about Bolton in 2001
I'm not very familiar with him, but that could be one reason for him not supporting Bolton, since Bolton basically told the international gun-grabbers at the UN to KISS OUR gun-owning, 2nd Amendment-supporting-and-defending American ASSES a few years back.
fyltGe!
Lugar has taken a lot of flak on these threads for not "standing up to the Dems" yesterday. If you watched you would have seen that he was doing a heck of a job until he was blindsided by Voinovich. Had he played hardball and called for a vote Bolton would not have made it out of the Committee and his bid would be dead. The problem (as always) is with the RINOs. Somehow they have to get through to Voinovich, Hagel & Chaffee that there will be consequences when they act like this. Is there a way of reassigning committees between election years? How can some of these Rinos be taken off these sensitive committees? That's the kind of action that needs to be taken.
I am emensely disdusted with Voinovich. He didn't bother attending the hearings for Bolton. Now he's not willing to vote for Bolton because of some complaints by State Department staff that he hurt their feelings in the distant past?
Is it possible for the Republican Senate leadership to remove him from the foreign relations committee, since he obviously isn't willing to do his job and be prepared.
He's a continued embarassment to the state of Ohio. We need to find a real conservative to run against him in the next primary.
"Come on guys, FIGHT THESE GUTTER RATS!!!"
You got it right. Where is President Bush? He should be leading the fight, instead of running around the Country with SS. The heck with SS. Those brain dead AARP don't want to rebuild the soon to be broke system. Meanwhile we are falling apart.
"Isn't Voinovich a gun-grabbing RINO?"
Yes! He says he supports gun owners rights, but votes against them.
His staff quit responding to my emails about this once I started quoting his voting record in response to their assurances that he supports gun owners.
Not really. The MBNA Board of Driectors doesn't care whether Bolton gets confirmed or not. ;)
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