Posted on 04/20/2005 9:20:32 PM PDT by quidnunc
The White House was scrambling Tuesday night after the disastrous Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting held Tuesday afternoon to discuss voting out the U.N. ambassador nomination of John Bolton. Ultimately, Democrats prevailed, having the vote delayed for at least three weeks.
And the aftermath, says a Foreign Relations Committee staffer, is that committee chairman Richard Lugar on Wednesday morning broached the subject of pulling back the nomination with White House officials and the State Department.
"We don't have Voinovich, we don't have Hagel, and in the end we probably don't have Chafee if the other two give him cover," says a Senate leadership staffer. "I don't see how we bring that vote up. We're in for a bumpy ride."
"We're going to be seeing leaks for the next three weeks from Democrats on the committee and their various advocates just beating on Bolton at every turn," says the Foreign Relations Committee staffer. "We just don't have anything to combat it, and Lugar is furious that the White House is letting this happen without any vocal defense from administration people. They are making the chairman look weak and indecisive."
Lugar has been doing that pretty much on his own, without anyone's help, for the past month on the Bolton nomination. On Tuesday, Lugar sat stone-faced at the table, rarely attempting to push back against the Democratic onslaught on Bolton's character.
Lugar's inaction is in part due to his anger over Bolton's written responses, or lack there of, to questions submitted by Democrats. In some cases, according to the staffer, Bolton simply ignored the questions or wrote responses that did not address specific points the Democrats were seeking
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
The chairman IS weak and Indecisive. He didn't need any help from the W.H. to be known for what he is.
REPUBLICANS HAD BETTER GET THIS STRAIGHT! NO MORE MONEY! NO MORE VOTES! NO MORE MAJORITY!
Either govern as the Majority we elected you to be, or we're going to send you all straight back to the basements of your parents homes.
I don't want to hear your damn excuses. I don't want spineless jellyfish trying to blame this on the W.H. Get your acts together and grow up! Delay doesn't run to the W.H, but then he is a real Man. he knows how to get a conservative agenda passed and keep his members in line.
The president knows how to deal with the world body. And you wimps cannot even manage Harry Reid. Pitiful. Shameful. Humiliating.
The Holy Spirit is something Voinovich lacks ;-)
Can you see me rolling my eyes!!!!
Voinovich needs to be moved right out of the Republican Party
Lugar folded like a cheap suitcase!
Jello.
redrock
We have a lot of wimps for Republican Senators. But the strongest of all Republicans must include the President. He must drop the SS trail and get back with the Senate Republicans and give them a pep talk. He should question those Republicans why they are left leaning. Leadership is a responsibility the President must take. What good is it doing for the President to travel to various States pushing the SS. The States don't pass legislation, the House, Senate, and with his approval or veto, the President.
Give me a break, already!! Lugar's staff is saying its Bush's fault? Amazing!!
Lugar should have called for the vote before Voinovich returned instead of waiting (it would have been 9-8 then). At the very least he could have taken charge, recessed, asked Voinovich to abstain if he couldn't vote "yes", or postponed the vote until this morning. Waiting three weeks for the info to drip, drip, drip out and to allow the MSM cut Bolton up even more is inexcusable. Lugar's a weak, fish-handshake chairman who's lost control of the committee he chairs.
#21
hear,hear
My sentiments exactly.
Of course he's saying it's Bush's fault.
Typical of a wimp that allows a coup of his Committee by Biden and Voinovich. He can't take the heat, so he tries to deflect it to someone that can.
Senate Republicans are losing seats with every single moment that passes and it is their own fault. They are going to crash and burn in '06, and trust they will blame everyone but themselves for the result.
Then again, maybe it just shows again he has a hard time showing up for work and lacks a serious work ethic (which is why the time to vote came and he didn't seem to be sure what was going on).
It's a good thing there isn't a war going on because otherwise people might start to get the idea that the Republicans in the Senate don't have much of a stomach for a fight..
Why can't the Republicans SEE that they have real power when they have won over so many more new converts like myself since the last election. I've been a lifelong Democrat whose "cognitive" light switch was turned on after 9/11 and shockingly realized that white was in reality black and black was white.
Republicans and Republican agenda WON decisively in the last election. Why all this wavering?
Why are the Republicans conceding to this rejected party with its putrid agenda?
^5.
Voinovich is dirty. None of this passes the smell test.
The President has got to be beyond pissed right about now. I don't blame him, because I am too.
I found tons of stuff dating back to 2002. This had been bubbling below the surface until just a few weeks ago.
"Voinovich said that the Holy Spirit moved him to vote down Bolton yesterday."
Because he was unprepared by not attending any hearings? I think he's vying for Martinez's spotlight of the month. Not only do they not read the information available but they give their opponents ammunition to clobber them with.
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