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
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(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
To ANY Indiana Freeper: Please call Lugar's office and ask him WHAT were the questions that the Dems asked Bolton that he wouldn't answer. PLEASE.
I'm from Illinois, but I did call Lugar's office after watching that pathetic hearing.
A freeper said he folded because he was so alarmed that Bolton hadn't answered some of the Dems written questions. I want to know what they were......my guess is that they were on the line of "When did you stop beatng yur wife".
Well .. evidently Rush doesn't think so - he just exposed the whole story - and there are 2 people who have outed the MOB lady - her boss and the guy who was heading the project.
After reading what both of them said about her - the dems will have to abandon her.
And .. what do you do with a list of 94 former co-workers who have signed a letter stating that Bolton is the perfect candidate - along with 5 former Secretaries of State.
This is not looking good for the dems at all.
Well, not to argue that the Dems do that, but why would Lugar be so disgusted with the responses of Bolton if the questions were loaded in the first place?
Unless Lugar can't discern a loaded question....which may be a possibility.
DUH....There is no "there" there in Lugar...sad case.
My question is why weren't there any republicans passionately defending Bolton the way Biden & co. were slandering him? Biden scared poor Voinovich. This has been a disheartening week. Who the hell do we turn to?
It doesn't take much to blind side Lugar.......he's waaaaaay too timid. And Voinovch is a DUMBA*S.
Bolton is finished.
Not quite yet. He has a better than even chance of getting out of committee. The WH is behind him, and the recent charges aganist Bolton are phony. I don't see the WH backing down, and Voinovich, Hagel and Chaffee will probably vote Bolton onto the Senate floor.
Where the nomination will stall in the face of cloture games, unless the GOP stands up and does its Constitutional duty.
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