Recently in The Bolton Affair Category

Happy day at the UN (if not at the White House): Facing unbeatable opposition on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (thanks to outgoing Senator Lincoln Chafee, to his credit, joining the Dems against him), interim UN ambassador John Bolton is forced to resign as predicted. Good riddance. "'The president now has an opportunity to nominate an ambassador who can garner strong bipartisan and international support and effectively represent the interests of the United States at the United Nations at a time of extraordinary international challenge,' [incoming committee chairman] Biden said. 'If the president nominates such a person, I look forward to scheduling hearings promptly in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.'"

"I never saw a real enthusiasm on the Republican side to begin with. There's none on our side." The next GOP casualty of the 2006 elections? If the Dems can hold off a vote through the lame-duck Congress, it might just end up being UN rep John Bolton. "The White House formally renewed its request that the Senate take up Bolton's nomination. But Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Democrats, said they continued to resist Bolton's confirmation and 'he is unlikely to get a vote any time soon.'" Update: To his credit, outgoing Senator Lincoln Chafee, who earlier announced his opposition to renewing Bolton, is sticking to his guns and siding with the Dems against Dubya on the issue. So Bolton looks to be gone in December...Koo koo kachoo.

"It is no secret that I have serious questions about this Administration's policies in the Middle East." Desperate to shore up his maverick cred before the GOP primary next week, Sen. Lincoln Chafee puts a hold on the GOP's planned Bolton coronation. (Of course, the UN would never have had to put up with Bolton in the first place were it not for Chafee's capitulation last year.)

"'It's difficult to think of many other times and many other presidencies when so many dangerous events were happening at once,' says Wendy Sherman, a State Department official under President Clinton. 'But there's so much going on in every global hot spot because the Bush Administration really opened up Pandora's box with little-to-no plans to support their actions.'" TIME Magazine composes a cover story obit for the Bush doctrine. Good riddance: "As it turns out, Iraq may prove to be not only the first but also the last laboratory for preventive war. Instead of deterring the rulers in Tehran and Pyongyang, the travails of the U.S. occupation may have emboldened those regimes in their quest to obtain nuclear weapons while constraining the U.S. military's ability to deter them."

Well, that's that, then. As expected (and although he may be late to the party), Dubya has appointed Bolton to the UN ambassadorship by fiat. Well, the Dems pushed as hard as they could on this one, and only George Voinovich ended up seeing the light. Shame on supposed moderates Lincoln Chafee and Chuck Hagel for letting this freakshow get out of committee in the first place.

Chalk up another X against Dubya's UN nominee: It now turns out John Bolton lied to Congress about his part in the investigation of the Iraq-Niger claim. (He claimed he hadn't been interviewed...He had.) Regardless, Dubya still has plans to appoint Bolton by fiat after Congress skips town. After all, what's one more liar in this truth-starved administration? He should fit right in.

Stymied by the Senate, Dubya looks to sneak Bolton into the UN with a recess appointment, perhaps as early as this Friday. "Senate Democratic leaders have removed a possible hurdle by signaling that they would not use a recess appointment of Bolton to hold up Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court." Update: Next week?

Although he's been upstaged of late by O'Connor and Rove, potential UN freakshow John Bolton still waits in the wings, and is prepared to accept a recess appointment by Dubya sometime next month. In fact, he's already acting like he owns the place. "Two months ago, while his confirmation was in trouble, Bolton began efforts to double the office space reserved within the State Department for the ambassador to the United Nations."

"'I don't know how the Bolton nomination stands,' said Danforth, who resigned in January. 'But she could certainly do that job and anything else.'" While the Bolton nomination withers on the vine, it seems career diplomat and acting US Ambassador Anne Patterson is handling the UN position with all the grace, aplomb and savvy Bolton lacks. Can we keep her?

"'The constituencies are in tension with each other...His leadership of the Senate has faltered so far as he has tried to cultivate the constituency of Republican primary voters,' Sandel said." Responding to the recent Bolton switcheroo, the WP questions whether Bill Frist has the wherewithal for the presidency. Probably not. I mean, judgment-wise, he had already lost me with the whole murdering kittens thing, to say nothing of his goofy Schiavo diagnosis or his many prostrations before the fundies. But, hey, don't fret, Senator...The bar for presidential judgment these days is pretty low.

Since the White House still won't cough up the necessary info, the Dems (and Sen. Voinovich) manage to keep Bolton out of the UN once again, prompting Dubya to consider putting him there by recess appointment fiat. (As Fred Kaplan wryly noted, that should teach those evildoers abroad what we mean by democracy up in these parts.) And the big winners in this affair thus far? The State Department, who no longer have Bolton as a "roadblock" against diplomacy.

With Social Security privatization going nowhere and Bolton still in mothballs until the White House coughs up the requested info, Dubya gets testy about Democratic "obstruction" at a GOP fundraising affair. Well, it's good to hear the right-wingers are rattled, but at some point, the Dems do need to get a proactive agenda on the table, so the "road block" schtick doesn't stick.

"Now in terms of the requests for the documents, I view that as just another stall tactic, another way to delay, another way not to allow Bolton to get an up or down vote." As per his usual my-way-or-the-highway approach, Dubya announced he's decided to stonewall the Dems by withholding the requested intelligence documents bearing on Bolton. Given that this UN appointment seems a done deal in terms of votes, you'd think our "uniter, not a divider" prez might've relished an opportunity to appear magnanimous and thus replenish some of his squandered political capital. But perhaps he didn't want to put another feather in McCain's cap so soon after the nuclear compromise...or perhaps these documents confirm anew that Bolton is unfit for his post. (Video link via Freakgirl.)

Even more troubling, in keeping with the administration's attempts to make Amnesty International this week's Newsweek, our president also put the blame for the "absurd" recent Amnesty report about our dismaying recent proclivity for torture squarely on the shoulders of "people who hate America." As Sidney Blumenthal notes, "It may be of minor ironic interest that before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration cited Amnesty International's reports on Saddam Hussein's violations of human rights as unimpeachable texts. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld often claimed Amnesty as his ultimate authority."

"'There is a growing sense of frustration with the president and the White House, quite frankly,' said an influential Republican member of Congress. 'The term I hear most often is "tin ear," ' especially when it comes to pushing Social Security so aggressively at a time when the public is worried more about jobs and gasoline prices. 'We could not have a worse message at a worse time.'" The WP wonders aloud if Dubya's already in lame duck territory. One can only hope. Update: Dubya pushes back.

"Frist had only eight years of Senate experience when he succeeded Lott, and some colleagues felt he was more Bush's choice than the GOP caucus's. He was bound to need more White House help than did up-through-the-ranks predecessors such as Lott and Dole, they said, but sometimes Bush seemed to dump tough problems at his door and walk away." As right-wing Republicans hammers the GOP moderates who crafted the nuclear compromise, Charles Babington examines the political import of Catkiller's lousy week. Meanwhile, Frist's possible primary nemesis John McCain calls for a compromise on Bolton, in which the White House would release the info they've been holding in exchange for a vote.

Still waiting in vain for the White House to turn over some crucial intelligence documents regarding Dubya's pick, the Dems succeed in holding off the Bolton vote until next week. The GOP moderates still don't seem to be joining Voinovich in apostasy, though, so it looks like Bolton will soon be representing us before the world. For shame.

A day after Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) excoriated the pick in print, the Bolton nomination goes before the full Senate. (Alas, despite Voinovich's letter, the GOP looks likely to fall in line.)

I already posted one of these in the comments yesterday, but in case you missed it: Salon and the major papers break down the impact of nuclear detente on the 2008 GOP primaries. I'm dismayed to hear purported maverick Chuck Hagel attack the compromise -- between this transparent kowtowing to primary-voting fundies and his Yes vote for John Bolton, the Senator of Nebraska is seeming less and less worthy of moderate support.

"After hours of deliberation, telephone calls, personal conversations, reading hundreds of pages of transcripts, and asking for guidance from Above, I have come to the determination that the United States can do better than John Bolton." Nevertheless, Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) will let the Bolton nod go to a floor vote, arguing he has "every faith in [his] colleagues" to do the right thing. (Sen. Chafee (R-RI), for his part, already reluctantly folded.) "Voinovich called Bolton 'the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be.' He said Bolton would be fired if he was in the private sector." Update: Fred Kaplan has more: "A special place in the halls of cowardice should be reserved for Sen. Lincoln Chafee, the Republican from Rhode Island."

"If the president believes what he said, he doesn't comprehend the nature of either crisis. If he doesn't believe it and was just reciting the usual grab bag of cliches, what was his point?" As more questions arise about John Bolton's temperamental fitness for UN ambassador, Slate's Fred Kaplan wonders aloud if Bolton's boss "gets" diplomacy either.

Meanwhile, as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee inquiry into John Bolton widens, a deeply concerned Dubya and the GOP now threaten to sidestep the concerns of Dems and moderate Republicans completely by bringing Bolton's nomination to a floor vote, regardless of the committee's recommendation. Hopefully Senators Voinovich, Hagel, and Chafee, as well as other independent-minded Senators in the Republican Party, will take serious umbrage at this attempt to ride roughshod over the committee's usual advise & consent prerogatives.

As more ugly details leak out about John Bolton's private war with dissenting intelligence analysts, Newsweek reports that England (and Jack Straw) think he's a jackass too. Is it time for Dubya & Cheney to pull the plug? Many observers think so. Update: Arlen Specter wonders aloud about Bolton's prospects on CNN Late Edition.

Dubya & Cheney may still love the guy, but right-wing freakshow John Bolton has clearly irked former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who bore the brunt of Bolton's obfuscation in the past. Will Powell's not-very-off-the-record contempt be enough to sway Sens. Chafee, Hagel, and Voinovich?

Now that Sen. Voinovich has bravely put his foot in the door, GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee also declares he's less likely to vote for John Bolton at this point. But, judging from his remarks today, Dubya isn't getting the message. After embracing the Hammer earlier this week, one wonders how many more radioactive liabilities the White House is willing to continue accommodating. At a certain point, even this administration's considerable arrogance of power will have to bow to political reality.

"It's a good guess that one of two things is going to happen in the coming days and weeks: Either Bolton goes down -- or we start learning a lot of unpleasant things about Sen. George Voinovich." (And, right now, it's looking like the latter.) To his credit, Senator Voinovich (R-OH) follows his conscience and admits "real concern" about John Bolton, forcing the Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to forestall the vote on Bolton's nomination. And, if Slate's Fred Kaplan is correct and Bolton has perjured himself, Dubya had better start warming up another right-wing freakshow for the post.

More troubling information piles up about John Bolton, Dubya's dubious UN pick -- Apparently, along with trying to spike the careers of analysts who talk back to him, Bolton has been blocking the flow of important information to Dubya's Secretaries of State. It's gotten to the point where Chuck Hagel (R-NE), one of the more rational Republicans in the Senate, has begun to voice his doubts about the candidate, although he still plans to vote for him tomorrow.

"'I'm as conservative as John Bolton is,' Ford said. 'But the fact is that the collateral damage and the personal hurt that he causes is not worth the price that had to be paid.'" A former State Department intelligence chief, described in the WP as "a loyal Republican, a staunch supporter of Bush and a 'huge fan' of Vice President Cheney," entreats the Senate to reject Bolton as UN Ambassador. (Alas, the GOP members don't seem to be biting.)

"In short, John Bolton came off as strikingly lacking in the credibility, values, and basic commitment that, especially these days, the job of U.N. ambassador requires." Slate's Fred Kaplan, a frequent critic of Dubya's freak show choice for UN ambassador, sizes up Bolton's performance before the Senate today.

"The case against Bolton, which has been made here a few times, rests not so much on his ultra-neoconservatism (an insufficient disqualification on its own) or on his past criticism of the United Nations (the organization merits criticism). Rather, it boils down to his long-standing attacks on the principles underlying the United Nations and to his wholesale rejection of the legitimacy, propriety, and even the political expediency of international law, which, after all, is the United Nations' currency of enforcement." With an editorial Hail Mary, Slate's Fred Kaplan pleads with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote down on John Bolton as UN Ambassador. We can only hope.

"There's no such thing as the United Nations...if the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." So Dubya has picked John Bolton as our new UN ambassador and, guess what? Yep, he's a right-wing freakshow. Said avowed UN enemy and former Sen. Jesse Helms (no, not yet) of Bolton: He's "the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon." Brilliant. (CLW link via BookNotes & Digby) Update: Slate's Fred Kaplan has more.