Blogging Bolton for Brad. Back to blogging clippings that Brad doesn't have time to discuss.

I dawdled and this is seriously out of date. It reports new proof that John Bolton should not be our UN ambassador and answers the insincere questions of nervous Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations committee of whether the cases of fighting for intelligence failure by abusing intelligence analysts form a pattern. Of course they knew they do, but now they can't pretend that they don't know.

Today's news, which was certainly news to Sonni Efron, L.A. Times Staff Writer too, is that the Republican who broke ranks was not Hagel or Chafee but Voinovich. When he spoke in favor of a delay (which hints he might have voted no if forced to vote) Sen Lugar agreed to a 3 week delay. This is very costly to Bolton, since new proof of his unfitness is emerging daily. The Republicans are humiliated because after extreme measures (shutting down the Senate) taken to force a vote today (yesterday in Italy) they had to back down.

The people in the worst position are those like Hagel and Chafee who insist that they are willing to consider the merits of the accusations against Bolton but that, so far, they are planning to vote yes. The merits of the case against Bolton grow so much stronger every day that their mommas would not be able to believe that they were sincerely concerned a week ago and still intend to vote yes today. Imagine what it will be like in 3 weeks.

Senator Hagel has a fairly good reputation and is generally believed to be fairly honest. He can not be pleased to have to claim that he never discussed his aid Rexon Ryu's experience with Bolton until journalists found out about it. "Hagel learned Thursday of the incident involving Rexon Ryu, a State Department nonproliferation analyst on temporary assignment to Hagel's staff. Although Hagel serves on the Foreign Relations Committee and questioned Bolton during the hearings, Ryu did not tell his boss about his problems with Bolton until Ryu learned that the incident would appear in news reports." and that pigs fly. Pathetic.

Journalists who have to pretend that they believe that Chafee and Hagel are being honest are also in a tricky position. The UN amabasador nominee has no clothes and people have mentioned it.

It is also interesting that even anonymous supporters of Bolton can't think of an argument for approving the nomination except that Bush nominated him.

Other former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, offered differing views about whether the reports of Bolton's treatment of intelligence analysts or other employees was germane to his job performance at the United Nations.

"[snip] U.S. envoys to the U.N. can be creative and problem-solving — or can be creative and problem-creating."

[snip]"

But another former Washington insider, who dislikes Bolton, nevertheless argued that the hearings had not produced sufficient evidence against Bolton to justify rejecting the president's choice of an envoy.

If every official who was unpleasant to staff was barred from high office, "Washington would be depopulated," the source said.

he said/he said is he said Bolton is a bad nominee but he said Bolton is a nominee. Some debate.

I am fairly confident that the Bush administration will not back down. Not their style. I think they are going to subject themselves and Bolton to more humiliation, and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.