1.

SENATE COMMITTEE ADVANCES BOLTON AS U.N. ENVOY

Reuters
May 12, 2005

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=752171

WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee on Thursday sent John Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to the full Senate, but without an endorsement after a key Republican branded President Bush's choice as unfit for the job.

While the committee action advanced Bolton's nomination, Republican Sen. George Voinovich's stinging criticisms of Bush's choice for U.N. ambassador gave Democrats more ammunition to fight his confirmation in the full Senate.

The White House said it was confident the Republican-led Senate would confirm Bolton, who Bush has touted as the best choice to push for reforms at the world body.

"We respect Sen. Voinovich's decision, but there are many people who agree with the president that John Bolton is the right person at the right time for this important position," spokesman Scott McClellan said.

While Bolton's prospects were good in the Senate, which Republicans control 55-45, Voinovich's defection was an embarrassment for Bush who has worked aggressively for Bolton, a favorite of conservatives.

The committee voted 10-8, along party lines, to advance the nomination. Democrats argued that the committee should reject Bolton and force Bush to find a better candidate.

Voinovich of Ohio, who had not tipped his hand earlier on how he would vote, blasted Bolton as "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be."

2.

A SETBACK FOR BOLTON IN BID TO BE U.N. ENVOY
By Brian Knowlton

International Herald Tribune
May 13, 2005

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/13/news/bolton.php

WASHINGTON -- The nomination of John Bolton as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations suffered a setback Thursday when a Republican senator dug in his heels in opposition, calling Bolton "the poster child for what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be."

But the senator, George Voinovich of Ohio, said that in fairness to President George W. Bush, the Foreign Relations Committee should forward Bolton's name to the Senate floor, without recommendation. The Republican-dominated committee later voted on party lines, 10 to 8, to do so.

Republicans hold 55 of the 100 seats in the Senate, and confirmation requires a simple majority of 51 votes.

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said he was confident that Bolton would prevail. From the Republican administration's viewpoint, the outcome was mixed, but less positive than it expected days ago -- it had hoped for a recommendation, but was eager to avoid an outright rejection.

Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said he did not know whether Bolton could be defeated on the floor, though a bruising debate appeared likely.

"Would I have liked it better to have a no vote?" he said. "Yes."

Still, the united Democratic opposition to Bolton, the misgivings of a few other Republican senators and Voinovich's vow to oppose Bolton on the Senate floor made confirmation less automatic than might have been supposed.

A defeat on the floor would be seen as a sign that Bush's power, early in his second term, is already encountering its limits, despite Republican control of Congress.

Voinovich had delayed an earlier vote by the committee when he expressed doubts about the embattled nominee, and now he has created an unusual situation for a presidential selection for so important a post.

Having missed the panel's first sessions on the nomination, Voinovich said Thursday that he since had spent hours reading transcripts and meeting privately with Bolton, the top arms-control diplomat at the State Department.

But Voinovich had little positive to say about the nominee, a man strongly supported by some top conservatives in the administration.

With the United States facing severe criticism abroad "for what the world calls arrogance, unilateralism, and for failing to listen," the senator asked, what message would be sent by naming a U.N. ambassador "who himself has been accused of being arrogant, of not listening to his friends, of acting unilaterally, of bullying those who do not have the ability to properly defend themselves?"

Lugar, in a not entirely uncritical defense, rejected Democrats' complaints about Bolton as political, procedural or irrelevant. He said that extensive investigation had shown that "many of the allegations have proven to be groundless, or at least overstated."

Against the harsh assessments of several present or former U.S. officials -- Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell when he was secretary of state, said that Bolton would make an "abysmal ambassador" -- Lugar offered "dozens of positive testimonials," including those of several former Republican secretaries of state.

Powell was not one of these, Democrats later noted.

Lugar said Bolton's harsh criticisms of the United Nations (he once said it would function as well with 10 fewer floors) made him particularly well placed to undertake the job of reform. If he succeeds, Lugar said, he will "be in an excellent position to convince skeptics that reform has occurred."

The senator conceded that "Secretary Bolton's actions were not always exemplary."

"The picture is one of an aggressive policy maker who pressed his missions at every opportunity and argued precipitously for his point of view," Lugar said.

But he said there was no evidence of serious misconduct. A vote against Bolton, he said, would mean that "President Bush's hand will be weakened at the U.N."

The administration has sought to cast the debate as not about Bolton's personality, which it admits can be gruff and aggressive, but over the urgency of change at the United Nations.

Voinovich argued, however, that it was "nonsense" to suggest that only Bolton could spearhead changes.

Based on what he had learned, the senator said, "I believe that John Bolton would have been fired -- fired -- if he'd worked for a major corporation."

Senator George Allen of Virginia, a Republican, conceded that Bolton was not always artfully diplomatic, but said that bluntness was hardly disqualifying. "We are not electing Mr. Congeniality," he said.

Along with Voinovich, other fence-sitting Republicans expressed doubts Thursday about Bolton. Referring to the allegations that Bolton had intimidated analysts, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island said, "I'm apprehensive that by promoting John Bolton, we're signaling an endorsement of that intimidation."

And another Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, said the nominee's remarks on North Korea had been "inflammatory at a time when we were trying to promote diplomacy."

3.

BOLTON BATTLE REVEALS EXTREME POLARIZATION
By Ronald Brownstein

Los Angeles Times
May 12, 2005

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-051205assess_lat,0,4241813.story?coll=la-home-headlines

WASHINGTON -- The tumultuous Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote to advance the nomination of John Bolton today distilled the polarizing political dynamics of George W. Bush's presidency into a single illuminating day.

Like so many of Bush's initiatives, the nomination of the blustery Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations energized conservatives, outraged Democrats and squeezed moderates in both parties.

And as he has many times before, Bush won the legislative fight by the narrowest of margins -- maintaining just enough support from Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio and other conflicted Republicans on the committee to overcome uniform Democratic opposition and move the nomination to the floor on a party-line vote.

In that way, the vote demonstrated again Bush's willingness to live on the political edge -- to accept achingly narrow margins in Congress and at the ballot box to pursue ambitious changes that sharply divide the country.

"This is their style of governing," said Marshall Wittmann, a former aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now serving as a fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council. "You build upon the base and pressure the middle and you ignore the other side. You push across the finish line and you move on. In their mind a win is a win, regardless of how narrow or polarizing it is."

So far, this hardheaded approach has allowed Bush to move more of his agenda into law than appeared possible for a president twice elected with narrow majorities. But it has also bitterly divided the country over his presidency and so alienated congressional Democrats that Bush often needs virtually lock-step Republican support to pass his key priorities.

The next few weeks will severely test Bush's ability to maintain that partisan unity, as Congress approaches explosive battles over ending judicial filibusters and restructuring Social Security -- as well as the Senate vote on Bolton himself.

Rarely has a nominee reached the Senate floor with a less enthusiastic send-off than Bolton received when the committee voted on a 10-8 party line basis to forward his nomination without recommendation. During the debate, Voinovich and other committee Republicans expressed sufficient reservations about Bolton to sustain a spark of hope among critics that enough GOP moderates might defect to sink the nominee on the Senate floor.

"What Voinovich did was reframe the issue back on the big issues, create the space for people to oppose him and bolster the Democrats," said Steven C. Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, who opposed the nomination.

But several Capitol Hill aides from both parties said they believed a narrow confirmation for Bolton now appears likely unless Democrats mounted a filibuster against him, which they may be reluctant to do amid the judicial fight.

Although Voinovich indicated he would oppose Bolton on the floor, one senior Democratic Senate aide said that "based on what I have seen so far," he did not believe enough Republicans would join him to block confirmation.

The committee vote on Bolton provided a textbook case of the gambles that Bush takes in devising his agenda -- and the forces that have allowed him, more often than not, to collect on those bets.

Historically, the U.N. ambassador has drawn less controversy than other members of the national security team, like the secretaries of State and Defense. But the White House virtually guaranteed a storm by selecting Bolton, an outspoken critic of the U.N. and staunch conservative whose performance as undersecretary of State for arms control had antagonized both Democrats and many traditional foreign policy internationalists in the GOP.

At various points through the confirmation process, fully half of the 10 Republicans on the committee expressed doubts about Bolton's fitness for the job.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the committee chairman and a dean of internationalist Republicans who prize relations with traditional allies, repeatedly emphasized that he supported Bolton as the president's choice -- thus subtly signaling that Bolton was not his choice. Even while endorsing Bolton today, Lugar criticized his managerial and personal style in unusually blunt language.

Lugar was demure compared to Voinovich, the second-term senator and former Ohio governor, who excoriated Bolton in terms more scathing than almost any Democrat.

Strikingly, Voinovich not only criticized Bolton's combative personal behavior but also made a philosophical case against the appointment.

"I'm afraid that his confirmation will tell the world that we're not dedicated to repairing our relationship or working as a team, but that we believe only someone with sharp elbows can deal properly with the international community," Voinovich declared.

Several Republicans strongly endorsed Bolton, with Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) the most enthusiastic. But Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island also voiced unease with the choice, echoing earlier complaints from Nebraska's Chuck Hagel (though Hagel struck a more neutral tone today).

Yet after all the doubts from Voinovich and his fellow GOP skeptics, all supported the party line vote that kept Bolton's nomination alive by sending it to the floor without a recommendation.

One factor in today's vote was the disinclination of Republicans to deny Bush his choice for an executive branch appointment. As Lugar put it, many felt it "would take absolutely extraordinary circumstances" to tell the president "you can't have your choice."

But the vote also clearly reflected the broader reluctance of Republican senators to impede the agenda of a president whose approval rating among GOP voters has consistently stood around 90%. Bush's ability to discourage defection has also been strengthened by the House and Senate gains the GOP has made in the past two elections.

That's allowed the White House to argue that Republicans have benefited from holding together -- in contrast to the catastrophic losses congressional Democrats suffered in 1994 after the party splintered on Bill Clinton's agenda in his first two years.

"Republicans understand that George W. Bush has brought more Republicans with him in every election that he's had [since 2000] and that means something," said one GOP strategist familiar with White House thinking. "In a default position, Republicans are going to vote with him and stay with him. He's got a lot of money in the bank."

The White House's underlying strategy means that the president faces the constant danger of overdrawing his account.

On the big issues, Bush hasn't typically embraced consensus policy proposals designed to attract 60 or 65 Senate votes. More often, he has pursued bold changes that the White House recognizes are unlikely to attract more than a slim legislative majority -- if they can attract a majority at all.

Bruising, tight votes in committee and on the Senate floor are likely in the coming months on the Republican drive to ban the filibuster for judicial nominations, Bush's effort to restructure Social Security, and perhaps the final confirmation of Bolton and potentially a new Supreme Court justice as well.

Sooner or later, the extraordinary party loyalty that has fueled Bush's legislative success may break down, with the efforts to ban the filibuster and restructure Social Security the most likely candidates for a rebellion among moderate Republicans.

But today's committee vote to advance Bolton underscores the powerful impulse among most congressional Republicans to side with the president even when he pushes ideas beyond their ideological comfort zone. More than anything, the refusal by committee Republicans to sink Bolton -- even after expressing so much skepticism about him -- should send a cautionary signal to Democrats counting on GOP defections to derail the filibuster ban and other White House priorities.

The vote, said one senior Republican Senate aide, showed that GOP moderates "are willing to bend things, but not break them. Overall, it's a good sign for the majority and the administration, even as unpleasant as it was today."