Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Milwaukiedave]

Early rupture with Democrats at risk

By Helene Cooper / The New York Times
Published: November 10, 2006

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush has pledged to be a bipartisan consensus builder now that Democrats are to control Congress, and since Wednesday he has made conciliatory gestures. The question now is whether Bush is ready to junk all of his make-nice pledges in order to keep John Bolton at the United Nations.

Officially, administration officials say they plan to make all the necessary calls to Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to try to talk them into confirming Bolton for a next term as ambassador.

"He has been extraordinarily effective up there at the UN, and now is not the time to have a gap," said a State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, repeating the official line.

But with Senator Lincoln Chafee's announcement Thursday that he would deny Republicans on the committee the last vote needed to send Bolton's nomination to the full Senate, some administration officials privately acknowledge that Bolton's chances of getting Senate confirmation are "nil," one State Department official said. "We know it's not going to happen."

For Bush, is Bolton worth keeping at UN?In this situation, the usual next step would be for Bolton to withdraw from consideration and for Bush to nominate a less polarizing candidate - perhaps bringing Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad back from Baghdad, or turning to the State Department counselor, Philip Zelikow; the under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs, Paula Dobriansky; or even Chafee himself, following his own re-election defeat in Rhode Island. All those names have been floated both inside and outside the administration.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/10/news/bolton.php

[ddeubel]

[Gopher]

[Ya-ta Boy]

The smarter move would have been to quietly tell Bolton that his appointment was not going to be sent to the Senate to be made permanent. It would have been taken by the UN and foreign governments generally as a sign the White House was changing tack. That would have been a good thing. But it's too late for that now.

The next best thing is for Bush/Bolton to withdraw his nomination.

I look at this nomination as one of the prime examples of over-weening presidential power-grabbing. Bush knew Bolton would not likely get confirmed, so he waited for the Congressional recess and appointed him temporarily--making an end run around legitimate Senate responsibility.

Surely, Bolton is not the only one of us 300 million who is of the proper stature and qualifications who could serve with distinction at the UN.

[khyber]

In all honesty, it appears that Bolton's ridiculous, pre appointment rhetoric has sorta died down non?

I'm not sure how good of a job he's done. I DO know the world (nor the UN) hasn't really changed that much so I can only assume that he's NOT doing the job he promised he'd do.

[Kuros]

It should be Chafee to replace Bolton. Chafee lost in R.I. because of Bush, plain and simple (scroll down to R.I. message, the damned link doesn't work).