April 22, 2005
AS GOOD AS CONFIRMED:
US hawks face defeat in Bolton debacle (Jim Lobe, 4/22/05, Asia Times)
Demands by a key Republican senator for a two-week delay in the vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on John Bolton as Washington's next UN ambassador mark a significant and potentially strategic defeat for Vice President Dick Cheney and the administration hawks he led during George W Bush's first presidential term.
There's no surer sign that neocons are winning than that Jim Lobe thinks they're losing.
However, if Mr. Bolton doesn't get confirmed the President could really shaft Democrats by picking Joe Lieberman for the UN instead, giving the GOP another Senate seat.
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 22, 2005 10:37 AMLieberman indicated that he had no interest in the position right after Danforth resigned. He is holding out for Secretary of Defense after Rumsfeld resigns.
Posted by: Dan at April 22, 2005 10:50 AMCount on a recess appointment.
Posted by: BJW at April 22, 2005 10:58 AMDan:
Tell him that's how he gets there. He doesn't want to be in the Senate anymore.
Posted by: oj at April 22, 2005 11:01 AMFrom what I've read Voinovich pushed for the delay not because he was against Bolton but because he was completely unprepared for the vote (which is unexcusable). I bet Voinovich will support Bolton but unfortunately his delay has given the Dems 2 more weeks to turn Hagel and Chafee.
I think the committee can still send it to the full Senate for a vote but it appears that even if Bolton gets a vote it will be close in the full senate as RINOs abandon the party.
Posted by: AWW at April 22, 2005 11:55 AMHow about Victor Davis Hanson as U.N. Ambassador if Bolton is not confirmed?
Posted by: GER at April 22, 2005 6:38 PMOJ:
The scuttlebut I heard was that Lieberman was approached about both the UN job and the DNI job, but it was one of those "if the President offered, would you take the job" approaches, and that Lieberman said no, but he took some time to answer in both cases. You are right, he is very unhappy in the Senate, and his wife (spouses have a lot more influence than the media ever realizes) is livid at what she sees as the disrespect the party has shown her husband (at social gatherings around DC, she has repeatedly recited vote statistics from heavily Jewish areas in Florida that show how much difference his presence on the ticket made in 2000.)
Posted by: Dan at April 22, 2005 8:44 PM