Posted on 12/05/2006 5:52:57 AM PST by Quilla
It’s official: John Bolton has been sacrificed. The question is, how far will the dagger plunge into the back of America’s foreign policy interests?
President Bush has accepted Bolton’s resignation after the recess-appointed UN ambassador was unable to secure a vote in the Senate. The Left, led by a vindictive Lincoln Chafee eager to get back at the president he blames for his much-deserved defeat, refused to bring the Bolton nomination to the floor.
Unlike the first stormy Bolton hearing, there was little question he would have been confirmed this time. In April 2005, it seemed unlikely Bolton could be referred out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This time, Sen. George Voinovich, R-OH, dropped his once-lachrymous opposition, and even if Chafee voted no, he could have been referred to the full body on a tie. According to White House spokesman Tony Snow, 58 senators had pledged to confirm Bolton – two too few to keep the Legislative Branch Left from consolidating its grasp on foreign policy.
All the Left’s campaign talk of the coveted “power of oversight” notwithstanding, at this crucial moment in world history, the United States is without representation in the world body, because the Senate refused to perform its duty to “advise and consent” the president vis-à-vis his appointments.
For Bolton, no good deed went unpunished. “John Bolton’s been a tireless advocate for the United States at the UN,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino accurately recounted. Bolton helped cap the UN budget in the wake of the Oil-for-Food scandal, freezing funds until it adopts reforms to curb its endemic corruption. This should be a top priority for a party committed to expanding the scope, mandate and authority (and naturally, the budget) of the world body over its member nations. (John Kerry once said, “I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”) He has undertaken exhaustive efforts to see the United Nations addresses the twin nuclear threats of Iran and North Korea. Bolton also advised against endorsing the “new” UN Human Rights Council, dominated by Amnesty International superstars like Cuba, China, and Saudi Arabia. Although he was branded a firebrand, “kiss-up/kick-down” roughneck by his Senate opponents in 2005, his “consensus-building style” should have humiliated them. Instead, he is now seeking another position, while they continue to man the levers of power in Washington. His eventual successor will note well the assurances he must make – and the policies he must pursue – if he wishes for a longer tenure than his predecessor.
These are the first fruits of the Democratic Party’s bitter plan to micromanage President Bush into an Iraqi surrender – sorry, “strategic redeployment to a safer position.” In the coming two years, the new Congressional titans will unleash increased filibusters, obstructionism, independent counsels, impeachments, and open-ended investigations against whomever continues to buck their desire to throw American prestige and the nascent Iraqi democracy under a bus.
Aside from cutting off funds in the midst of a war, constitutionally the Congress has little power over a war already in progress, an area reserved since the days of Washington, to the commander-in-chief. The time for Congress to speak was before the invasion, when Congressional Democrats, lacking the courage to vote their beliefs, voted for the war before they voted against it. Now they seek to hand the terrorists the greatest propaganda victory since the withdrawal from Somalia. Bin Laden regularly cites that, along with Vietnam and Lebanon, as his two main inspirations. A Baghdad caliphate would furnish international terrorism with a recruiting message beyond compare.
President Bush need not surrender the political battle. He could have appointed (or could still appoint) Bolton as “Acting United Nations Ambassador,” allowing him to remain in Turtle Bay for 210 days. Bush could strengthen his own negotiating power with another recess appointment of a “hardliner,” as I outlined here. If Bolton were re-nominated two months after the recess appointment of Alexander Haig, Jeane Kirkpatrick, or Jesse Helms, he might appear more palatable. And it would serve notice to the surging Capitol Hill leftists that the president had joined the battle to preserve his own role in setting American foreign policy.
After Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, some suggested Bush would offer Bolton as his second blood sacrifice to the Democratic Party Left.
If Bolton is replaced by Jim Leach or a Robert Gates clone, the Bush Doctrine’s cause of death may safely be classified as suicide.
We don't get to publicly beg the Russians for support for sanctions against (Korea, Syria, Iran, the madman of the day). BFD.
We don't get to stand up for Israel in the 150 : 10 votes. BFD.
What else?
Remember, it now is only a "gentlemans fillabuster", meaning no speeches, no days on end of staying awake and keeping the senate tied up.
Now its a phone call to say "the fillabuster is on", and then they all go home or off to collect lobbyist and donor checks, while the country loses.
I doubt that reid will be as "generous" as frist was.
You mean Germany, France, and Russia? The same folks whose troops are missing from Iraq and Afghanistan?
No they have not forgotten, nor will they.
Liberals have successfully tarnished anything "Bush" or "Bush administration" as pure evil. Hillry set the get Bush stage when she took her feminazi mouth to the Senate floor, holding her New York newspaper and shrieked, What did Bush know and when did he know it. One does have to wonder exactly what liberals demanded of President Bush to give him authority to remove Saddam, after Saddam refused that last opportunity to give up his weapons of mass destruction.
This has been like a surreal drama of lies and deception out of these liberals, they obviously had their futures at stake, invested in UN governance.
He was too mean-spirited and strong willed in defending US interests--in an organization known for its compassion, caring, reasoned thought, consensus resolutions and strong pro-US actions. s/off
Why would anyone want to be an ambassador to an anti-sovereignty, anti-american cesspool of unconstitutionalism? If he was indeed sincere in his disgust of the UN as any patriot should be, seing as how it is irrelevant to the american rule of law which is the constitution, he would have called for the removal of the US in that money laundering crminal body. He then could have said "after this, my service and anyone else's, will no longer be needed. We should therefore abolish the position, get out of the UN, and save american taxpayers millions of dollars." Granted, the globalists would never allow such a swat against their precious new age old boys club.
I agree...
You're as angry as I am.
This failure is big. The tyrants of the world are smiling. They have used the Democrats to promote an ineffective UN. Nothing could be better for them.
What does that say about Bush's acceptance of his resignation?
I don't believe so.
As I recall the 'Nuclear Option' was only going to pertain to no filibustering of Judicial Nominations and them getting an up or down floor vote.
Bolton's demise 'this time' is due solely to Lincoln "I want my blankey" Chafee holding him up in committee.
Not that I disagree on Frist, someone apparently took his gonads long ago.
All we can really do is visit ideologically mixed groups and ask those same questions. While it changes few liberal minds, it does expose their stupidity to the fence sitters and moderates.
"However not one can tell me what he did wrong or why they don't like him."
Don't you recall the major charge against Bolton from his previous confirmation hearing?
His secretary said he sometimes "wasn't nice".
Seriously and honest-to-God, that was the major charge.
"John Bolton: meanie".
I doubt very much that the above scenario is correct. President Bush would have done this immediately if it was possible and of course if Bolton agrees.
Yes, I do mean these three, China can't be left out of the mix either. Some nations around this globe do make hefty economic profit off terrorist dictators. Capitalism has become their weapon of deception.
N.Korea nor Iran could have gone nuclear, that great Clinton equalizer of all nations, without the assistance of these seated at the inner most sanctum of the UN.
Bolton wasn't "sacrificed" he was "killed" by the dems.
Chaffe deserves alot of the blame but lets not one senator skate here........Dick Lugar chaired that committee and he let it die, he wouldn't push he just sat there like tits on a boar.
Unfortunately he's my senator and I will cheer the day he departs the building.
I specifically recall that the major charge against Bolton by Rats and RINOs was that he "wasn't nice".
Seriously. That was it.
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