John Bolton slides past the US Senate (no spam)

[fable]

From the BBC:

US President George W Bush is set to appoint John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations shortly, without waiting for approval from the Senate. The president can make appointments without Congressional approval during the summer recess. Mr Bush says Mr Bolton's uncompromising style will help update, reform and strengthen the organisation. Democrats opposed to the nomination have stalled Senate approval, citing Mr Bolton's open scepticism of the UN.

Mr Bolton's candidacy has the support of many senators but a two-thirds majority would be need to win a vote in the Senate. Confirmation hearings hit the headlines during the spring but have become mired in debate as the Senate prepares to consider the nomination of John Roberts to the US Supreme Court.

Mr Bush will use his executive powers to make Mr Bolton a so-called "recess appointment". He will hold office until the next session of Congress begins in 2007. A senior Democrat senator, Christopher Dodd, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described Mr Bolton as "damaged goods. This would be the first UN ambassador since 1948 we've ever sent there under a recess appointment. That's not what you want to send up, a person that doesn't have the confidence of the Congress."

Mr Bolton served as under-secretary of state during Mr Bush's first term with key responsibility for arms control and proliferation issues.

It should be noted that Bolton helped derail a 2001 bio-weapons conference in Geneva, convened to endorse a UN proposal to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention; has been repeatedly accused of deliberately withholding information from the US State Department; and is a member of several Israeli Likkud lobbying groups in the US. His views on the UN have remained unchanged over the last several decades; as he put it in 1994, ""There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States."

Bolton is also one of the original signatories of PNAC, the Project for the New American Century. He was among the members who sent a letter to Clinton when the latter was president, urging him to remove Saddam Hussein. Republicans have disliked and criticized Bolton as well as Democrats; he's seen as being on the far-right hawkish end of US politics, even in this extremist administration.

[Cuchulain82]

A very sneaky move, but not surprising. I agree with GWB when he says that the office is too important to leave unmanned for a lengthy period of time. However, that logic does not mean that he should put Bolton in office

[Faust]

Bolton is a horrible candidate, particularly for this position. His very presence in the ambassador slot undermines and insults the United Nations, the international community as a whole, and the United States Senate. The only good news about this is that its highly unlikely that Bolton will be reappointed in 2007. By then Bush will be firmly established as a lame duck president, and its likely that even Republicans will be more cautious about being associated with his embattered nominee.

[fable]

Significantly, Holbrooke, Clinton's nominee for the UN post 7 years ago, was held up for 14 months by a Republican Senate, and actually refused a recess appointment offered to him by the president. Bolton accepted one, and he's being called "damaged goods" by squeaking in, in this fashion.

During his speech announcing the appointment earlier today, Bush actually had the gaul to state that Bolton had the "approval of the majority of the Senate." Whether he did or not (and it's questionable that he did, since several Republican senators were highly opposed to him), an appointee needs two-thirds of the Senate to win approval. Just another instance of Shrub's creative way with facts that go against him.

But the fun lies ahead, when the UN starts its new season.

[VonDondu]

I suspect that most Americans will have the following reaction: "I have no idea what the U.N. does, so it doesn't matter to me if Bush appointed Bolton without the approval of Congress."

I kind of figured that Bush would make a recess appointment. He wasn't about to back down, and that was his best chance of putting Bolton in that position. It's another case of, "I want him there, and I'm the one who gets to decide because I'm the President."

[Lestat]

What will GWB think of next to keep his buddy Rove of the front pages?

[fable]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lestat What will GWB think of next to keep his buddy Rove of the front pages?

You're right in that Shrub would love to keep Rove away from the headlines, but he's been angling for this appointment for the better part of a year. I don't think it can reasonably be linked to efforts at misdirection--though if it succeeds in doing that as well, Bush certainly will be the last to object.

[Lestat]

@ Fable: true enough. The substance of the decision is probably not really linked to this, but the timing of the announcement might very well be (at least partially).