Advise And Consent Becomes Character Assassination

On Tuesday the New York Times reported that the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, would seek a delay in the scheduled vote on the nomination of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

Thanks to bumbling by the committee chairman, Senator Richard G. Lugar, Biden got his way.

Today the Wall Street Journal reacts to "The Bolton Mugging" by taking a look at the agendas of those mounting the smear campaign against John Bolton:

Look closely at Mr. Bolton's accusers, and you can see through the agendas. There is former State Department career official Carl Ford, who claims Mr. Bolton rudely disagreed with his policy positions. There is also Latin America-specialist Fulton Armstrong, whom Mr. Bolton allegedly tried to have fired. Never mind that Mr. Bolton was not the only senior State Department official to complain about Mr. Armstrong. Or that Mr. Armstrong's forgiving assessments of Cuba's Fidel Castro were influenced by the work of Ana Belen Montes, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst convicted in 2002 of spying for Cuba. This is the testimony of career analysts who disagree with Bush Administration policy and want to show that any official who disagrees with the bureaucracy will have his own career ruined in Senate confirmation.

All of this is being orchestrated by Senate Democrats Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, who represent the foreign-policy views that lost the last election. More than that, they are carrying water for a foreign-policy establishment that tried desperately to defeat Mr. Bush and failed, but now wants to pin an embarrassing defeat on the President by humiliating a nominee closely associated with his policy. This is the same establishment that so believes in the mythology of "multilateralism" that it doesn't care if the U.N. was corrupted by Saddam Hussein's Oil for Food program. Mr. Bolton is a threat to their U.N. illusions because he wants to achieve actual results.

Senators Biden and Dodd are applying the same strtegy against Bolton that the Democrats have been successfully using to prevent President Bush from getting his judicial choices confirmed, keep it bottled up in committee. The Democrats are engaging in this tyranny of the minority because there is little doubt that should Bolton's or President Bush's judicial nominees be voted on by the entire Senate the nominations will be approved. Senators Biden, Dodd and Voinovich are abusing the advise and consent function of the Constitution. As the Wall Street Journal's editorial states:

This smear campaign is all the more offensive because it is designed to avoid a genuine policy debate. Mr. Bolton, who has worked as a diplomat in two different Administrations, is being sent by Mr. Bush to lead a reform of the U.N. that desperately needs it if it is going to be effective. His skills helped repeal the U.N.'s "Zionism is racism" resolution in the early 1990s, and more recently he ran the successful and innovative Proliferation Security Initiative that helped put Libya out of the WMD business. But Democrats don't want to debate that record, because they know they'd lose. So they have set about to destroy Mr. Bolton personally instead.

Besides abusing the Senate's advise and consent role, the Senators are also being hypocritical. Mr. Bolton is now being smeared with allegations about things that might have happened years ago. It reminds me of the Democrats unsuccessful smearing of Clarence Thomas. Some allegations maybe documented, such as The Cincinnati Enquirer referring to then Governor Voinovich as "Gov. Short Fuse," which was highlighted in Wednesday's Best of the Web Today. Other allegations may just be the time-warped recollections of the politically frustrated.

The U.N. desperately needs reform. As Dore Gold details in "Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos," the U.N. is now dominated by anti-Western forces, dictatorships, state sponsors of terrorism. A tough, no-nonsense, effective professional diplomat like John Bolton can help achieve the needed reforms. Let the Senate consider the Bolton nomination.

Comments

[BobbyV]

Could we be hearing the voices of frustrated career diplomats finally standing up to the politically expedient nomination of the office bully? Let’s not assume that all career bureaucrats are lazy, under worked and overpaid paper-pushers on the public doll. Can’t we assume that some of these people may honestly believe that Mr. Bolton's confirmation as our UN Ambassador would not be in the best interest or their organization nor in that of the United States.

[Kagro X]

Senators Biden and Dodd are applying the same strtegy against Bolton that the Democrats have been successfully using to prevent President Bush from getting his judicial choices confirmed, keep it bottled up in committee. The Democrats are engaging in this tyranny of the minority because there is little doubt that should Bolton's or President Bush's judicial nominees be voted on by the entire Senate the nominations will be approved.

Didn't you get the memo? Republicans never "filibustered" those 60+ Clinton nominees, because they bottled them up in committee. Therefore, it's not an "abuse" of the Senate's advice and consent role. Or is it only an abuse when Democrats do it? Or only an abuse when Democrats convince Voinovich and Hagel to agree?

[Tami]

John Bolton's long list of fans keeps getting longer. President Bush's former ambassador to South Korea, Thomas Hubbard, has stepped forward to report on two confrontations with the beleagured nominee for U.N. ambassador.
"The issues raised by retired ambassador Thomas Hubbard help flesh out a portrait of Bolton as a hard-charging, fiercely conservative official who showed little concern for diplomatic niceties and, according to critics, has long been prone to losing his cool," reports Newsweek.

Indeed, the first allegation addresses Bolton's already well-publicized diplomatic touch: Hubbard says Bolton became irate with him during a trip to Seoul in early 2003, having been denied the opportunity to meet with South Korea's president-elect. (It was impractical to arrange such a meeting, Hubbard says, because another high level Bush official had just met with Roh Moo-Hyun the week prior.) "He was very angry," Hubbard told Newsweek. "He berated me for failing to get him the meeting." Apparently Bolton then bailed on a dinner Hubbard had set up for him with other prominent South Korean dignitaries -- not exactly reflecting well on the ol' stars and stripes.

[Richard]

Dan, it looks like you have attracted the wrath of some members of the "UN's great and America's always wrong" crowd. For some folks, standing up for American interests first is a good thing, yet for others, one's country comes dead last. It's fun to criticize, but coming up with alternative solutions is not some folk's strong suit.

Now that I've started a firestorm, I think I'll go have a drink and relax ....

[zen_less]

Um, who exactly is abusing the Constitution's (not the Senate's) "sdvise and consent" rule? Could it be a President who never ONCE sought the advise of the Senate and instead just demanded their consent? This is just the Senate reasserting their proper role as mandated by the Constitution. Don't like it, change the Constitution.

[Tami]

Bolton's a complete hack.

He's unqualified to be a mid-level manager at a post office, let alone the ambassador to the UN.

You conservatives should start nominating people who are at least qualified if you want people to start taking you seriously of their own volition.

[john]

You state "Senators Biden, Dodd and Voinovich are abusing the advise and consent function of the Constitution." What would be an example of properly using teh advise adn consent function? Just because the Dems won't roll over on this nutcase does not mean they are guilty of abusing a function of the constitution.
I would be interested in your advise and consent to my post.

[Eddie]

Please explain something to me.

If "the UN is an abject failure - a fatally flawed organization that has actually accelerated and spread global chaos. And it is dominated by anti-Western forces, dictatorships, state sponsors of terrorism, and America's worst enemies" why bother with any pretense of engagement at all.

But spare us any statements about reform.