From FoxNews: Senate Panel Clears Bolton's Nomination.
John Bolton's nomination for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was sent out of committee Thursday, albeit with a glaring asterisk.The Republican-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10-8 in favor of sending Bolton's nomination forward to a full floor vote, but without a recommendation.
Committees that are unsure about a nominee may send a vote to the floor without an endorsement, to allow the full Senate to decide. Bolton should have an easier time there, where Republicans hold a 55-45 majority.
UPDATE I: Coincidentally, the following story replaced Bolton as the main story on the FoxNews Web page: 'Star Wars' Set to Premiere in 10 Cities.
UPDATE II -- May 13: From CNN: Democrats play for time to block Bolton nomination.
President Bush's nomination of John R. Bolton to be U.N. ambassador has been shaken again by a Republican senator's surprise opposition to the embattled nominee, and Democrats hope to seize the opportunity and defeat him in the Senate.At a minimum, they will play for delay, make the White House squirm and renew accusations that Bolton was overly aggressive as the State Department's top arms-control official, pushing his views and trying to damage the careers of officials who disagreed with him.
UPDATE III -- May 15: Mark Steyn explains why Bolton is being demonized: Bolton’s sin is telling truth about system. (Hat tip to Tom Pechinski)
John Bolton’s sin is to have spoken the truth about the international system rather than the myths to which photo-oppers like the Canadian prime minister defer. As a consequence, he’s being treated like a container of Western aid being processed by Indonesian customs. Customs Inspector Joe Biden and Junior Clerk Voinovich spent two months trying to come up with reasons why Bolton’s paperwork is inadequate and demanding to know why he hasn’t filled out his RU1-2. An RU1-2 is the official international bureaucrat’s form reassuring the global community that he’ll continue to peddle all the polite fictions, no matter how self-evidently risible they are. John Bolton isn’t one, too. That’s why we need him.
Steyn also details how tsunami aid has been stalled in a bureaucratic quagmire.
UPDATE -- May 17: This cartoon appears in today's Investor's Business Daily and The Detroit News.
Posted by Forkum at May 12, 2005 05:06 PM
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