I am writing up my notes on the Frist/McCain press conference on John Bolton held today in the Mansfield Room. Check back shortly. . . But until then, a couple of teasers. When asked why he was there with Senator Frist talking on John Bolton, Senator McCain said, “Because Bill Frist asked me to….
Something seems to be breaking on the Bolton battle. The White House may be yielding on evidence requests and communicating this through John McCain. Or they may be announcing that they think they have enough votes on cloture? Or — though I seriously doubt it — they may be throwing in the towel.
feel free to visit this new website, StopJohnBolton.com. More soon.
I have a somewhat odd request. There are quite a number of interesting organizations opposing John Bolton’s nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and among the roster of individuals — there are a lot of centrists, and even conservatives, who have been working against Bolton’s appointment.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has seemingly been pushed into the Bolton mess by Karl Rove, who pretends to be Card’s Deputy.
Senators Chris Dodd and Joseph Biden have sent another letter (TWN will post letter on Monday) to the administration proposing that if National Intelligence Director John Negroponte is willing to deal, the Dems will send the names of three dozen U.S. official’s names to learn if any were among those revealed to Bolton.
I’m heading over to a big bash at the Dutch Embassy tonight — and then on a long run with my dog, Oakley. You should hear what he thinks about the prospect of John Bolton at the U.N. Have fun.
In case folks are interested, I just posted this on the Howard Dean controversy over at TPM Cafe. Mark Williams also was kind enough to post a video link of similar comments I made Wednesday on MSNBC on DemBloggers.com. More later.
As TWN has previously reported, the White House must concede on documents if it wants a Bolton vote. Every day the White House delays is another opportunity to turn Republicans against Bolton as they realize that this vote is no longer a throw-away vote and that their constituents are watching.
I participated in a terrific lunch today hosted at the home of the Dutch Ambassador, Boudewijn Johannes Van Eenennaam, for Anneka and Marc Chavannes, who is the brilliant outgoing Washington Bureau Chief for the NRC Handelsblad, Holland’s most important daily newspaper.