TWN has just learned from a senior level source that former Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation John Wolf has been interviewed by Republican and Democrat staff members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and validated that John Bolton demonstrated patterned and frequent vindictive behavior towards numerous subordinates at the State Department.
John Bolton refused to live by the rules that other diplomats, career and non-career, had to live by working at the State Department. Bolton is being irresponsibly rewarded by President Bush and Dick Cheney for violating every rule in the book when it came to serving the U.S.
Sid Blumenthal has written a blistering critique of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s position on John Bolton, making the lucid and appropriate point that whereas Colin Powell has frequently put the interests of the nation above loyalty to those on petty power trips, Rice seems to be doing the opposite.
Tomorrow the administration will receive a letter co-signed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar and Ranking Member Joseph Biden requesting that the 10 NSA intercept transcripts requested by John Bolton during his tenure as Under Secretary of State be made available to Senators and cleared senior Committee staff.
Tonight I helped host the Chairman of the Free Democratic Party of Germany’s Parliamentary Group, Wolfgang Gerhardt, at a forum organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
Some Senators involved in the Battle over Bolton have never seemed so small.
The original blogger, before there were blogs, was Chris Nelson with his Nelson Report. The only difference in what he does today is that he sends his uber-insider zingers to high-paying readers, whereas most of us just do all this posting for fun or an occasional turkey sandwich. Nelson’s latest on Bolton: Bolton gossip. ….
Trying to find out the U.S. officials named in the NSA intercepts is going to be complicated and difficult — particularly because they are highly classified and also because the State Department and Bush administration are working over-time to try and prevent Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from seeing them.
I just caught this item this morning on Stygius. Not only were the British furious over Libya, but also over Iran. Bolton has been a one-man wrecking crew undermining American national security diplomacy and angering friends.
My colleague and friend Robert Wright has an outstanding op-ed in the New York Times today that should remind everyone that the real reason for opposing John Bolton is that he has Neanderthal policy positions when it comes to dealing with the country’s largest national security problems.
