Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, Lawrence Wilkerson had this to say about John Bolton in an interview with the New York Times: “Under Secretary Bolton was never the formidable power that people are insinuating he was in terms of foreign policy, or blocking the policies that Secretary Powell wished to pursue,” Lawrence Wilkerson, who served…
Washington College student Jack Bohrer began to ask Karl Rove a question last night at a public forum about John Bolton’s United Nations nomination — and for a moment Rove let down high-charm guard, interrupted the student’s question, and began to assert his view on all things Bolton.
This is an amazing entry in tonight’s Nelson Report. It’s one of the bravest essays I have read this week — and it paints both the Democrats and Republicans amorally triangulating around the White House’s winner-takes-all, win-every-battle obsession in the Tom DeLay and John Bolton fiascos.
An important new poll conducted by Zogby International and commissioned by Citizens for Global Solutions has just been released. Here is a copy of the poll.
(photo credit: CommonDreams.org) A close friend of mine just called in tears with the news that I had missed in the Washington Post this morning.
Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld may not have been the only person bemoaning the fact that he didn’t have his own robust, independent source for national security intelligence. John Bolton too felt constantly constrained by and at war with “intelligence-packagers” at the Department of State and CIA.
Senator Chuck Hagel said yesterday that his vote is in trouble. He was inclined as of yesterday to vote for Bolton, but if the scope of concern and inquiry grew any more he indicated he could not support John Bolton’s U.N. nomination. The Washington Post‘s Dafna Linzer discloses today that the scope has widened.
Ron Brownstein does a great job at getting at the complex politics of the Bolton nomination. He writes: Chafee, facing reelection next year, is feeling as squeezed as anyone. Conservatives grumble about all the times he’s defected from Bush’s agenda.
I just read a very long but interesting piece on the blog, Obsidian Wings, about John Bolton. It’s a cluster blog, with some on the right and others on the left. One of the writers, “hilzoy,” caught most of the major reasons to oppose Bolton, and I want to link to her post.
College newspapers around the country are also getting into the question of John Bolton’s fitness to serve as America’s UN Ambassador. Robert Iafolla of USC’s Daily Trojan published a superb piece today making the case that John Bolton’s biggest problem is that he seems to be a “serial liar.
