On “The Young Turks” Radio Show, Senator Dick Durbin says the Bolton bilibuster needs only one more vote to succeed.
Frankly, this is better than I thought we had, and we have until mid-September to wrangle that vote.
The temperature around the Bolton vote is different than last March when the fight had a different kind of political significance.
But remember — preempting the confirmation of John Bolton as US Ambassador to the United Nations was the first kick-back in a foreign policy matter that the Bush administration had handed to it.
And behind the high stakes drama in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (on the controversial NSA intercepts) and then on the floor of the Senate when Bolton lost two cloture votes in a row were a great number of senior Republicans who opposed Bolton and kept fueling the stories that led to the gridlock.
We should be able to muster some of the same through August and early September — and the Dems do not want to concede to a President who needs to be finally shown he is indeed a lame duck. For Dems to step back now will only confirm in the minds of many Americans a spinelessness and lack of resolve about principled and enlightened American engagement in global affairs.
For those interested, I will be speaking about the John Bolton hearings today on “The Young Turks” at 6:30 pm Eastern tonight.
— Steve Clemons
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