Bolton Nomination is Now 'All Dead'
As Billy Crystal once explained, "There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead." Before the elections, John Bolton's nomination was mostly dead. Linc Chafee had stopped it dead in its tracks, a move that sadly will, in all likelihood, be his last act of consequence as a senator. Now that Democrats will control the Senate in the 110th Congress, the nomination is all dead. Not even a fully potent miracle pill can bring it back.
With Chafee on his way out, the White House has little leverage to bargain with him for a committee vote on Bolton. Even if such a vote did take place, Harry Reid now says he will definitely not allow a floor vote to happen in the upcoming lame-duck session. That means the Bolton nomination would have to go through a Democratic Senate with Joe Biden at the helm of the Foreign Relations Committee. Biden confirmed the obvious yesterday: that's not going to happen.
As we know, President Bush's backup plan was to appoint Bolton to a lower position and then tap him as acting U.N. Ambassador, but that's not going to happen because it would be a slap in the face to Democratic leaders with whom Bush has apparently decided he's going to need to cooperate.
Stewart Stogel, whose NewsMax article leaves little doubt as to his pro-Bolton bias, also says that former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell is on the short list to replace Bolton. Mitchell teamed up with Newt Gingrich this year to write an excellent report on the U.S.-U.N. relationship. If Bush is planning on being a "uniter, not a divider," Mitchell would be a good pick.
The U.S.-U.N. partnership has been fruitful for 60 years. It's time to start putting the pieces back together.
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