May 13, 2005: Headlines: Figures: COS - Dominican Republic: Politics: Congress: Sterling Journal-Advocate: On April 19, Bolton's nomination was knocked off-track by Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. They made powerful presentations against Bolton, which clearly spooked several Republicans.

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Dominican Republic: RPCV Chris Dodd (Dominican Republic) : RPCV Chris Dodd: Archived Stories: May 13, 2005: Headlines: Figures: COS - Dominican Republic: Politics: Congress: Sterling Journal-Advocate: On April 19, Bolton's nomination was knocked off-track by Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. They made powerful presentations against Bolton, which clearly spooked several Republicans.

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-245-37.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.245.37) on Wednesday, May 25, 2005 - 5:15 pm: Edit Post

On April 19, Bolton's nomination was knocked off-track by Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. They made powerful presentations against Bolton, which clearly spooked several Republicans.

On April 19, Bolton's nomination was knocked off-track by Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. They made powerful presentations against Bolton, which clearly spooked several Republicans.

On April 19, Bolton's nomination was knocked off-track by Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. They made powerful presentations against Bolton, which clearly spooked several Republicans.

A turning point

By DAVID BROOKS, New York Times News Service


Usually the bug dies. When a presidential nominee is treated like an ant under a magnifying glass in the noonday sun, when he has the full scrutiny of the media and congressional investigators focused on him, he usually gets incinerated.

But over the past two weeks John Bolton's confirmation prospects have gotten stronger. What happened?

On April 19, Bolton's nomination was knocked off-track by Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. They made powerful presentations against Bolton, which clearly spooked several Republicans. So investigators were dispatched to interview dozens of Bolton's colleagues, to get a deeper view of his conduct.

The interview transcripts suggest that Bolton could behave in a "fairly blunt manner" and that some people felt "undue pressure" to conform to his views, as John Wolf, a former assistant secretary of state, testified.

But they also reveal that Bolton has a professional sense of limits. He'd push his views, and push hard. But after he'd had his say, he would almost always bow to the dictates of the organization.

Here's an exchange between investigators and Robert Hutchings, a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council:

Q. After Mr. Bolton blew up, or reacted strongly, as you put it, when he heard that a lot of the Cuba judgments had been modified, did he do anything? What happened? What did he do after that?

HUTCHINGS: This issue, it sort of went away. That was the end of it.

Q. He didn't seek to go behind your back and change these?

A. Not as far as I know. Those judgments were what they were, and -

Q. He let them stand.

A. Let them stand, yeah.

I could fill most of this page with exchanges of this sort. And I'm not even quoting from the interviews with Bolton's supporters. These transcripts show a man who was trying to advance a point of view while still generally operating within the bureaucratic structure of the State Department.

The speeches he gave on controversial subjects were generally cleared. Nobody was fired because of him. Nobody's career was damaged.

The other thing the transcripts reveal is that many fights over clearing speeches were not about intelligence - they were about policy. The speech-clearance process was the policy-making process. Often when Bolton was pushing back at his colleagues, he was trying to defend the president's policies from dissenters at State.

For example, Larry Wilkerson believed that America's Cuba policy was "the dumbest policy on the face of the earth," as he told GQ. He disagreed strongly with the idea of imposing sanctions on arms proliferators, as he told Senate investigators.

So when he challenged Bolton, Bolton would bend on most matters, but not on policy.

As Wilkerson himself told the Senate investigators: "There were some problems, on a number of occasions, with Undersecretary Bolton's proposed remarks. I found him to be, at that point, basically receptive to my changes that were culturally sensitive. I did not find him to be receptive when we talked about policy changes, fundamental policy changes in his speeches."

That's because Bolton's job was to stand up for the president's policies.

The momentum has shifted on the Bolton nomination because John Bolton turns out to be a more complicated figure than earlier portrayed. It's become clear that while he's abrasive, he is professional. If Sen. George Voinovich reads these transcripts before he votes, I'm sure Bolton will be confirmed.





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May 7, 2005: This Week's Top Stories Date: May 7 2005 No: 583 May 7, 2005: This Week's Top Stories
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Story Source: Sterling Journal-Advocate

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Dominican Republic; Politics; Congress

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