Steve Clemons: “HARRY REID FINDS HIS GROOVE: SAYS TO WHITE HOUSE ‘NO DOCUMENTS, NO BOLTON’ — [T]he White House must concede on documents if it wants a Bolton vote.” (more below)
Laura at War & Piece: “The LA Times’ Mary Curtius on continued administration foot-dragging on Senators’ demands for documents on Bolton. And it appears that the White House is still two votes short for cloture.”
First, a nice summary on the latest Bolton news from Amy Goodman — she knows how to write it up, doesn’t she — at Democracy Now!:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that Democrats will not allow a vote on President Bush’s nominee for U.N. ambassador unless the White House hands over records of communications intercepts Bolton sought from the National Security Agency. Reid told CNN, “If they want John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, give us this information. If they don’t, there will be no Bolton.” Senators Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd have demanded the Bush administration produce ten National Security Agency communications intercepts that Bolton requested since 2001 as the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control.
More from Steve Clemons:
Supporting Bolton now has profound negative political consequences for a number of Senators.
Reid put the state of battle simply to the White House — which has been obstructing the process on getting Bolton documents since mid-April.
As reported by CNN:
“You can’t ignore the Senate. We’ve told them what we’ve wanted. The ball is in his court,” Reid, D-Nevada, told CNN. “If they want John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, give us this information. If they don’t, there will be no Bolton.”
The Senate fell four votes shy of the 60 needed to cut off debate on Bolton’s nomination in May after two Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee urged their colleagues to hold the issue open.
Cheney’s wing of the White House could still potentially get Bolton to the United Nations despite the best efforts of this blog and others in this debate — but only if it concedes defeat on the evidence requests. Will the Cheney-Bolton wing concede? There is no evidence of it yet — and if this never happens, then Bolton hovers in purgatory for a long time.
The heavy-handed tactics the White House has used in the Bolton battle have weakened the resolve of moderate Republicans to support or push Bolton.
If the Dems stand strong — and slowly pick off Republicans — those opposed to Bolton will win an up-down vote.
We have the time to accomplish that now.
— Steve Clemons
