War and Piece features loads and loads of senators' comments on Bolton today. One that struck me as particularly noteworthy and indictative of why he shouldn't be trusted with a senior government job came from Sen. Biden (D-DE): I don't ever recall a nominee being put forward by the president that had so many people who worked for the president come forward and say that the nominee should not be confirmed. [and Biden's been in the Senate since 1973]
Fred Kaplan noted another key line from Sen. Voinovich (R-OH):
He was such a loose cannon that Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state, forbade him to say anything in public without prior approval. A half-dozen officials, most of them Republicans who served in this administration, say that Bolton would make—in the words of Colin Powell's chief of staff—"an abysmal ambassador." Voinovich said today that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured him that Bolton would be firmly supervised in his new job. Voinovich wondered, "Why in the world would you want to send somebody up to the U.N. that has to be supervised?"
Sadly though it seems we will now be stuck with this dangerously unqualified buffoon. And who do we have to thank? George Bush and Lincoln Chafee, among others. While it's too late to do anything about the former, I look forward to the voters of Rhode Island electing Matt Brown or Sheldon Whitehouse to the Senate next year. While in general I think Chafee has been one of the nation's better senators (in terms of his voting record) - his weak-kneed cowardice on this vote is appalling.
Posted by armand at May 12, 2005 09:26 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics