Reply #90: International paper says vote will be held on Tuesday regardless of all

[Nothing Without Hope]

the charges. The neocons LIKE the same things about Bolton that we and the rest of the world deplore and despise.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/17/news/bolton.html
International Herald Tribune - Monday, April 18, 2005

Vote on UN nominee expected to go ahead

But new charges arise against Bolton
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday that he still intended to hold a vote Tuesday on the sharply contested nomination of John Bolton as chief U.S. delegate to the United Nations. He said he did not expect new allegations to block approval.

(snip)

Fulton Armstrong, a former national intelligence officer for Latin America, was quoted this weekend as saying that Bolton and another administration official, Otto Reich, had sought his transfer to signal that analysts would be well-advised to cooperate on intelligence matters, The New York Times reported, quoting Democratic aides on the committee.
The panel's senior Democrat, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, said that if Bolton had intimidated subordinates in a bid to shape intelligence, he would have dangerously little credibility at the United Nations. "What happens when our ambassador has to stand up and make the case on intelligence relating to Iran and North Korea?" Biden said on Fox-TV. "Do you think John Bolton is going to be believed?"

(snip)

Biden also referred Sunday to a former employee of the Agency for International Development who, as he put it, "said she'd been essentially harassed by John Bolton." Biden apparently was referring to Melody Townsel, who has said that in 1994, while legal counsel to a group working for the agency, she had a prolonged confrontation with Bolton. There has been no independent confirmation of this.
(snip)

Republicans say Bolton's past criticism of the United Nations and his strong personality give him the credibility and tools to press effectively for UN reform, a Bush priority.

(snip)

The last paragraph says it all. Unfortunately. We know what "UN reform" means to the Bush administration - it will be a poodle or it will be crushed. This extreme arrogance and bullying is going to bring us a huge number of problems, short term and long term.