i think we can all agree thinking is a good thing. EDIT: but i'm surprised that you would imply that the UN acting against american interests is a good thing.
just so we're clear, Frist is a giant hypocrit To defend his March 8, 2000, filibuster of Judge Richard Paez, Majority Leader Bill Frist said that voting against cloture to get more information is OK and should be distinguished from an ordinary filibuster. Here’s Frist on the 11/14/04 Face the Nation: Filibuster, cloture, it gets confusing–as a scheduling or to get more information is legitimate. Yesterday, Frist described voting against cloture to get more information on ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton as “partisan sniping.” Frist took pains to emphasize that there was no difference between delaying a nomination to get more information and a filibuster: It certainly sounds like a filibuster…. It quacks like a filibuster. Of course, when Frist voted against cloture of Paez, the nomination had been pending for four years and he was looking to block the nomination, not get more information. In this case, the Bush administration is refusing to release critical documents regarding Bolton’s conduct in the State Department.
Do we really need to debate which member of congress is the biggest hypocrite? if so, my vote goes to Robert Byrd, from Grand Dragon to Savior of the Republic in one weekend!
Bolton has no interest in whipping the UN into shape. He wants to destory the UN "There's no such thing as the United Nations. If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." his hawkish stance is in direct conflict with the UN's peacekeeping mission - he has tried (and suceeded) to withdraw the US from a lot of weapon treaties The UN is one messed up body, that is for sure, but Bolton wishes the destruction of it, not fixing it - his own statements prove he has never agreed with the US cooperating with the UN
Bush is stalling on providing the requested documents the Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats have requested. It could be his reasons for stalling have nothing to do with Bolton himself, but rather the documents contain a list of American Companies that provided illegal materials to Iran, Libya and China. I suspect the names of those companies and their executives also appear on a list of big time Bush campaign contributors... http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/01/news/bolton.php Bolton documents contain classified company names By Douglas Jehl The New York Times THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2005 WASHINGTON The information that the White House has refused to provide Congress for its review into the nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations includes the names of companies mentioned in intelligence reports on commerce with China and other countries covered by export restrictions, according to officials briefed on the matter. It had been reported that the White House was refusing to hand over only the names of 19 Americans mentioned in 10 intelligence reports by the U.S. National Security Agency. The names of the individuals and companies, which remain highly classified, were provided to Bolton by the agency in response to requests he made as under secretary of state for arms control. The Democrats who forced postponement of a vote on Bolton's nomination last week argued that the Senate should insist on access to the same information. But the White House has said Congress has "all the information it needs" to make a decision on the nomination, and at a news conference on Tuesday, President George W. Bush dismissed the request for more information as "just another stall tactic by his opponents in Congress." The administration has permitted the top Republican and the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee to review copies of 10 intelligence reports, based on communications intercepted by the agency, about which Bolton requested the additional information. But the names of Americans and U.S. companies were deleted, and the administration has refused to provide the names to Senate leaders. The government officials who described the intelligence reports declined to speak for the record, citing the classified nature of the documents and the extraordinary political sensitivity surrounding them. They would not say what countries other than China might have been the subject of the intelligence reports, but they noted that Bolton's responsibilities also included monitoring efforts to prevent Iran, Libya and other countries from acquiring dangerous weapons. The officials included people on both sides of the debate over Bolton's nomination who said they wanted to give the public a clearer picture of the nature of the dispute between Congress and the White House. The officials said either that they did not know or would not say which companies were mentioned in the documents, nor would they say whether the intelligence reports suggested that the companies were involved in any wrongdoing. The names provided to Bolton constitute one of two main subjects about which Senate Democrats are demanding additional information before a vote on the nomination. The second has to do with a prolonged dispute that Bolton waged with U.S. intelligence agencies in 2003 over assessments of the threat posed by Syria. As under secretary of state for arms control, Bolton's responsibilities included efforts to enforce sanctions involving possible weapons proliferation. The senators who were briefed about the intelligence reports by General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence, said in separate letters last week that Bolton had obtained access to what they described as "American persons' identities." But the government officials said that "persons" was a blanket term used by the agency that encompasses businesses as well. The senators, Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, chairman of the intelligence committee, and Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, its most senior minority member, both said they had concluded that Bolton had acted properly in requesting the information. Both senators said they did not need to know the names in order to reach that conclusion. But Rockefeller questioned whether Bolton might have improperly shared the names. In persuading 39 other Democrats and one independent to block until at least next week any vote on Bolton's nomination, Joseph Biden Jr., the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cited the administration's refusal to provide the names to Congress as an affront that the Senate should not tolerate. Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, the Foreign Relations Committee's chairman, joined Biden in urging the administration to give Congress the same information that Bolton received.
flamingmoe for your reading pleasure. What's Really Behind The White House Stonewall Over Bolton Documents? Perhaps we know now why the White House is fighting so furiously to prevent the Senate Intelligence Committee from getting all of the documents wanted by committee Democrats to evaluate the fitness of John Bolton to be our UN ambassador. According to Wednesday’s New York Times previewed in the International Herald Tribune, it has been leaked by administration sources that what the White House is refusing to release to the committee are reports that Bolton obtained from the NSA by way of a special request. And what is in those reports? The names of American individuals and companies that may have violated export restriction bans on the shipment of dangerous weapons material to China, Libya, and even Iran. And is it too big of a leap to assume that some or all of these firms may prove to be very damaging to the White House, as campaign contributors? Some of the information that the White House has refused to provide to Congress for its review of the nomination of John Bolton includes the names of American companies mentioned in intelligence reports on commerce with China and other countries covered by export restrictions, say government officials who have been briefed on the documents. The fact that the documents also included the names of American companies, and that the subject had to do with possible violations of American export restrictions, provides a new clue as to why the White House might be rebuffing the congressional requests. The names of the Americans and the companies remain highly classified, but they were provided to Bolton by the National Security Agency in response to special requests he made as under secretary of state for arms control. The administration has allowed the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee to review copies of the 10 intelligence reports, based on conversations intercepted by the National Security Agency, about which Bolton requested the additional information. But the names of American people and companies had been deleted from those reports, and the administration has refused to provide Senate leaders with the names, even though they were obtained by Bolton. The government officials who described the intelligence reports declined to speak for the record, citing the classified nature of the documents and the extraordinary political sensitivity surrounding them. They would not say what countries other than China might have been the subject of the reports, but noted that Bolton's responsibilities also included monitoring efforts to prevent Iran, Libya and other countries from acquiring dangerous weapons. The officials included both proponents and critics of Bolton's nomination, who said they wanted to provide the public with a clearer picture of the nature of the dispute between Congress and the White House. The officials did not know or would not say which American companies might have been mentioned in the documents. The senators, Pat Roberts of Kansas, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and John Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the panel, both said that they had concluded that Bolton had acted properly in requesting the information from the agency. Both senators said they did not need to know the names obtained by Bolton to reach that conclusion. But Rockefeller questioned whether Bolton might have improperly shared the names with others. Senator Joseph Biden, the top Democrat of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, cited the administration's refusal to provide the names to Congress in persuading 39 other Democrats and one independent to block until at least next week any vote on Bolton's nomination. So which companies are Bush and Dick (Mr. Halliburton Doing Business with Saddam) Cheney trying to protect here, and how many of them are major Bush/Cheney campaign contributors? Do you remember the stink that GOP congressman Christopher Cox raised with the allegations that Clinton sold our secrets to the Chinese for campaign contributions? What happens to Bush and the GOP if it turns out that major GOP contributors violated the export ban to China, Iran, Libya, and other countries? And what happens to Bolton if it is found out that he acquired this information and told others about it, possibly even the companies involved, in violation of national security protocols? Update: The NYT website doesn't even have this story on its front page for Wednesday. I guess they and the Post had to make room for all those nostalgic "Deep Throat" pieces as a testament to a time when we really had an investigative media that paid more attention to important contemporary stories than they did to ones from 8 years ago about sex in the White House. What I want to know is this: was this story leaked to the Times before or after the Deep Throat story hit the wires today? http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004522.php
