Reuters' write-up of the most recent Bolton events is a fairly good one, both as a wrap-up of the Sunday shows and as a decent overview of where things stand overall. I must say, I was disheartened at the half-hearted opposition of Democratic senators today: both Dodd on "Fox News Sunday" (write-up here, transcript here) and Lieberman on "Late Edition" (transcript here) seemed basically resigned to the fact that Bolton will get a recess appointment, and neither took the opportunity to bring up the new revelations about Bolton's failure to disclose to the Foreign Relations Committee that he was interviewed by the State Department's inspector general back in 2003.

All reports seem to point toward a recess appointment for Bolton sometime during the early part of the week, prior to President Bush's departure for Crawford on Tuesday. Since there have been a great many questions about the use of the recess appointment power, its history and so forth, I wanted to pass along this from MSNBC, which I've found very useful for background throughout this process.

I'm not going to size up the many ramifications of a recess appointment yet... the deed is not done, and there will be ample time for discussion after the fact if and when the president takes that step. For now, we cannot let up: we must make perfectly clear that no member of the Senate, Republican or Democrat, Bolton proponent or opponent, should sit quietly by and let a presidential nominee get away with submitting an untruthful disclosure form to the Senate. "I forgot" is hardly an adequate defense for such a serious omission, and no senator, no American, should be satisfied with it.

In the next couple of days, we should finally have a resolution to this months-long saga. Regardless of the final outcome, all of us who have opposed this ill-chosen nominee should remember that we have stood for truth, for honor, for reform, and for the best interests of America and our relations with the world.

-- Jeremy Dibbell (Charging RINO)

It's Charles Kupchan here, filling in for Steve Clemons, to whom I am grateful for my first opportunity to be a blogger. I am a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Sunday's Washington Post ran a front-page article ("At State, Rice Takes Control of Diplomacy") commending Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice for taking charge of U.S. foreign policy and pursuing a diplomatic strategy more pragmatic and less ideological than during Bush's first term. On several fronts, Secretary Rice well deserves the Post's kudos. Since she moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom, America's relations with Europe have improved markedly. Washington is now actively engaged in diplomatic efforts to ensure that Iran and North Korea do not maintain nuclear weapons programs. The U.S. is playing a more visible and active role in the Middle East peace process, with Israel's withdrawal from Gaza proceeding apace. And in picking Bob Zoellick and Nick Burns as her top aides, Rice has reached out to consummate professionals -- both of whom embrace the centrist brand of internationalism that was so underrepresented in Bush's first term. These are impressive accomplishments, especially in light of the fact that Rice still has to do battle with Rumsfeld, Cheney, and other hardliners.

But before we breathe a collective sigh of relief and pronounce America's ship of state back on course, let's take a step back. To applaud the State Department for actually engaging in diplomacy with Iran and North Korea is a bit like applauding McDonalds for serving hamburgers. For four years, the Bush team merely glared at Tehran and Pyongyang. Diplomatic engagement is a welcome change of course -- but it seems like a bold innovation only because Washington dropped the ball, and was sticking its head in the sand for years, preoccupied with the war in Iraq.

The Post also praises Secretary Rice for brokering a deal on Sudan at the UN. A breakthrough did indeed occur on her watch. But what held up UN engagement for months was Washington's needless phobia about the International Criminal Court and the prospect of the ICC investigating war crimes in Darfur. The State Department deserves credit for finding a way out of the stalemate (Washington abstained rather than vetoed the resolution), enabling the international community to get on with peacekeeping and relief efforts in Sudan. But the U.S. should have never blocked the resolution to begin with. Furthermore, the Bush administration still has done far too little to stop the suffering and killing in Darfur.

Finally, Condi Rice's accomplishments notwithstanding, the State Department needs to start speaking the truth about Iraq before I will be prepared to pronounce American diplomacy -- and American politics more generally -- back on course. On matters ranging from the stamina of the insurgency (it's not in its last throes), to the influence of Iran in Iraq (there is a great deal), to the risks of civil war (anything but insignificant), it is time for the administration to shoot straight with the American people. Only after strategic myth has given way to sober assessment can the nation sensibly and reasonably find its way forward in Iraq.

-- Charles Kupchan

It's good news that British authorities apparently have nabbed the four men who launched the most recent (unsuccessful) bombings in London. But the threat of terrorism will go on. And security professionals, in contrast to politicians, acknowledge how the Iraq conflict is encouraging additional violent attacks. Evidence of the connection keeps accumulating.

According to the Times in London:

IRAQ has become "a dominant issue" for Islamic extremists in Britain, MI5 has admitted.

In a fresh analysis of the threat facing Britain from international terrorist groups, the acknowledgement underlines the view of the security and intelligence services that Iraq has provided an extra motivating force for terrorists.

Contributing to the agency's official website after the July 7 bombings, under the heading "Threat to the UK from international terrorism", a team of MI5 analysts concludes: "Though they have a range of aspirations and 'causes', Iraq is a dominant issue for a range of extremist groups and individuals in the UK and Europe."

After the suicide bombings in London, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said there was no connection between them and the war in Iraq. This conflicted with a leaked assessment by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, based at MI5 and run by a Ministry of Defence official, which claimed, three weeks before July 7 that Iraq was continuing to act "as a focus of a range of terrorist related activities in Britain".

The latest MI5 assessment sticks to the view that there is a link between Iraq and terrorist activities. In their website analysis, the MI5 officers add: "Some individuals who support the insurgency are known to have travelled to Iraq in order to fight against coalition forces. It is possible that they may return to the UK and consider mounting attacks here."

Obviously, this analysis doesn't mean terrorism is justified. (One shouldn't have to say that, but with war advocates apt to take the slightest sign of opposition as objective support for the terrorists, it must be said.) This doesn't mean that terrorists don't articulate other grievances. This doesn't even mean one can't justify the Iraq war. But one needs to acknowledge the consequences of the conflict and honestly balance its costs and benefits.

So when the President's argues that Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism, he is right. But only because of his own policies, most obviously the ill-considered decision to invade Iraq. In saying that we now must remain there, the President is like the man who murders his parents and then requests the court's mercy since he's an orphan.

-- Doug Bandow

As most everyone knows, the Army and Marine Corps and Army National Guard and Reserves have been running into recruiting problems. The cause isn't difficult to understand. Indeed, you'd have to worry about someone who was enthusiastic about joining the armed services in order to fight in a war that: was based on completely false claims; has been badly bungled by officials who foresaw no opposition and didn't bother to acquire the necessary equipment (such as body armor and armored vehicles); has spawned a "democratic" process in Iraq that risks becoming distinctly illiberal, and has created an active recruiting and training ground for terrorists.

But war supporters remain adept at finding scapegoats. Some leftish activists have been attempting to organize a counter-recruitment movement. I don't know how successful it has been in practice, but Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy is not pleased:

Those who oppose our armed forces recruiters' visits to schools and universities or otherwise interfere with their activities will not prevent us from waging the war we have no choice but to fight. They may, however, require us to do so with forces that are obliged to serve rather than those who do so freely.

However, if anything is evident in the aftermath of the administration's WMD intelligence fiasco, it is that the war was not necessary, but a matter of choice pursued for reasons having little to do with any direct threats to America. The fact that those most at risk in fighting -- as opposed to arm-chair warriors sitting around Washington planning -- such a conflict are increasingly saying no should create cause for reflection. There is nothing inevitable about how long America stays, or in what form it remains engaged.

If war enthusiasts (especially those enthusiastic young conservatives about whom I read who are now active on college campuses) can't seem to make it down to the armed services recruiting offices, the administration has yet another reason to accelerate plans to get out. It's one thing to contemplate conscription to preserve the nation from a hegemonic totalitarian menace. It's quite another thing for those who failed to serve yesterday to draft those who don't want to join today to spread "democracy" -- especially if the ultimate result is an authoritarian Iraq leaning toward Axis of Evil member Iran.

-- Doug Bandow

The other day Josh Marshall asked an important question about the growing controversy over giving the Senate Judiciary Committee access to the memos John Roberts wrote when he worked in the Reagan and Bush 41 Administrations. In short, Josh wondered why the Senate should be any less informed about Roberts' past than the President. The answer, obviously, is that it shouldn't.

For those of you not following the issue, the Bush 43 Administration has decided to release Roberts' documents from when he served as a lawyer in the Reagan White House and Justice Department (some of which were already publicly available at the Reagan Library). However, the White House is steadfastly refusing to release any documents stemming from Roberts' tenure as Deputy Solicitor General during the Bush 41 Administration. Specifically, Senate Democrats want to see memos relating to 16 cases that Roberts participated in while in the Solicitor General's office. These memos may reveal much about Roberts' personal views on important issues like the right to privacy, affirmative action, environmental protection, and the separation of church and state.

There's a lot that should be said about this issue. But for now I just want to briefly highlight a piece of information I provided to Steve back during Alberto Gonzales' nomination to be Attorney General, which Steve posted here.

This passage is from a 1941 legal opinion issued by Robert Jackson when he was Attorney General. Jackson's views on this topic are highly relevant. Jackson, who later went on to be a Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor, is one of the rare legal figures who's revered on both the left and right. He also probably understood the need to protect executive branch deliberations better than anyone. Before joining the Court he spent most of his legal career as a government attorney, and his concurring opinion in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer (1952) is the definitive judicial statement on the separation of powers doctrine. And most significantly for these purposes, Jackson served as Solicitor General from 1938 to 1940, so he was keenly aware of the importance of protecting that office's internal deliberations.

In fact, the primary purpose of this Attorney General opinion was to defend the executive branch's refusal to turn over internal Justice Department investigative reports to a congressional committee. But Jackson added this key passage at the end:

Of course, where the public interest has seemed to justify it, information as to particular situations has been supplied to congressional committees by me and by former Attorneys General. For example, I have taken the position that committees called upon to pass on the confirmation of persons recommended for appointment by the Attorney General would be afforded confidential access to any information that we have -- because no candidate's name is submitted without his knowledge and the Department does not intend to submit the name of any person whose entire history will not stand light.

40 U.S. Op. Atty. Gen. 45 (1941).

So, Josh, you can see you're in good company in believing the Senate should have access to the same information the Bush Administration has in its possession. Jackson, in his trademark eloquence, couldn't have expressed that position any better. And like Jackson, I think it's reasonable to reach an accommodation here where the Senators and their staff get access to Roberts' SG documents on a confidential basis. Unfortunately, compromise isn't something this Administration is known for, particularly when it comes to other branches of government. Instead, this is just another example of Bush's attempted parliamentarization of Congress, which we've seen with Bolton, the nuclear option, the prescription drug benefit, and so many other shameful episodes.

-- Brian Greer is an attorney in Washington, DC.

A couple of characteristics seem to set apart the neocons and their allies who so readily, indeed, enthusiastically, make war. One, of course, is to avoid actually serving in combat. Vice President Dick Cheney famously allowed that he had "other priorities" -- evidenced by his five deferments. His experience is shockingly common, though admittedly not universal, among the war hawks.

The second is to avoid worrying unduly when reality turns out different than theory. In going through old papers that had piled up during my most recent trip abroad, I came across Al Kamen's column from the Federal Page in the Washington Post on July 1. He noted the current State Department travel advisory for Iraq.

It is really quite stunning. While the President and Vice President assure us that we are winning and the insurgency is in its last throes:

The Department of State continues to strongly warn U.S. citizens against travel to Iraq, which remains very dangerous. Remnants of the former Baath regime, transnational terrorists, and criminal elements remain active. Attacks against military and civilian targets throughout Iraq continue, including in the International (or “Green”) Zone. Targets include hotels, restaurants, police stations, checkpoints, foreign diplomatic missions, and international organizations and other locations with expatriate personnel. These attacks have resulted in deaths and injuries of American citizens, including those doing humanitarian work. In addition, there have been planned and random killings, as well as extortions and kidnappings. U.S. citizens have been kidnapped and several were subsequently murdered by terrorists in Iraq. U.S. citizens and other foreigners continue to be targeted by insurgent groups for kidnapping and murder. Military operations continue. There are daily attacks against Multinational Forces - Iraq (MNF-I) throughout the country.

There is credible information that terrorists are targeting civil aviation. Civilian and military aircraft arriving in and departing from Baghdad International Airport have been subjected to small arms and missiles. Civilian aircraft do not generally possess systems, such as those found on military aircraft, capable of defeating man-portable, surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS). Anyone choosing to utilize civilian aircraft to enter or depart Iraq should be aware of this potential threat, as well as the extremely high risk to road transportation described below...

All vehicular travel in Iraq is extremely dangerous. There have been numerous attacks on civilian vehicles, as well as military convoys. Attacks occur throughout the day, but travel at night is exceptionally dangerous. Travel in or through Ramadi and Fallujah, travel between al-Hillah and Baghdad, and travel between the International Zone and Baghdad International Airport is particularly dangerous. Occasionally, U.S. Government personnel are prohibited from traveling to select areas depending on prevailing security conditions. There continues to be heavy use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and/or mines on roads, particularly in plastic bags, soda cans, and dead animals. Grenades and explosives have been thrown into vehicles from overpasses, particularly in crowded areas. Overland travel should be undertaken only when absolutely necessary and with the appropriate security.

Despite continuing pacification efforts, it is sadly apparent that the insurgents/terrorists are still "bringing it on," as encouraged by the President two years ago.

But then, when you're living in the White House protected by the Secret Service, it's probably easy to miss what's happening on the ground in Iraq. You certainly don't perceive any need to read the State Department's travel advisory for the country.

-- Doug Bandow

As I noted late last night, Senator Chafee of Rhode Island told the Associated Press that the newest revelations about John Bolton were enough to make him withdraw his support for the nomination and oppose a recess appointment. As Chafee said, "Any intimidation of the facts, or suppression of information getting to the public which led us to the war, absolutely should preclude him from a recess appointment."

While I appreciate Chafee's new-found opposition to Bolton, as I said last night, his timing could not be worse. The time for opposition to Bolton was, well, anytime prior to late last night - and Chafee missed the boat. While I feel like I spend half my time defending fellow moderate/centrist/liberal Republicans from criticism, I cannot defend Chafee on this. I said in comments earlier this morning, and will repeat here, that this latest from Chafee only adds to his reputation as the "very model of a modern mushy moderate"... a description which in this case is quite apt.

For those of us working diligently, both in and out of the blogosphere, to overcome the stigma that centrism or moderation is the same thing as wishy-washiness, Chafee has been a great disappointment, particularly but not only when it comes to John Bolton. He had a tremendous opportunity to play an important centrist role, an opportunity which he squandered completely. Unlike his father John, who once held the seat Linc occupies, the current Senator Chafee does not relish his position as a "charging centrist" within the Republican Party; all too often he wilts under pressure from the White House and Senate leadership, emitting only meek chirps of half-dissent.

John Chafee is one of my personal and political heroes, and I have the greatest respect for him and his accomplishments as one of the greatest senators and Republicans of the twentieth century. I wish that the son had inherited a bit more of his father's intestinal fortitude, as well as his backbone. I probably agree practically with Linc Chafee on 90% of the issues, but his tactics depress me.

This has been a hard post to write, but it had to be said. No offense intended, Linc - but we centrists need your voice. You need to find it, and start charging.

-- Jeremy Dibbell (Charging RINO)

From One State to Three "Virtual States"

If only grandmother had four wheels: If you believe the front-page report from Iraq in Thursday's Wall Street Journal that "U.S. opens door for big pullback in Iraq next year," then I'll sell you a bridge over the Euphrates. The news from Baghdad, highlighting one of those "surprise visits" by the Secretary of the Department of Regime Change, Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad, quotes him and U.S. Commander in Iraq George Casey saying, suggesting, implying and hinting that the U.S. was laying the groundwork for a "substantial" withdrawal next spring. Mm... Let me see. Isn't that when the midterm election campaigns are beginning to gain momentum? In any case, Casey, according to the Journal added several conditions or "qualifications," stressing that the U.S. military in Iraq would be able to take those "substantial reductions" if "the political process continues to go positively" and if "the development of the security forces continues to go as it is going [and how is it going? LH]," while Rumsfeld, according to the New York Times, said that troop withdrawal "hinged" on the following: The size and strength of the insurgency; the level of cooperation from Syria and Iran; the ability of the Iraqi security forces; Iraqi public support for the new government; and, oh, yes, on whether Courtney Love and Paris Hilton join a convent... Which recalls an old Jewish saying: If my grandmother had four wheels, she would be a carriage... And not to forget that the Bush Administration had already been able to fool Congress and others with the commitment to pursue diplomacy and not to go to war against Iraq "if" Saddam would only did this or that. So don't hold your breath. American troops will be "over there" for many years to come, and I'm not talking here about the new FX series (BTW, thumbs down for that show as far as I'm concerned; I would have switched to "CSI: NY" but it was a repeat).

Here is what's going to happen in Iraq: First, neither the Americans nor the insurgents are going to win a 'victory' in Iraq. Second, a political 'solution' to Iraq that would maintain its territorial integrity under a central government is not a realistic option. American policymakers should consider the above as political axioms and come up with an interim agreement that could provide Iraq with an opportunity to bring some stability to the country and begin its economic reconstruction. So the best-case-scenario should be based on the recognition that the least costly option will be to freeze the status quo in which Iraq is gradually being divided into three mini-states -- a mostly Kurdish region in the north, a mostly Shiite area in the south, and the Sunni Triangle .

The Kosovo Model: Consider the reality in post-war Kosovo - with its Albanian majority and Serbian minority - which has been transformed into an international protectorate, although it still remains part of Serbia. Kosovo cannot achieve the status of an independent state - since Serbia and its ally Russia backing the Serbian minority in Kosovo will oppose such a move and also because concerns that an independent Kosovo would ignite pressure for secession of the Albanian minority in Macedonia and produce momentum for the establishment of a Greater Albania. At the same time, the return of Kosovo to full Serbian control is rejected by the Albanian majority and their supporters in the West. Hence the willingness to accept the current arrangement of a 'virtual' Kosovo mini-state. It’s not a permanent 'solution' but Serbs and Albanians are not killing each other and there is some effort to establish political stability and to economically reconstruct Kosovo.

The Hadar Plan: The conditions in Mesopotamia resemble those in the Balkans under which three Kosovos could emerge in Iraq. Such a scheme will not resemble the Bush dministration's let's-make-the-Middle-East-safe-for-democracy fantasies, and will require that the US launch a process of diplomatic detente with Iran, one of the three major regional players in Iraq - the two other being Turkey and Syria. Hence negotiations between the US, Iran and the Iraqi Shiite leadership whose members have close political and religious ties to the regime in Teheran could lead to an agreement in which Washington and Teheran could provide security to the Shiite region under an informal Iranian-American condominium. A similar accord between the Kurds, the US and Turkey could allow the Kurdish region to continue to maintain its political autonomy while giving Ankara guarantees that the Kurds will not demand full political independence, will share control of oil rich Kirkuk and will grant full rights to the Turkoman minority. Finally, when it comes to the troubled Sunni Triangle, the US could encourage the members of the Arab League, led by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria to police the country and its borders and help establish a new Iraqi-Sunni leadership. The United Nations and the EU could also provide peacekeeping troops to help maintain order in the Sunni region. As part of the arrangement, the oil resources of Iran could come under the control of an international trust which the three Iraqi communities will be represented. The creation of three 'virtual' mini states in Iraq should be regarded as an interim arrangement that will lead to a separation of sorts between the three contending players and create conditions in which foreign investment could start flowing into the country, while oil will start flowing from Iraq into the global markets and some of the American troops could start withdrawing from the country. After a transition period of, say, five to ten years, during which Iraq would become more stable and prosperous, the Iraqi people will have an opportunity to decide whether they want to re-establish a central government or to divide the country into two or three sovereign states.

Bye, bye: And now before leaving for Iraq and other world capitals to implement this great plan, I want to thank Steve Clemons -- he is Washington's most original "Policy Entrepreneur" -- for hosting me on his blog for two days and also to thank Dave Meyer for making this thing work. Perhaps one of these days I'll launch my own blog. Meanwhile you can contact me at LeonHadar@aol.com. And please get a copy of my new book (well, buy one), Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East. I hope to get your feedback.

-- Leon Hadar

I was surprised when Steve asked me to join in as a guest blogger. I remain a books and print kind-of-guy in the internet age, so it's a new thing for me. I also warned Steve that he risked having the Washington Note turned into a "Blog for Bolton" site. I happen to like John and would enjoy having him at the UN, but that's another story. And I don't want to give Steve heart failure if he checks in from whereever he is on his, er, arduous trek in foreign parts.

I was struck by a Washington Post story on Wednesday which described a violent Afghan demonstration at a U.S. base. It seems that American forces had detained of several Afghans without consulting local leaders. The article concluded:

"We have supported the Americans for years. We should be treated with dignity," said Shah Aghar, 35. "They are arresting our people without the permission of the government. They are breaking into our houses and offending the people. We are very angry."

Sadly, my first thought was: where'd he get that silly idea? (A friend cattily remarked: "he doesn't seem happy about being liberated.") When does the U.S. ever treat other states or peoples with dignity? As far as I can tell, the Secretary of State is almost constantly on the road lecturing everyone else on how to live their lives.

In this case -- after a thousand people had gathered, tossing stones and attempting to bust down the gates to the base -- the U.S. gave in, subsequently turning over the eight men. But the specific controversy is not the main point. What's so disturbing is that Washington is widely perceived as imperious -- a perception based on its behavior -- which has a corrosive impact on attitudes toward the U.S. Foreign peoples and governments might have to listen to the Great Superpower, but they resent doing so. And many of them can be counted on to resist, balk, delay, and impede whenever the opportunity arises.

I recently returned from a trip to Nepal where I was speaking on economic development to audiences ranging from students to politicians. After one talk someone went up to one of my hosts and said that he liked me because I was "unAmerican." By that he meant that I wasn't acting as if I was omnipotent and telling them exactly what to do. Rather, I emphasized that I was no expert on Nepalese society and encouraged them to work on applying the principles of economic liberty, so necessary for the development of a free and prosperous society, within their own traditions and culture.

At the same time, admiration for the liberty and opportunity available in America remained strong. But the U.S. risks squandering this appreciation for America's strengths -- an incredibly valuable intangible asset -- by attitudes and policies that often are unabashedly arrogant.

-- Doug Bandow

I took Peter Scoblic's suggestion and read his new piece in The New Republic, and I must say it's magnificent. Scoblic is one of the few journalists in America - Fred Kaplan and Soyoung Ho are two others -- who grasp just how utterly foolish, incompetent, and disastrous the Bush administration's policy towards North Korea has been.

In the fall of 2002 and winter of 2003 the president and his people literally sat back and watched as Kim Jong-il's troops marched into a North Korean nuclear fuel storage facility then under international lock and key and trucked off its contents to who knows where to be turned into nuclear weapons.

There was no good reason for this to have happened. When faced with almost precisely the same situation in 1994, the Clinton administration, in what Scoblic calls "a superb example of coercive diplomacy," threatened North Korea with force while opening up a direct negotiating channel to the regime. The result was the deal that put the nuclear fuel under international monitoring for nearly a decade, until the Bush administration let the regime walk in and take it.

Scoblic's explanation for this seemingly-insane passivity is that the administration is driven by conservative ideology; it is "consumed by the idea that the character of states is of primary importance to U.S. security." It believes, in other words, that the threat from a regime like North Korea's is not so much its capabilities -- i.e., its weapons -- but its evil intentions; that the only way to change those intentions is to change the regime; and that to negotiate with such a regime is to risk strengthening it.

Of course we now are negotiating with Pyongyang, in six-party talks underway in Beijing. This is a welcome change, a sign of rational though from the Bush administration (and of a healthier environment in a post-John-Bolton State Department). But keep this in mind: we're negotiating to get North Korea to give up weapons it did not have until we let it have them!

-- Paul Glastris

The Associated Press, along with other news outlets, is now reporting that President Bush will send John Bolton to the United Nations next week via his power of recess appointment. This is, as I have said repeatedly, an unfortunate step, but a particularly egregious one now that we have learned that Mr. Bolton falsified, intentionally or not, his disclosure form to Congress. Sending Bolton to the United Nations under such circumstances is a true act of political indecency, and I hope that the president will reconsider this step.

Within the AP story is a comment from Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, who had said earlier in the day that he might reconsider his support for Bolton based on the disclosure form revelations. The AP got him to kick his opposition up a notch: Chafee told the wire service he would now vote against Bolton and will oppose a recess appointment. "Any intimidation of the facts, or suppression of information getting to the public which led us to the war, absolutely should preclude him from a recess appointment," Chafee says.

While I appreciate Chafee's insistence on getting to the truth of this matter, I have to express my wonder that this, of all things, is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Of all we have come to learn about Bolton since his nomination in March, this is the one thing that gets Chafee's dander up.

Better late than never, I guess ... but the relevance of Chafee's change of heart is minimal now that the Senate's out of session anyway. The ball is in the president's court, and from all current reports, it looks like he's going to pop it rather than hit it back over the net.

Discovery of the disclosure omission a week earlier, this nomination would probably have been dead in the water. As it stands now, come this time next week, we'll likely have a UN Ambassador who's already got a track record of keeping vital information from Congress. Great start.

- Jeremy Dibbell (Charging RINO)

CBS News, 7/29/05:

President Bush intends to announce next week that he is going around Congress to install embattled nominee John Bolton as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, senior administration officials said Friday.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller reports that CBS News has been told Bush intends to use a recess appointment in the coming days to make John Bolton the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Bush has the power to fill vacancies without Senate approval while Congress is in recess. Under the Constitution, a recess appointment during the lawmakers' August break would last until the next session of Congress, which begins in January 2007.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the president had not made the announcement and Congress wasn't in recess yet, said Bush would exercise that authority before he leaves Washington on Tuesday for his ranch, the Associated Press reports. The House recessed on Thursday and the Senate's break was scheduled to begin later Friday.

Alright, I've finally deciphered all the signatures on the letter [pdf] sent to Bush today by 36 members of the U.S. Senate, calling on the president to withdraw Bolton's name in light of his "memory lapse" (discussed in depth here).

Those senators who signed were Durbin, Reid, Clinton, Boxer, Dodd, Biden, Feinstein, Kerry, Corzine, Wyden, Lautenberg, Jeffords, Obama, Salazar, Bingaman, Schumer, Bill Nelson, Feingold, Rockefeller, Reed, Dorgan, Cantwell, Murray, Mikulski, Sarbanes, Leahy, Lincoln, Stabenow, Kennedy, Kohl, Harkin, Landrieu, Levin, Inouye, Dayton, and Akaka.

Nine Democrats (Baucus, Bayh, Byrd, Carper, Conrad, Johnson, Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Pryor) did not sign, along with all 55 Republicans.

-- Jeremy Dibbell (Charging RINO)

President Bush should walk into the Oval Office on Monday morning and contact Bill Frist, Harry Reid, Dick Lugar, and Joe Biden. Then he should make a recess appointment to fill the UN Ambassador vacancy.

You're probably wondering right now why in the world Steve would let me write for his blog in his absence.

Hold on, Steve, don't pull the plug. I'm not suggesting that Bush send Bolton to Turtle Bay. I want him to appoint Anne Patterson so she can improve on the already stellar job she's been doing. A recess appointment made in cooperation with the Senate - not against its will - is a recess appointment I can proudly support.

Now, if you've been listening to the daily proclamations of Scott McClellan, Condoleezza Rice, and the State Department press robots, you've been hearing a lot about the need for leadership at the UN Millennium Summit in September. Here's McClellan's daily nugget:

In terms of this position, there is a vacancy at the United Nations for our ambassador. We need our permanent representative in place at the United States at this critical time. There is an effort underway to move forward on comprehensive reform. We have outlined the comprehensive reforms that we want to see put in place to make sure that the United Nations is an effective multilateral organization. And it's a critical time to be moving forward on this. The United Nations will be having their General Assembly meeting in September, and it's important that we get our permanent representative in place.

If you're just tuning in to the Bolton battle, you might think the Administration just woke up this morning and realized we need leadership at the United Nations. The truth is, the Bush team has squandered months by refusing documents to the Senate, and now they want the public to believe it's a race against the clock to get a Permanent Representative in New York by September.

If this is a question of leadership at the UN as the Administration claims, Bolton is clearly not the answer. Even Bolton's staunchest supporters have made strategic concessions about his poor leadership style, and Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's Chief of Staff and proprietor of a one-man Bolton complaint desk, made a point of calling him "a lousy leader."

The fact is, we don't have a leadership problem. We already have Anne Patterson in New York, fully prepped for the 21st century and doing a great job. "Damaged goods" Bolton wouldn't bring additional leadership as a confirmed Ambassador; in fact, he's far more likely to sink the ship, especially as a temporary (till 2007) Permanent Representative without the backing of the Senate.

A qualified U.S. Ambassador with the ear of the President and the trust of the Senate can go a long way toward advancing U.S. foreign policy priorities. I do question the sincerity of President Bush's commitment to having a Permanent Representative, given he left the post open for 9 months - twice as long as the duration of the current impasse - when he took office. But even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, it's pretty clear that Bolton isn't the answer.

There's one thing everyone can agree on: no nominee - not Patterson, not Bolton, nobody - can be confirmed in the Senate by September. On Monday, with the blessing of key Senators, he should announce Patterson's appointment. She'd be well-prepared for the September Summit, she'd have the unofficial support of the Senate, and since she'd likely sail through to Senate confirmation in 2007, no one would see her as a lame duck.

Most importantly, Patterson would be a Permanent Representative that makes Americans proud, and America would be permanently rid of its Bolton problem.

-- Scott Paul

Yesterday the Department of State responded to Senator Biden in writing. The letter lays out how Bolton's memory was jogged:

JUL 28, 2005
Dear Senator Biden:

I am writing in response to your letters of July 27 and July 28. Mr. Bolton confirms that he has never appeared before the grand jury or been interviewed or otherwise asked to provide information by the special counselor his staff in connection with their investigation of the Valerie Plame matter. Press reports to the contrary are inaccurate.

With regard to your question concerning the Joint Department of State and CIA Inspectors General Report o'fi Alleged Iraqi Attempts to Procure Uranium from Niger, Mr. Bolton does not recall being interviewed by the Inspector General. However, we have checked the records of our Office of Inspector General and have confinned that Mr. Bolton was interviewed by the Inspector General's staff on July 18,2003. This interview related to Mr. Bolton's involvement in preparation of materials concerning Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Niger; the interview did not relate to the Valerie Plame matter. Mr. Bolton answered the questions on the Committee's questionnaire to the best of his knowledge, but he did not recall this interview at the time he completed the questionnaire. Mr. Bolton will submit an amended questionnaire to the Committee tomorrow. Mr. Bolton has already responded to Committee questions about his involvement in preparation of State Department materials concerning Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Niger; as Mr. Bolton informed the Committee, he did not assist in preparation of the Department's Niger Uranium Fact Sheet.

Matthew A. Reynolds
Acting Assistant Secretary
Legislative Affairs

Given Bolton's poor memory, I hope that State isn't just taking Bolton's word on the Fitzgerald nomination or on the production of the Niger fact sheet. Mr. Bolton's hazy recollection of this time period -- apparently, the entire year 2003 -- justifies some scrutiny.

-- Dave Meyer

I missed this, but Robert George pointed it out in comments, and gail helpfully supplied the transcript. Shuster now claims that it was inaccurate to list Bolton as having testified to the Fitzgerald grand jury:

MATTHEWS: David, last Thursday, a week ago, you reported that John Bolton, the president's nominee for the U.N., had testified in the CIA leak investigation.

Well, the State Department today stood by John Bolton's assertion on that issue that he did not. What do you have for us today?

SHUSTER: Well, Chris, we've gone back to our original sources to clarify, and we now believe it was inaccurate to list John Bolton's name along with State Department officials who did give testimony.

We'll continue to report this story and we will let you know what we find - Chris.

-- Dave Meyer

Josh Marshall has some more information up over at TPM Cafe on Bolton and the State-CIA inquiry, including a letter Senate Democrats sent the president today asking him not to make a recess appointment.

-- Peter Scoblic

[Note from Dave: Jeremy and Peter submitted their posts minutes apart. The issue deserves the attention, so both posts go up.]

While rumors and hints that President Bush will give John Bolton a recess appointment to the UN sometime early next week continue to swirl, opponents of the nomination have seized on the latest developments and are calling for Bush to withdraw Bolton's name, or at least not to send him to New York without the Senate's support. DNC Chairman Howard Dean issued a statement on Friday saying:

Failing to reveal his involvement in an ongoing State Department-CIA investigation in his Senate questionnaire, raises very serious questions about John Bolton's credibility. John Bolton and the Bush Administration must stop stonewalling and come clean about Bolton's role in these two investigations that have cast a dark cloud of corruption over the White House. To preserve any remaining confidence in the integrity of Bush's foreign policy team, Bush must not use a recess appointment to install Bolton at the United Nations

Thirty-five Democratic members of the Senate, along with Independent Jim Jeffords of Vermont, sent a letter to Bush late Friday urging him to withdraw John Bolton's name. The letter, available here in PDF form, reads:

In light of the fact that John Bolton was not truthful to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the questionnaire he swore was truthful, we ask that you do not make a recess appointment of Mr. Bolton to be the Ambassador to the United Nations and instead submit a new nomination to the Senate.

Mr. Bolton's excuse that he 'didn't recall being interviewed by the State Department's Inspector General' is simply not believable. How can you forget an interview about an issue so important that the United States Senate unanimously passed an amendment stating that Congress supports 'the thorough and expeditious investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of State and the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency into the documents ... that the President relied on to conclude that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Africa'? The amendment was cosponsored by the Chairmen of both the Foreign Relations Committee and the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. President, we know you are engaged in an effort to strengthen our relationships throughout the world. Sending someone to the United Nations who has not been confirmed by the United States Senate and now who has admitted to not being truthful on a document so important that it requires a sworn affidavit is going to set our efforts back in many ways.

I cannot read all of the names with sufficient certainty to list them, but the PDF file contains the signatures of those members who signed the letter.

As I wrote last night, with all the vetting that has got to be done in preparing and verifying the truthfulness of the disclosure questionnaires, it is incredibly difficult to believe that this was a case of simple forgetfulness. That just doesn't pass the smell test.

Simply allowing Bolton to "correct" the record now is not enough: the Senate has a responsibility to act, and even those Republicans who may support John Bolton should stand up and make clear that the Senate will not be misled.

Since I've been writing, Bloomberg has reported that Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee has expressed new doubts about the Bolton nomination in light of these developments, saying they may cause him to reconsider his support for Bolton. "There should be some explanation," Chafee said. "I would certainly want to give him a chance to defend the inaccuracy." The Rhode Islander joined other Republicans, in suggesting that Bush should not give Bolton a recess appointment, saying that step "would be a mistake...The nomination is so controversial I think it deserves a Senate vote."

Chafee is correct. The nomination deserves a vote: a strong, bipartisan no vote.

- Jeremy Dibbell (Charging RINO)

I'm not planning on doing much of this, but I did want to share my take on the interesting issues Arianna Huffington raised yesterday about Judith Miller's role in L'Affair Plame.

My question: Does Arianna ironically identify a potential alibi for administration officials?

-- Robert George

One of the great questions that has remained unanswered -- and virtually unasked -- in the Rove-Plame scandal is, just what is Judy Miller in jail for? Is it simply refusing to disclose a source to whom she promised confidentiality? Or is it something a little more elaborate, perhaps a more active participation in the effort to discredit Ambassador Wilson?

There's certainly plenty of evidence that Miller has taken on roles not normally associated with reporting, in Iraq in particular. If she did play some other role in the transmission of classified information on Plame's identity -- for example, if she passed the information from a person authorized to hold classified information to another who was not -- then even if a reporter's shield existed, she would be no more entitled to it than would a lawyer who actively participates in a conspiracy be entitled to attorney-client privilege.

Arianna Huffington has broken the respectful silence by going all the way with this speculation:

It's July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson's now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has "manipulate[d]" and "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war -- and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller's credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he's married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an "unnamed government official"). Maybe Miller tells Rove too -- or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

This is why Miller doesn't want to reveal her "source" at the White House -- because she was the source...in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn't to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson's motives.

This really is speculation of the rawest sort. It's a scenario that various people have been dancing around and hinting at for weeks, but now it's out there. There are some other versions of this scenario, but they all involve Miller playing a key role in transmitting the information from one place in the executive branch (what Huffington refers to as "the intelligence community," but which could mean various things, including Bolton's office) to another, the political arm of the White House.

Add to Huffington's speculation a much more informed story in the Wall Street Journal about the divergence of approaches between Time, Inc. and the Times. The heart of the story has to do with the realization by Time and Matthew Cooper that they did not necessarily have the same interests as Miller and the Times, and should not share a lawyer, Floyd Abrams. (Abrams takes a vicious swipe at Cooper, saying that "From Judy's perspective, the first thing she wanted to know was what to do to protect her confidential sources, rather than what to do to stay out of jail.") One point of difference is that Time concluded that it owned the electronic file of Cooper's notes, or at least his e-mail to an editor, while The Times's position, and Miller's, has been that she alone holds the information.

But toward the end of the story, it suggests something else was going on: that at some point, when Time Inc. editor-in-chief Norm Pearlstine got involved, he realized that the case was a very big deal, one that could put the company at risk for contempt charges, and that he had to figure out an acceptable way out. His counterpart at the Times, however, publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., seems not to have taken the matter so seriously, proposing at a meeting that they respond by distributing buttons that read, "Free Judy, Free Matt, Free Speech." The Journal reports that "Pearlstine demurred."

Given that the Times does not seem to want to know what's in Miller's notes, and given Sulzberger's less serious approach to the charges, it's time to add another question. Now it's not just, "What is Judy Miller in jail for?" It's also, "Does the New York Times know what Judy Miller's in jail for?" And, "Does the New York Times care?"

-- Mark Schmitt

The timing of John Bolton's possible recess appointment early next week just as we're sitting down with the North Koreans after a year-long hiatus in the six-party talks reminds me that, however sketchy Bolton's conduct at State, the chief reason to oppose his appointment is the blow it would deal to U.S. national security. Bolton, after all, is one of the diplomatic masterminds whose chief contribution to solving the North Korean nuclear crisis was to routinely insult Pyongyang's leadership, with no apparent goal other than gaining personal satisfaction for "telling it like it is" and undercutting any diplomatic progress. The United States will have a tough enough time crafting a deal on North Korea's nukes even if Bush representatives are acting in good faith and with reasonable latitude to negotiate. This is hardly the time for Bolton to begin lobbing grenades from a high perch at Turtle Bay.

The broader context of the North Korea negotiations -- and the role that Bolton would play should he get a recess appointment -- is the administration's fealty to the hardline conservatism that governed its first term and kept it from, among other things, negotiating (seriously) with North Korea and (at all) with Iran. This is a point I discuss in a long piece I've just written for The New Republic, in which I argue that the administration's focus on the character of states has always eclipsed its focus on their capabilities-especially their nuclear capabilities-even though those capabilities constitute an immediate threat. To the extent that conservatism is captive to the notion that the moral character of a state determines whether or how we engage it, then conservatives are incapable of defending the country, in particular from nuclear weapons.

The exception to this rule was the Libya episode, in which we cut a deal that left the country's regime in place but got rid of its unconventional weapons program. Alas, as Steve has pointed out on this site, that success was only possible after Bolton was removed from the U.S. negotiating team at the behest of the British. If the Libya model is to be applied to North Korea or anywhere else-i.e., if the administration is going to sacrifice its ideological obsessions for a pragmatism that actually advances U.S. interests in North Korea or elsewhere -- having Bolton at the UN will be a real problem. Of course, maybe it doesn't matter: after all, if Bush appoints Bolton, he'll have sent a clear signal that he's not interested in sacrificing conservatism for progress -- and we'd see little progress on the Peninsula anyway.

-- Peter Scoblic

I'd like to thank Steve for inviting me in as one of his guest bloggers over the next few days. In my day job, I write for the New York Post. Previous stops include the Republican National Committee and former Speaker Newt Gingrich's office. (Speaking of my ex-boss, readers may want to take a look at this column based on his UN reform Task Force report. Newt co-chaired the Task Force with George Mitchell and received a fair bit of praise from unlikely sources.)

Clearly, I am more on the right side of the political spectrum than most of Steve's readers and collaborators here in the blog. However, Steve is one of the smartest people I know in the public policy world -- particularly when it comes to international affairs -- and I'm lucky to be his friend. We don't agree on all issues, but we have some worthwhile intelligent conversations from our respective viewpoints.

I have also tipped my hat to him as being a (the?) worthy leader of the Bolton opposition.

Many of you may have gotten to know me when Steve graciously linked to my blog last week. "John Bolton, R.I.P." managed to bounce around the left side of the blogosphere a few times. My follow-up post yesterday discussed some of the twist and turns involving Bolton's apparently incomplete answer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee questionnaire -- and the fact that Bolton's non-involvement in Fitzgerald grand jury could embolden the administration to go ahead with the recess appointment.

Based on statements from both the White House and the State Department over the last 24 hours, that looks to be the case. A few other guests have already discussed the ongoing controversy this morning.

Anyway, with an all-star cast of bloggers here, I won't bother polluting the site with (too much) more of my -- ahem -- nutty right-wing views [Feel free to go to my personal space for that -- plus discussions on comic books, improv comedy and other less-weighty matters]. However, in the spirit of Steve's and my friendship, I will bring in some "foreign" insight. Steve and I first met on a couple of conferences sponsored by organizations devoted to enhancing communication between Europe and the US. So, I hope to introduce a few of the people I've been fortunate to meet in my excursions and get some insights on things going on in those countries.

Anyway, thanks for your indulgence and happy to be invited to the party!

-- Robert George

Despite yesterday's acknowledgement that John Bolton potentially committed perjury by misinforming the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as to whether he had been interviewed as part of an investigation, Scott McClellan spoke today to Bush's continued support for the nominee. The full transcript isn't up yet, but Bloomberg reports:

"We do need a permanent representative at the UN," [McClellan] said. "This is a critical time," because of the U.S. strategy for changes at the world body. "Clearly, John Bolton is someone who's enjoyed majority support" in the Senate, McClellan said.

This line of argument is stale and wrong. First, as Charles just noted, the new revelations, which, to be generous, were hidden from the Senate by Bolton's negligence, appear to have changed the minds of even some of Bolton's most ardent defenders. Bolton hasn't received a majority vote on his merits since 2001, when he was confirmed as Undersecretary of State, and even then it was a strikingly close vote. Cloture votes are not on the merits. Second, there is no reason to believe that Bolton would be anywhere near as effective as acting Ambassador Anne Patterson. It is hard to believe that Bolton would be able to more effectively make the case for reform than Patterson; if given a recess appointment, his claim to legitimacy would be weaker than what she already has. (For more on these arguments, see Don Kraus and Sam Stein at tompaine.com).

According to Bloomberg, Senators Reid and Boxer have called on President Bush to withdraw the nomination. Senator Dodd said the incorrect disclosure was "one more reason why the administration should look for another individual...The cloud over Mr. Bolton's nomination grows larger and darker with each passing day..."

Meanwhile, Senator Lugar "said the disclosure doesn't change his mind about supporting Bolton." Lugar received a phone call from Secretary of State Rice, who told the chairman that Bolton was "correcting the record." One must wonder if Senator Biden, who's been inundating Rice with letters, receive the same courtesy.

-- Dave Meyer

Update: Thinkprogress points out what appears to be a clear error in McClellan'spress briefing.

If word out of the White House is to be believed, John Bolton will receive a recess appointment early next week, despite growing evidence that he may have lied to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The President appears willing to ignore growing outrage and make Bolton his Ambassador. If he does, he will thumb his nose at the Senate and do serious damage to his future agenda.

Those aren't my sentiments, but rather those of Republican stalwart Trent Lott:

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., also thinks Bush will make Bolton his interim appointment, but he doesn't think it's a good idea.

"I suspect he will, but I do think it's a little bit of a thumbing of the nose at the Senate, which will cause you more problems down the road," Lott said. "We are a co-equal branch; he doesn't get to make his choices in a vacuum."

...Lott said Bolton would be "weakened and temporary."

"He could serve what, 17 months, unless he was subsequently confirmed, which I don't see any chance of," Lott said.

Clearly the latest revelations are beginning to rattle even stalwart Republicans and erode their support for Bolton.

If, as Mr. Lott says, Senators do not want the President to make a recess appointment, the solution is simple. The Republican leadership should give the President what he wants -- an up-or-down vote -- and they should do it today before they go into recess.

Senator Lott and other Republicans have the power to show their President what happens when he "thumbs his nose" at them. They can act today, joining Senators Voinovich, Thune and their colleagues across the aisle to defeat decisively Mr. Bolton's nomination. That would settle the matter once and for all.

-- Charles Brown

I'm grateful to Steve for inviting me to fill in at The Washington Note. I've been encouraging Steve for a few weeks to make the leap across the thin barrier that separates the Bolton nomination from the Rove-Plame scandal. Being a very responsible, seasoned foreign policy professional, however, Steve hesitates to go further than the available information justifies. And while I admire that restraint, I'm glad Steve has allowed his blog to be temporarily held hostage by people like me with a little more penchant for speculation.

But rather than get into all the micro-details of the Plame scandal and the all-important question of just what Judy Miller is in jail for, let's pull the camera back for a minute and see where this is going:

A comment on my blog, The Decembrist, has left me with a real sense of foreboding:

I'm afraid that we are headed for a very serious constitutional crisis, in which the administration essentially tries to halt a legitimate inquiry into real crimes.

Let's think of it this way: None of us really know what's going on in the Plame investigation. We are all having fun piecing together known facts and strong probabilities to create some workable hypotheses (and no one is doing this better, by the way, than emptywheel writing at The Next Hurrah), but we are all working with only a fraction of the information that the prosecutor has.

So at some point this fall, the prosecutor will show his hand. And it could be largely anti-climactic. While it seems much less likely than it did a few months ago that he will conclude that no crime was committed and just issue a report, it's still quite possible that the indictments will be limited, tangential, and will not go to the heart of the administration. Ari Fleischer, for example, is expendable at this point, which is perhaps why there was some effort to shift attention to his role, if he even had one.

If that's the outcome, fine. No one can say that the investigation was less than thorough.

But there's also a good chance that it ends in multiple indictments of multiple people, not only for the actual disclosure in July 2003, but also for obstruction of justice, which could include destruction or falsification of documents during the 12 hour "Gonzales window" as well as perjury before the grand jury or lying to the FBI in the investigation itself.

Let's say there's a 50-50 chance that this is either less of a big deal than we expect, or more of a big deal.

If it's the latter, do we really expect that the administration will simply sit back and let the process play out? There's no indication so far that that's going to happen. They regard the entire enterprise as illegitimate, and have never hesitated to let their proxies say as much. They share the view recently expressed by Michael Barone that "Richard Nixon...unwittingly colluded in the successful attempt to besmirch his administration." Unlike Bill Clinton, who passively fumed but cooperated when subject to relentless investigations of non-crimes, they are not going to sit back and allow an investigation of real crimes, profound crimes, to take its toll. What will happen, I don't know. But the prediction of a real constitutional crisis seems to me not entirely outlandish.

I don't want to sound like one of those people who was predicting last year that Bush would cancel the election on specious homeland security grounds if he thought he was going to lose. They don't entirely disrespect the rule of law. But they don't respect this aspect of it, or this particular investigation, and if the second outcome is the end result of the Rove-Plame investigation, we could be in for a very serious showdown.

-- Mark Schmitt

With the latest report that John Bolton may have lied to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, perhaps the time has come for him to look for a new job.

I happen to know just the thing.

According to USA Today, Donald Trump has offered to renovate the UN's nearly sixty year-old (and increasingly shopworn) headquarters for free (or at least without cost to the UN). USA Today quotes Trump saying "I'm offering to bring it in way under budget... and much quicker. I don't want any fees. I'd like to do it for humanity."

I¹m not going to question Donald Trump's motives. Let's assume they're genuine. But I do have a suggestion on how he could make money off the deal: hire John Bolton to star in his own edition of "The Apprentice."

Think about it: the boss from hell meets the diplomat from hell. The hair meets the mustache. It would be the best match since, well, the Donald and Martha. Or maybe since Bolton met Carl Ford.

Contestants could be chosen from the most recent crop of junior Foreign Service officers. When they fail, they¹ll face the full wrath of John Bolton: first he'll scream at him and question their credibility. Then he'll have them transferred, then he¹ll have them demoted, and then he'll get them fired. And the winner? She could help Bolton knock the top ten stories off the UN building.

Bolton could kick down to his heart's content. And in Trump, he'd have the perfect boss to kiss up to. I can see only one problem: knowing his track record, John Bolton might screw the whole thing up and fire everybody. And Donald Trump better expect that Bolton might use NSA intercepts to keep track of him.

But come to think of it, maybe this is exactly what NBC needs to resuscitate the lagging "Apprentice" franchise: someone unafraid of anyone, not even The Donald.

Talk about ratings gold.

-- Charles Brown

As my friend Steve Clemons has often pointed out, John Bolton's allies have again and again snookered the press into reporting that their man's ascension to the U.N. ambassador's post is a done deal, just around the corner, etc., only to see that nomination fall flat. One thinks of Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. That's worth keeping in mind when reading this item, But Whose Name Is on the Check? in Al Kamen's Washington Post column today:

Senate Democrats continued working yesterday to block the nomination of Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton to be U.N. ambassador, but it's unclear the effort will gain traction.

Increasing chatter of late has it that Bolton most likely will be ordering room service in his ambassadorial suite in the Waldorf by Monday as a recess appointee. The appointment's good till the end of next year. Bolton would have plenty of time to prepare for the annual United Nations General Assembly extravaganza in New York beginning Sept. 13.

-- Paul Glastris

Peter Scoblic from The New Republic here, guest blogging for the day. I'll write more later, but, in case anyone missed it, CNN reported last night that two senior administration officials have said the president may give Bolton a recess appointment early next week.

-- Peter Scoblic

The Point Will Be Tipping All Over Again

Prediction: On August 14, just a few hours to go before Iraq's permanent constitution is to be completed, as the international community holds its collective breath, the Iraqi negotiators would announce that after overcoming monumental obstacles, including the deep divisions between the country's ethnic and religious communities, they succeeded in their task and completed the drawing up of a constitution for the new Iraqi state. The images broadcasted out from Baghdad just on time for the evening news in New York would feature the new American Ambassador Zalmy Khalilzad joined by the leaders of the New Iraq celebrating another "turning point" in the march of Iraq towards democracy. When President George W. Bush would show up in the White House press room a few minutes later for a short press conference, he would compare the framers of the Iraqi constitution to the framers of the American constitution and describe the adoption of new Iraqi constitution as another "milestone" in the road towards freedom and peace in the Broader Middle East. Who would have believed? After all the threats and the killings by the insurgents and the skepticism and the cynicism of those know-it-all Middle East "experts" and the Arabists and the so-called realists in Washington and elsewhere. What a historic day. Eat your hearts out, Juan Cole and all you other members of the Reality Based Community. Didn't we tell you that it's all about Freedom, stupid!

Spin: Well, let's just say that by August 16th you'll probably be fed up with the Founding-Fathers historical analogy: Jaffari=Washington, Chalabi=Jefferson (or is it the other way around?). But by then the Bushies would have succeeded in producing another "pseudo-event," the term coined by the late historian and the 12th Librarian of US Congress Daniel Boorstin in his book The Image to describe a "happening" that is designed to be covered by the news. It is not spontaneous, but comes about because someone has planned, planted or incited it. It is planted for the immediate purpose of being reported or reproduced. Its relation to the underlying reality of the situation is ambiguous. And it is usually intended to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The drawing up of the Iraqi constitution would be spun as the "next turning point," following all the previous "turning points" -- the toppling of Saddam's statue, the intrusive examination of the unkempt former dictator's mouth and beard, the handing of documents of sovereignty from coalition leader L Paul Bremer to Iraqi leader Iyad Allawi, the voters happily waving their purple fingers -- and would be transformed by the Bushies into a "tipping point" that marks the defeat of the anti-American insurgency and the triumph of "democracy" in Iraq. And the "pseudo-event" would then be integrated into a neoconservative Freedom in the Broader-Middle-East Narrative -- the Babes of Beirut, the "local elections" in Saudi Arabia, the "democracy movement" in Egypt, "peace" in Israel/Palestine.

Deconstruction: This is a preemptive counter-spinning strike: Should we care about the Iraqi constitution? The British and the French helped their former colonies and dependencies -- including Iraq, Burma and Uganda -- to compose grand and progressive constitutions; some of them sounded like a copy of the American constitution. So what? Been recently in Burma, Uganda or for that matter, Iraq? The American constitution reflected the spirit of the European Enlightenment and British political tradition, and you cannot impose all of that -- and by force -- on a "nation" -- actually, a mishmash of tribal, ethnic and sectarian groups -- whose entire history and values are antithetical to our own. And by the way, did you know that while the post-1945 constitutions of most governments in Sub-Sahara Africa permitted women to vote, Switzerland granted women the right to vote in federal elections only in 1971? (What can I say? I would have preferred to reside in Geneva than in Khartoum in 1969). Or that in Israel today, a Jew cannot get married to a Christian, since only religious marriages are accepted under the law since all citizens of Israel are subject to the authority of the religious establishment in matters of marriage and divorce, a situation that contradicts the liberal model and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Is Washington pressing Israel to adopt a constitution that will permit the separation of religion and state?

Bottom Line: Do we as Americans have the right or the obligation or the moral authority, for that matter, to force on the Iraqis a quota for the number of women in their Parliament or to tell them whether or not to enshrine Islamic law in the constitution or not? My guess is that the majority of Shiites, including most women, want an Islamic state. Let them have it. If the Kurds don't like that, let them secede from Iraq and have their own Kurdish state. And let those two communities deal with the Sunni insurgency on their own. Yes, it will not fit into the Freedom Narrative. But that's what we've done in Mesopotamia. We helped break-up a unitary nation-state and make it safe for the self determination of Iraq's communities and sects, including the Shiites who are now establishing an Islamic state led by Ayatollahs (Sistani) religious warlords (Jaffari) and crooks (Chalabi) who are allied with Iran while the Kurds are becoming our new "Israel" in Mesopotamia in the sense that we'll have to protect and finance them until death do us apart.

-- Leon Hadar (author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).)

Hot off the wires; Biden gets results:

John Bolton, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, inaccurately told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday, responding to a Democratic critic.

Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency related to Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said.

When Bolton filled out a Senate questionnaire in connection with his nomination, "he didn't recall being interviewed by the State Department's inspector general. Therefore, his form, as submitted, was inaccurate," Clay said. "He will correct it."

The response came after Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asserting Bolton had been interviewed and suggesting he had not been truthful in his questionnaire.

"He didn't recall." Five months of scrutiny -- including loud public questions about his involvement in the Niger-uranium case -- maybe it's just me, but that would have jogged my memory. Perhaps Bolton blacked out in an angry tirade and bumped his head?

-- Dave Meyer

Update, 9:41 pm EST: The AP story linked above has been updated. It now includes an anonymous State Department official stating that the administration doesn't care about Bolton's selective memory:

The new information does not change the Bush administration's commitment to Bolton's nomination, said a senior State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the subject.

Also, be sure to check out Jeremy Dibbell over at Charging Rino, Stygius, and Josh Marshall.

It looks like Senator Joe Biden has sent another letter to Secretary Rice today, circling in on the controversy over Bolton's truthfulness on his nomination form.

Josh Marshall points to a Raw Story piece reproducing a July 28 letter to Rice asking whether Bolton was interviewed by State's Inspector General. (See yesterday's post.) I'll reproduce the letter here:

July 28, 2005

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice Secretary of State Washington, DC
20520

Dear Madam Secretary:

It has just come to my attention that then-Undersecretary of State John Bolton was interviewed on July 18, 2003 by the State Department Office of the Inspector General in connection with a joint State Department/CIA IG investigation related to the alleged Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Niger. This information would appear to be inconsistent with information that Mr. Bolton provided to the Committee on Foreign Relations during the Committee's consideration of his pending nomination to be Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

The Committee on Foreign Relations expects all nominees to provide to it accurate and timely information. Indeed, in submitting the Committee's questionnaire, all nominees are required to swear out an affidavit stating that the information provided is "true and accurate." It now appears that Mr. Bolton's answers may not meet that standard. I write, therefore, to request that you review this matter to determine whether incomplete or inaccurate information was provided by Mr. Bolton.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Ranking Minority Member

Remember, ala yesterday's post, John Bolton replied negatively to following question on the SFRC form:

Interviews -- Have you been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), Congressional or grand jury investigation within the past 5 years, except routine Congressional testimony? If so, provide details.

Yesterday, July 27, Senator Biden sent a different letter to Rice asking whether Bolton:

. . . whether Mr. Bolton did, in fact, appear before the grand jury, or whether he has been interviewed or otherwise asked to provide information by the special prosecutor or his staff in connection with this matter, and if so, when that occurred.

The State Department today answered that question thus:

They'd asked whether or not the nominee has been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative, including an Inspector General, congressional or grand jury investigation within the past five years, except routine Congressional testimony. Mr. Bolton, in his response on the written paperwork, was to say no. And that answer was truthful then and it remains the case now.

I'm thrilled that Biden's people looked into the IG investigation issue, which Steve first noted here, and not just the Fitzgerald investigation. The State Department's blanket denial clashes with Biden's assertion of a confirmed fact. This confusion means that not only is the IG angle not yet closed, but the Fitzgerald investigation issue remains open as well.

If the administration is stonewalling in hopes of making it through Friday's recess, they will be miscalculating badly by thinking that these open questions are an appropriate environment for a recess appointment. The smell is too rank to send John Bolton to the United Nations in these circumstances.

-- Stygius

At Tuesday's State Department briefing, reporters again tried to get Spokesperson Sean McCormack to say something new about John Bolton. Here's what he said:

Still looking for an up-and-down vote. Up-or-down vote.

We've been talking about this for months and, meanwhile, the issue of UN reform, which is a crucial issue not only for the UN but certainly one of great interest to the American people and the U.S. Congress, continues. Meanwhile, we don't have a UN Perm Rep up in New York. Ambassador Patterson has been doing an excellent job, but we think it's important to have John Bolton up there and we look for an up-or-down vote on his nomination.

It's an issue the administration continues to work and we want and think that John Bolton deserves an up-or-down vote.

We think it's important to have somebody up there as soon as possible and we're still looking for the earliest possible date for a vote on Mr. Bolton's nomination.

Ah yes, the glories of the State Department briefing. It's enough to drive journalists to drink and make an otherwise intelligent briefer look like a drooling robot. In fairness to McCormack, it's not his fault. Once again, it's the clearance process.

Press briefings are covered by the same pesky clearance rules that John Bolton hates so much. Every morning, the press office drafts a list of questions that journalists might ask and sends them to bureau public affairs officers to write – and clear – official answers. The end result is called "press guidance."

At State, press guidance is policy. The spokesperson is prohibited from saying anything that has not been drafted in advance and cleared. And once he says something, it's holy writ. As a result, some of the most vicious infighting at Foggy Bottom is over what the briefer will say each day.

If you watch the press briefing, you'll see the spokesperson bring a thick binder to the podium. It's his bible, containing the day's press guidance. And if he wants a future in the Foreign Service, you can bet he will stick to it even if it makes him look foolish.

Look at Tuesday's exchange. McCormack says "up-or-down vote" five times. The spokesperson is not allowed to go off-message. The spokesperson is not allowed to think. The spokesperson is a robot.

Am I the only one that finds this the least bit ironic? If handed a carefully crafted, fully cleared statement, John Bolton would probably light it on fire. But right now, his future hinges on rote adherence to an official line.

-- Charles Brown

By way of followup to Steve's post from this morning, Reuters' Vicki Allen reports:

The State Department on Thursday said U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton told Congress the truth when he said he did not testify in the investigation of the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Bolton's answer in March to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was 'truthful then and it remains the case now.' ...

Questioned by reporters, McCormack recited the committee's questionnaire that asks whether a nominee 'has been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), congressional or grand jury investigation, within the past five years, except routine congressional testimony.'

'Mr. Bolton, in his response on the written paperwork, was to say 'No.' And that answer is truthful then and it remains the case now,' McCormack said."

Assuming that what McCormack meant by that last statement is that Bolton's response was to say 'no' - not that he was told by someone else to reply in the negative - that still leaves unresolved the same questions Steve asked earlier, particularly if the State Department is using some nebulous loophole in the disclosure form's language.

A spokesman for Joe Biden told Reuters that the statements from McCormack did not resolve the questions that Biden outlined in his letter to Rice from yesterday. He said that Biden continues to await a written response from Secretary Rice.

Good for Biden. The possibility of word parsing in this case, and the continued question of whether Bolton was involved in at least two inspector general investigations while at the State Department, mean that none of us should let up the pressure. Keep asking the questions, and keep demanding answers.

In other news from the Reuters report, which may or may not be of any relevance whatsoever, Frist said today that the Senate would not act in any way on the Bolton nomination prior to recessing at the end of the week, "and therefore we will address it after the recess." As for the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan continued today with the "nothing has changed" line, refusing to say anything further than that and "We've always felt he deserves an up or down vote."

And we've always felt that if all our questions are answered, he'll get one. Nothing has changed there either.

- Jeremy Dibbell (blogger, Charging RINO)

Dad, what did you do during the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism? I was a war-blogger, son.

Did I miss a recent Howard Kurtz media column in the Washington Post? Why didn't anyone tell me that the New York Times has merged with The Onion? Or that the New York Sun had hired the editors of the Old Pravda? That should explain the story in the Times on Tuesday, "New Name for 'War on Terror' Reflects Wider U.S. Campaign," which reads like one of those Onion spoofs of real news. But this is actually real news, the kind that originates these days among members of the Faith-based community in Washington, one of the world's last bastions of Philosophical Idealism, according to which the whole world is mental construction. Say it is so, and it is so. The Bushies, it seems, have decided that the "war on terror" is no more and that from now on and/or until the National Committee to Rename Wars would convene and come up with something new, we should call whatever "it" is, the "global struggle against violent extremism."

According to the Times piece, written by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, President Bush's senior national security advisors have been very busy in recent months. Discussing how to defeat the insurgencies in Iraq? Or perhaps to find ways to capture Osama and Company? Nope. Since January they have been taking part in many meetings that eventually resulted in the "revamped campaign," which in turn, reflects "the evolution in Mr. Bush's thinking nearly four years after the Sep. 11 attacks." You see, it's "more than just a military war on terror," explains Steven Hadley, Bush's national security advisor. "It's broader than that. It's a global struggle against extremism. We need to dispute both the gloomy vision and offer a positive alternative." He really said that. And the administration is also trying to reassure those in uniform who have begun complaining that only members of the armed forces are being asked to sacrifice for the war on terrorism, oops…sorry… the "global struggle against violent extremism" or G-SAVE. So if you dear readers are pessimistic about the mission in Iraq or angry that members of your family will have to stay in that country for another year or two or three, well, just say G-SAVE, and things would look very, very upbeat.

Yippie-yippie-oh!

We are winning the War of Ideas. Indeed, the article ends with a quote from the Man of Ideas himself, Douglas Feith who explains that the key to "ultimately winning the war" is "addressing the ideological part." That's right! And that explains why Feith and his colleagues didn't care too much about post-war planning in Iraq. That's a job for Realists, not Idealists.

And do you still have some doubts about the March to Freedom in Iraq, the Broader Middle East, and Planet Earth? Cheer up. The New York Sun informs us that things are going to look quite different when lawmakers return to Washington this September and vote in favor of a "new legislation that would commit America to ending tyranny the world over." Indeed, the headline in Wednesday's Sun proclaims that "'Universal Democracy' Is the Goal as Congress Eyes New Legislation." Reporter Eli Lake reveals that:

"tucked inside the House version of a bill that authorizes spending on foreign aid is the language of what is known as the ADVANCE Democracy Act. The act instructs American ambassadors and embassy staffs to draw up democracy transition plans for unfree (sic.) regimes, with input from nonviolent opposition movements in the various countries. While Congress has passed laws that require America to work with democratic opposition groups for specific countries - such as the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act - never before has it considered a law that would, as ADVANCE proposes, 'commit United States foreign policy to the challenge of achieving universal democracy.'"

Wow... Now the Senate seems to be ready to adopt a similar bill, with Republicans and Democrats on board. Lake also discovered that "despite some of the official objections, there is evidence that Foggy Bottom is quietly making preparations for when the ADVANCE Democracy Act becomes law." "We like the idea," he quotes one administration official. "But we would also like more flexibility. We want to change some of the 'shoulds' to 'shalls.'" Got that? Perhaps the next "regime change" would not even require one of those meaningless debates in Congress about whether the U.S. "should" go to war. It shall.

So now with G-SAFE and ADVANCE do I really feel safer than during the Cold War when I was protected by Dr. Strangelove's Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Not really. On a second thought, I would have chosen WWIII or WWIV. But if we need to change the name of a war why not go back to the source of all wisdom, to the Masters of Propaganda in the Comintern and the Old Kremlin. What's wrong with the Great Patriotic War?

-- Leon Hadar (author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).)

The nation's security must wait...at least until September, or so moved Senator Frist on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning. Frist pulled the all-important Defense Authorization bill from the Senate floor in order to pass the NRA's Gun Liability legislation. Astute and not so astute Congressional observers of both parties are still staring at their C-Span screens in disbelief.

The Defense Authorization bill contains, oh lets see...provisions or amendments to provide more funds to war widows and orphans, up-armor for Humvees, support for the Boy Scouts of America, better health care for our veterans, chemical weapons destruction, help for families of deployed soldiers. I could go on and on. You name the item important to the nation's security the Defense Authorization contains it.

Of course Dick Cheney doesn't like the bill because Republican Sentors McCain and Graham, as well as Democrats, want to rewrite the Administration's detainee policy, believing it puts U.S. soldiers at risk. McCain would know. Cheney reportedly spent a day or two trying to persuade Senators of his own party to vote against amendments authored by Senators of his own party on this issue.

Frist was unhappy. Unhappy that the Cheney was unhappy. Unhappy that the NRA might become unhappy. And unhappy that debate and votes on the Defense Bill would go longer than a couple of days. Frist insisted again and again that the Gun Liability Bill was HIS priority and MUST pass before the Senate adjourns for the August recess--and as indicated by his actions today, the DEFENSE BILL IS NOT Frist's priority.

So today Frist forced the Defense Bill off the floor--at gun point.

Appalling.

Of course this is the same Senator who made a Bolton cloture vote a priority--and lost.

Does Frist really want to be President? Doesn't appear to be the case.

- 007 (a former official of the U.S. intelligence establishment)

It turns out John Bolton is not the first UN Ambassador nominee to consider a recess appointment: in 1999, President Clinton floated the idea of a recess appointment for Richard Holbrooke, one of his UN Ambassador nominees, but Holbrooke refused. No, Bolton has another place in the record books: he is the first nominee to actively campaign for a recess appointment.

There couldn't be a starker contrast in priorities and conduct between nominees. Holbrooke had the support of an overwhelming majority of senators, but he insisted on having the full body's stamp of approval before taking the job. Bolton, on the other hand, is the most contentious UN Ambassador nominee in history. Chances are he couldn't steal 45 votes in the Senate on a secret ballot. Yet, as the White House comes out day after day with its "up-or-down vote" pleas, Bolton is actively pushing the recess appointment option.

The Holbrooke revelation came out earlier this week, thanks to Janine Zacharia and Roger Runningen, two reporters for Bloomberg. They wrote:

At one point during the long stalemate, White House officials raised the prospect of a recess appointment with Holbrooke, according to two people who were involved in the matter. Holbrooke refused, saying it would diminish his credibility at UN.

The recess appointment idea for Holbrooke was not public knowledge, even among most foreign policy insiders. Rather than accept the offer and weaken our hand at the UN, Holbrooke waited - for what turned out to be 14 long months. And Holbrooke, unlike Bolton, had the support of majorities in both parties.

Meanwhile, Bolton - whose nomination has been moving backwards for months - is working behind the scenes to make himself a recess appointee. On June 13, Dafna Linzer and Charles Babington reported in The Washington Post that Bolton would accept such a move by the President.

"He'll take the recess" appointment, said the administration source, who is familiar with Bolton's thinking. "The president has made his selection, and the president is asking the Senate to confirm the selection, and if the Senate refuses to do that, then most assuredly [Bush] will make a recess appointment."

According to what we have heard from sources in the State Department, Bolton himself planted this story. Why President Bush would continue to extend his loyalties to an individual who tries to pressure him to make a recess appointment is beyond me. It's certainly beyond the pale, even in Washington. Bolton should respect tradition, keep quiet, and sit out the debate in those offices he keeps trying to expand.

Remember, Richard Holbrooke has a reputation for arrogance that even he acknowledges. Yet, Holbrooke was smart enough, and selfless enough, to understand that he could never make up for the credibility he would lose through a recess appointment. He believed firmly that accepting it would cripple the U.S. at the UN. He was right, and six years later, the rules are still the same. If only we could count on Bolton to follow Holbrooke's example of grace and humility.

-- Scott Paul

I'm on the road right now, and I'm grateful to the line-up of fascinating personalities who have agreed to help step in and provide their own thinking on a wide variety of public policy questions, as well as risotto recipes.

I have been keenly interested in the question of whether John Bolton met with the grand jury or its investigators in the Valerie Plame case.

I just received this note from a TWN reader:

Last night, MSNBC reported that, contrary to the David Shuster report, Bolton did not testify before the Grand Jury. I think it was Chris Matthews who reported that Condi had sent a letter to the Senate saying that Bolton had not testified, therefore no need to amend his filing with the Senate on his UN appointment.

Others have posted the important Joe Biden letter here on the site -- so I won't repeat it. Barbara Boxer's office was also pushing the State Department on this.

Here are some of the issues that bother me:

~ First, I'd like to hear from MSNBC's David Schuster, with whom I spoke a couple of times, about the veracity of his sources on this. After speaking with him and other sections of MSNBC, I could "feel" their confidence in their own sources on this matter. Yes, the "unimpeachable source" line that MSNBC used sounds like a Dan Rather line, but still. . .what is up with their sources?

Second, while MSNBC -- according to the TWN reader who wrote to me -- states now that John Bolton did NOT meet with the Plame grand jury, is that what the State Department said?

Third, while I am on the road and have only about five minutes to survey the situation here and scribble this entry, it seems to me that the State Department stated that there is "no need for Bolton's declaration form to be amended." Why don't they just respond to Biden's question. Did Bolton meet the grand jury and/or its investigators or not? They did not answer that question directly -- or at least not from my reading now of the State Department response.

Fourth, what about the State Department Inspector General investigation of the role that Bolton's office played in developing the faulty "Niger/Uranium" fact sheet that Henry Waxman was interested in? (Look back to my past entries on this to get the material.) Did they not meet Bolton -- even for a denial of involvement? Why is that not listed in the ZERO number of IG or grand jury encounters on Bolton's declaration?

When I began to dig into this conflict between MSNBC's report and that on CNN's Inside Politics, I was informed by a senior-level Senate source that there is actually a definable and legal difference between (a) a compelled meeting before a grand jury when the respective individual's lawyer is not present, and (b) a voluntary, less formal meeting with investigators on behalf of a grand jury in which an "interview" is conducted. In this latter case, the respective individual can have a lawyer present.

Although it seems fairly clear that the following language in the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee questionnaire is straightforward:

Interviews -- Have you been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), Congressional or grand jury investigation within the past 5 years, except routine Congressional testimony? If so, provide details.

. . .the fact is that I was told that there may be a loophole.

We are dealing with nuances and shades of gray, but this senior staff member told me that formal grand jury meetings would be required to be disclosed -- but that "informal" meetings do not need to be disclosed, at least that was his unofficial interpretation provided to TWN.

John Bolton may not have met the grand jury in any form -- but I am quite bothered by the comment from the State Department that his form does not need amending. That's very legalistic -- and it prompts skepticism.

There may be nothing here, but then again. . . And what about the State Department IG report highlighted by Congressman Henry Waxman. It just seems inconceivable that an IG investigation that was looking into the role of Bolton's office in document preparation would never get a comment from Bolton.

There are things amiss.

I would love to hear from David Schuster at steve@thewashingtonnote.com if he feels like sharing more about his source's comments on a background basis. I can't call from where I am at the moment.

But what I see happening is that the government is parsing its words carefully -- and the media is jumping to conclusions. If the State Department said that Bolton's form does not need amending, then they are not in fact saying that he has never met with grand jury-related investigators, which may or may not be required on this Senate disclosure form.

MSNBC may be straddling both sides of this query, and I think we deserve some kind of explanation for its reporting.

We should also expect less cryptic commentary from the State Department.

More soon, I think.

-- Steve Clemons

In a recent column in the Singapore Business Times (reprinted in antiwar.com), "The Unbearable Lightness of Being 'Condi,'" I suggested that our secretary of state Condoleeza Rice is kind of a, well, lightweight, especially when you compare her to predecessors like, say, George Marshall, John Foster Dulles, Dean Acheson, and of course, Henry Kissinger. Yes, I expected some criticism. But you should have read some of the hate email I've been receiving. I've been accused of, among other things, being a racist and a misogynist, who isn't capable of dealing with the reality of strong women, and a powerful African-American female at that. "You probably hated your mommy," suggested one reader. You get the idea. But no apology from moi, guys. I'm an equal opportunity basher, and proud of being one. As Princeton Professor L. Carl Brown, noted in a review of my earlier book Quagmire: America in the Middle East: "Hadar provides a consistently tough-minded and skeptical examination of the public pities that pass for policy. His approach reminds of the late Vince Lombardi about whom one of his players observed 'He is very fair. He treats us all like dogs.' Such is the Hadar touch." Indeed, many of the neocons, who happen to be members of my own Hebrew tribe, have been grilled to death in my new book, Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.

So if I think that America's top diplomat, who happens to be a black female, has done a lousy job, I'm going to say so (And I love you, mom!). In fact, as a national security advisor Rice was a disaster of historic proportions. She was responsible for the advice reaching the White House and for the disinformation coming out of it before 9/11 and in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, and had failed to coordinate the Bush administration's preparation for the postwar occupation of the country. Now she seems to be managing U.S. foreign policy, a reward for a job well done, as a Paris Hilton-style television reality show, with her uninterrupted globetrotting covered 24/7 by the embedded and sycophantic media. I know that the job of a secretary of state is to travel around the world and that her predecessor Colin Powell was criticized for spending too much time in Foggy Bottom instead of schmoozing with Dominique de Villepin in Le Quai d'Orsay. Between you and me and this weblog, face time with foreign officials is over-rated. In this day and age of internet and teleconference much of our diplomatic business can be done today without leaving home. But if Madam Secretary insists that face-to-face encounters do make a difference, she doesn't seem to be delivering much except for a lot of hot air, like those uninspiring and phony sermons on Freedom in Cairo and Riyadh and sounding sometimes like a kindergarten teacher warning rowdy kids in Beijing and Moscow that if they won't behave, they could end up standing in the "Axis of Evil" corner. It's true that Dr. Kissinger had spent his time flying non-stop around the world. And Dr. Rice could certainly learn something from her predecessor. It's called "secret diplomacy," Ma'am. Much of Dr. K.'s achievements - the opening to China, the Middle East Shuttle Diplomacy, Detente with the Soviets - resulted from long and risky behind-the-scenes negotiations that required intelligence and skills. The media events - President Nixon's visit to China, the Egyptian-Israeli accords, Soviet-American summits - crowned those achievements. P.R. wasn't an end in itself.

Actually, forget Dr. K. and think Treasury Secretary John Snow. He's not Mr. Charisma, and unlike Condi he doesn't show up in foreign capitals "dressed all in black" and wearing a "black coat that fell to mid-calf" and calling to mind "a Marine's dress uniform or the save humanity ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in The Matrix." But the guy gets the job done, the job here being China's decision to scrap the yuan's peg to the dollar, according to both the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. They describe how this unassuming and low-key former business executive stood the center of "a saga whose twists and turns includes secret trips to Beijing by a U.S. envoy, debates among Chinese ministries about how much to revalue, and a seaside conference in China that featured American economists debating before an audience of high-level Chinese officials whether or not a revaluation made sense." ("Behind Yuan Move, Open Debate and Closed Doors," Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2005) No need for long sermons. No pompous poses and empty rhetoric. "Mr. Snow's decision to take a softer approach than some wanted and to downplay threats made it easier for sovereignty-conscious Beijing leaders to make a move widely seen as a bow to foreign pressure." ("Foreign Exchanges: The American Diplomacy Behind China’s Revaluation" Financial Times, July 25, 2005) Quiet diplomacy. It works sometimes.

So I hope that someone in the State Department has been taking notes. Perhaps one day we'll learn that while I was scribing these anti-Condi diatribes, American and Iranian officials were meeting secretly in Delhi and negotiating the resumption of diplomatic ties, or that one of Rice's aides was in Pyongyang putting the final touches on an agreement with the North Koreans. Sometimes, not seeing is believing.

Good morning, everyone.

Joining our cast of bloggers today is Leon Hadar, a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a journalist, a professor, and a gentleman. Leon is the author of the just published Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)."

Overnight, AP's Liz Sidoti reported on Senator Biden's request for information on whether Bolton testified before the Fitzgerald grand jury, providing significant exposure to the story (Google News shows around 150 newspapers picked it up). Hidden in the bowels of Sidoti's piece was a bit of new information - Representative Jane Harman is looking into the production of the State Department memoranda that identified Wilson's wife:

California Rep. Jane Harman, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has asked the State Department for two different versions of the memo from its bureau of intelligence and research that discussed Plame, a congressional aide said. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because of the investigation's sensitivity.

The memo could have been the way someone in the White House learned and then leaked the information that Plame worked for the CIA and played a role in sending Wilson to Africa to explore whether Iraq was interested in obtaining uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

The background on the memos is muddled. One version, produced on June 10th, 2003, was analyzed last week by Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post, and two weeks ago by Richard Stevenson in the NYT. The Post reported that INR's Carl Ford reprinted the memo for Colin Powell right after Joe Wilson's editorial was published. It's not clear if there were any other changes to the memo.

The memo(s) raise several important questions:

• Who asked for it prior to June 10th? The 6/10 memo was addressed to Marc Grossman, then the under secretary of state for political affairs, but it's not clear that he was the person who asked for the memo.
  
• Who produced the memo? No one within State has claimed authorship of the document.
  
• Was the document accurate? The CIA has consistently denied that Plame sent Wilson to Niger, and there is evidence to suggest that the memo(s) were based on notes taken by a person who was not in the room at the time the decision to send Wilson was made. Without seeing the text of the State memo or knowing how and when they were produced, it's impossible to judge the merits of these claims.
  
• Who saw the memo after it was produced, and when? At this point, the White House claims that the June 10th memo was not sent to the White House, and that the July 6 version was sent to Air Force 1 and played no role in Rove's leaking of Plame's identity. The custody chain of the memos needs to be followed.

In other interesting news, the Denver Post reports former EPA chief Christie Whitman critiquing political polarization and giving her own party a tongue lashing:

As a result, merely demonstrating a willingness to discuss embryonic stem-cell research or same-sex marriage gets GOP politicians like Whitman ostracized or labeled a RINO, or "Republican in name only," she told The Denver Post before her talk Tuesday at the Aspen Institute's summer speaker series.

"They believe you're either 100 percent with us or you're the enemy. You're not just against us; you're evil, and we need to take you out," Whitman said.

While the Democrats have the same pressures from the left, she said the GOP is pulled more visibly toward the right wing because "the levers of control are in the hands of people who have a much more narrow definition of what it means to be a Republican than I grew up with."

[via ProgressNow]

Also of note, AP's Barry Schweid reports that Sandy Berger and Brent Scowcroft have released a report for the Council on Foreign Relations criticizing the administration's planning for the post-war period.

-- Dave Meyer

Since the White House has made noises about wanting a UN Ambassador before the United Nations' session opens in September, they've created a phony pretext for the recess appointment -- the time demand -- when in actuality they've spent the whole summer running out the clock.

The Record, a New Jersey paper, has a superb editorial on Bush's "snubbing the Senate" if he recess appoints John Bolton:

He couldn't do it the right way, so President Bush is apparently about to make John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations the wrong way - in what's known as a recess appointment.

It's a sign of defeat, since Mr. Bush couldn't get his choice confirmed, even by a Republican-controlled Senate.

It's a president's prerogative to recess appoint, but has there ever been a case where one has done it after the Senate has so clearly, and so effectively, done its job of advice and consent? When an appointed Bolton would go to New York under not one cloud, but several, what better evidence is there that the Article II nomination process worked?

But his reputation precedes him, and he could have very little influence at the United Nations. That may be a good thing in this case, but it deprives the United States of a strong and credible voice at the world body at a crucial time. A world summit will be held at the United Nations headquarters in September. A respected ambassador can accomplish a great deal, including pressing for substantive internal reform.

Suzanne Nossel wrote a few weeks ago on the consequences of having a UN Ambassador with so little political support from his own country. Congress has long played an integral role in the United States' relationship to the UN; thus, thwarting the Senate to send up an illegitimate ambassador is exactly the wrong way to begin a UN reform program.

The Record concludes:

All the controversy apparently hasn't fazed Mr. Bolton. The Washington Post reported recently that he has asked to have the State Department office used by U.N. ambassadors doubled in size - because he expects to spend more time in Washington and less time at the United Nations than his predecessors.

If he wants to stay in Washington that badly, he should find another job.

- Stygius

We all know that John Bolton has never seen a clearance process he didn't want to subvert or destroy. But as Mr. Bush ponders whether to make Bolton the latest addition to his already-too-long list of reckless recess appointments, the President would be wise to pay attention to what his close friend and confidant Condoleezza Rice is doing over at State.

At the same time that the President is promoting John Bolton as his UN crusader-in-chief, Condi Rice is doing everything she can to keep him in check. In fact, it looks like she's building a cage to contain Bolton - even though she clearly knows that he hates any limit to his authority.

Let's start at the top. Rice has made it clear that she intends to be a major player in debates over making the UN more effective. In that effort, she will in all likelihood rely on her handpicked Deputy, Robert Zoellick (whom she chose over Bolton). Both Rice and Zoellick will want to clear anything Bolton says, as Powell and Armitage did (or tried to do) when he was Under Secretary for Arms Control.

Add to the mix Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the Department's highest-ranking Foreign Service officer and an experienced and effective veteran of the bureaucratic wars. Burns recently testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the future of the UN. He so persuasively made the case for an effective UN that his statement could serve as a point-by-point rebuttal of every nasty thing Bolton has ever said about the world body.

But that's just the beginning. Rice has taken steps to surround Bolton with people whose job descriptions will include tracking every move he makes. And give the Secretary credit - she's put together a pretty good team.

Just four days after she announced Bolton's appointment, Rice named Shirin Tahir-Kheli, who has a distinguished track record at both the NSC and State, as her Senior Advisor on UN Reform. According to the State Department, "Dr. Tahir-Kheli will report directly to the Secretary of State. She will engage the UN Secretary General and Secretariat on UN reform efforts." If that's true, you have to wonder what Bolton will do while Tahir-Kheli is making the rounds at Turtle Bay. But one thing you can count on: Tahir-Kheli shares her bosses' views on UN reform.

Another person who will watch Bolton closely is his direct supervisor at State. Although every Ambassador - at least in theory - reports to the President, each in fact reports to the head of the bureau tasked with overseeing his or her work. And since President Bush does not regard the UN Ambassador as a cabinet-level appointment, that post now reports to the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs.

You have to wonder how Bolton will feel about reporting to an Assistant Secretary given that in his past job as Under Secretary, such positions used to report to him. That must really get under his (already thin) skin.

And to whom will John Bolton report? Kristen Silverberg, who, as Steve has pointed out, is at 34 one of the youngest people ever appointed to such a position and who has no previous experience working on UN issues. But before we're accused of ageism, let's be clear: by all accounts Ms. Silverberg is both very talented and an experienced veteran of the political wars, having served as an aide to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card. And if you look at her statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, she obviously shares her superiors' perspective when it comes to the UN. Mr. Bolton might want to be very careful about stepping on such well-connected toes.

Finally, there's Anne Patterson, the current acting Ambassador to the UN, who will serve as Bolton's deputy if he ever makes it to New York. A senior Foreign Service Officer whose distinguished career includes stints as U.S. Ambassador to Colombia and El Salvador, Patterson has done a superb job minding the store. Her State Department colleagues, UN officials, her staff, and her counterparts from other countries all love her. And she too has made strong statements in support of an effective UN.

So what happens when you insert someone like Bolton into this mix? And what if that someone has a record of politicizing intelligence and making inflammatory diplomatic statements? And to make it really exciting, what if that UN Ambassador can't be approved by the U.S. Senate and has to be installed as a recess appointment? Well, you get messes like Bolton's 2003 North Korea speech. The question isn't whether Bolton will try to subvert the process, but rather whether Rice's team will prove to be more effective than Powell's was.

With luck, President Bush will withdraw Bolton's name and nominate an Ambassador who can count on the support of not just the President, but also the Senate and, most importantly, the American people. Hey Mr. President, Madam Secretary, why not just make Anne Patterson's job permanent? It sure would increase the chances that we'll see a more effective UN on your watch.

Greetings from the centrist Republican corner of the blogosphere! I'm Jeremy Dibbell, and I've been blogging over at Charging RINO since late March. One of the major stories I've been focused on since the beginning is the Bolton nomination, and I've been a very regular reader of Steve's excellent commentary. I too was very honored that Steve asked me to take a role in guest blogging while he's away - as part of such an incredibly talented lineup - and I hope that my commentary and analysis will be of interest to you all.

Now that "the big question" of whether Bolton has testified before the Fitzgerald grand jury has officially been asked, as Dave notes below, we enter yet another orbit of uncertainty. Will the Administration respond to Biden's request for information? If the answer is that Bolton did not testify, it seems to me that would be a fact they'd want to make known as loudly and widely as possible. If he did testify (in this or any other investigation, as Stygius reminds us), and failed to disclose that, the nomination has an even more serious problem than it's had since the outset.

While I do not doubt that those in this White House will do and have done practically anything to get their way, I would hope that even they would find it difficult to recess-appoint Bolton with this question hanging over the nomination. Withholding information from Congress is an extremely serious issue - possibly in this case even a crime - and sending Bolton to the United Nations under such a cloud of uncertainty would be a black eye for the nation.

Having said that, sending John Bolton to the United Nations under any
circumstances would be a black eye for the nation...

From a Republican standpoint, I would hope that Senator Lugar as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as all other members, would join with Senator Biden in requesting an answer to this important question. Anyone interested in knowing the truth and having a complete and honest record of disclosure from this nominee should demand nothing less.

I think I speak for all of us in saying we'll be not-so-patiently awaiting a response to Biden's letter from Secretary Rice.

Greetings to the readers of the Washington Note, and thanks to Steve for the opportunity to guest post. To introduce myself, I am the editor of The National Interest (nationalinterest.org) and of its online supplement In the National Interest. Some of you may be familiar with us via the joint events that the magazine and the New America Foundation have sponsored over the last several months.

I wanted to pick up on a point that Charles Brown raised earlier today; his hope that "the impassioned, bipartisan opposition that [Bolton's] candidacy generated could have an enduring impact on American foreign policy." This follows up on Steve's post yesterday about the formation of the Partnership for a Secure America and his belief that it "is possible to put forward a bipartisan national security foreign policy that is not just a lowest common denominator approach."

There has been a great deal of discussion about the need to find a new foreign policy consensus around which a bipartisan "center" can coalesce. John Hulsman and Anatol Lieven, writing in the summer issue of the magazine, identify "ethical realism" as the way forward, as an international strategy based on prudence; a concentration on possible results rather than good intentions; a close study of the nature, views and interests of other states and a willingness to accommodate them when possible; and a mixture of profound American patriotism with an equally profound awareness of the limits both on American power and on American goodness.

In the forthcoming fall issue, Richard Haass makes the case that containment - the bipartisan consensus of the Cold War era - must now give way to a new approach, the doctrine of integration:

An American foreign policy based upon a doctrine of integration would have three dimensions. First, it would aim to create a cooperative relationship among the world¹s major powers built on a common commitment to promoting certain principles and outcomes. Second, it would seek to translate this commitment into effective arrangements and actions. Third, it would work to bring in other countries, organizations and peoples so that they come to enjoy the benefits of physical security, economic opportunity and political freedom. The goal would be to create a more integrated world both in the sense of integrating (involving) as many governments and organizations and societies as possible and in the sense of bringing about a more integrated (cooperative) international community so that the challenges central to the modern era could better be met.

Integration is thus the natural successor to containment, which was the necessary and correct policy construct for the Cold War.

Intellectually, the basis is there for a new bipartisan consensus supported by both moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats. But translating this from Washington salons into actual politics - here I have my doubts.

Lieven and Hulsman made a critical observation about how the "Truman moment" was put into practice, and those of you who were at the New America discussion on July 13 heard them point out that to establish a dominant moderate bipartisan consensus, the "left" wing of the Republican Party and the "right" wing of the Democratic Party, in essence, have to be prepared to battle their opponents within their own party. As they wrote:

The Truman Administration succeeded in politically isolating the left wing in the Democratic Party that favored some form of accommodation with the Soviet Union, epitomized by former Vice President Henry Wallace. The hard-line, preventive-war wing of the Republican Party, symbolized by General Douglas MacArthur, was likewise marginalized, a state of affairs reinforced by President Eisenhower, who essentially continued his predecessor¹s approach well into the Cold War.

Measured against this, I have to say, the anti-Bolton alliance still seems to largely be an ad hoc, tactical grouping. I don't see in either party, as of yet, a willingness to "do battle" with members of their own side of the aisle for the sake of a new bipartisan consensus. That may change over time.

But, so far, I don't believe that the Democrats have solved their deep internal divisions over foreign policy, between those who agree with the broad outline of the Bush Doctrine but disagree with the manner of its implementation and those Democrats who simply do not accept at all the approach of the current administration (think "Dean versus Lieberman"). And while conservative realists and American nationalists within the ranks of the Republican Party are deeply disquieted by the direction of the Bush Administration, are they prepared to reach across the aisle - not to appear on the same dais at a think-tank event, but in terms of how they cast their votes? This was Henry Nau's argument in the winter 2003/04 issue of the magazine - one he has repeated at a forum on conservative foreign policy held at George Washington University on May 10 - that despite sometimes very significant and even bitter disagreements, Republicans always find a way to overcome those differences. He noted:

Conservative wars over foreign policy of course are not new. Conservatives split after the Vietnam War. At that time, neoconservatives, led by Ronald Reagan, attacked Nixonian policies of detente and called for the end - not containment - of Soviet communism. Conservatives quarreled again after the Gulf War. Neoconservatives faulted realists for failing to march to Baghdad and eliminate Saddam Hussein. During both periods - in 1976 and in 1992 - liberals exploited conservative divisions to take the White House. That did not happen this time. But conservatives are tempting fate if they continue these intramural squabbles. Internecine wars are not only self-destructive, they are unnecessary. Conservatives have too much in common to wage war over foreign policy and cripple the Bush Administration's second term.

Many moderate Republicans are upset with the direction of the current administration; many, for a variety of reasons, do not want to see John Bolton as ambassador to the UN. They have made common cause with Democrats on this issue. But I would be cautious in extrapolating from the Bolton confirmation fight the emergence of a new "radical center".

One thing that's become quite apparent over the course of the debate on John Bolton is what happens when very capable and experienced people have tried to "supervise" him. When it comes to working within the system, Bolton doesn't just push the envelope - he rips it to shreds.

Boy, the State Department must have driven him absolutely nuts. Based on my experience there (I served in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor during the Clinton Administration), no institution on the face of the earth has ever so fetishized "process" for its own sake. Anyone - and I mean anyone - who consistently breaks Departmental rules on clearing documents becomes a problem, an outsider, an enemy.

Clearance is a sacred principle at State. Every single piece of paper produced at Foggy Bottom must have a second piece of paper attached to it: the clearance page, which lists every single person who has signed off on it. Without a clearance page, the document is not Department policy and cannot be used.

From their first day on the job, junior Foreign Service officers are taught that their careers will prosper if they properly clear documents - and wither if they do not. The process has even generated its own lingo inside the building. My favorite: when someone insists on an inconsequential semantic change to your document - say by replacing a word with its synonym - it's known as a "happy-to-glad" change.

Some documents - say, I don't know, key speeches on North Korea - can require dozens of approvals. When I drafted the introduction to the 2000 edition of the Department's annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, I had to get more than two hundred people to clear the damn thing before it could be released. I wasted weeks of my life negotiating petty disputes generated by officers demanding mutually exclusive changes to a given word or phrase.

And to make matters even worse, anyone clearing any document can execute a cute little maneuver known as the "CYA clearance," whereby his or her approval is contingent on you getting one or more clearances from other officers on your list. A document you thought needed three people's approval suddenly needs thirty.

And once you get the document cleared, you still have to face the gauntlet known as the executive secretariat, which manages all paper flowing to the Secretary. Its rules require every document to look exactly the same. Same font, same font size, even the same margins. The idea is to prevent the Secretary from favoring something because of its formatting. If your document doesn't pass muster, it gets "bounced" and you have to redraft it.

So it's no wonder that John Bolton is so disliked within the Department. In his four years as Undersecretary for Arms Control, he regularly ignored the rules, cherry-picking policy and making statements without clearing them. He even had the audacity to tell State and CIA officials that they didn't have the authority to review his speeches. He sought the demotion or firing (depending on who you ask) of those who had the audacity to make changes.

As a result, Bolton's four years at State are littered with clearance battles. Bolton fought back whenever Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage insisted that he or Secretary Colin Powell clear his speeches in advance. The man hates process. It probably gives him hives just thinking about it.

Perhaps the most infamous example of his disregard for the clearance process took place in 2003. Before he gave what was perhaps the single most ill-advised speech of his career (and that's really saying something, given his track record), a speech that almost single-handedly derailed arms control talks with axis of evil charter member North Korea, he went not to Powell, not to Armitage, not even to Jack Pritchard or Tom Hubbard, the officials responsible for Korea policy. He sought out Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly -- who, in what Larry Wilkerson, Powell's Chief of Staff, calls "a moment of weakness," approved it.

That's not how the system works, Mr. Bolton. And despite my horror stories about working within the system, I am not sympathetic to your plight. Like it or not, the Department's clearance process is designed to prevent loose cannons like you from making an end run around policy. In fact, it is expressly designed to protect "the weak" (e.g. career foreign service officers) when challenged by "the strong" (e.g. high-ranking political appointees).

And for all my dislike of the system, it works. I served in the human rights bureau, which is known inside the department as the "NGO within the building." We were not (and my successors are not) the most popular folks around, especially in the regional bureaus and embassies, where many folks like to forget to mention pesky issues like human rights when dealing with a given country.

What protected my bureau - and helped us win numerous battles - was the clearance process. The China desk didn't have the power to ignore human rights. They had to deal with us.

Now think about what John Bolton's hatred for process means if he actually (God forbid) makes it to Turtle Bay. He didn't behave himself within the (un)friendly confines of Foggy Bottom. Just imagine how frequently he'll go off the reservation when he's in far-away New York.

Secretary Rice may be thinking she's outsourcing her John Bolton problem, but the reality is that if he does make it to New York, he will be even worse. It's no wonder that the Foreign Service (not exactly the most revolutionary body) has almost to a person fought his nomination.

And come on, Mr. Bolton, this can't be very much fun for you. Wouldn't you be much happier in a nice little think tank where you can growl to your heart's content - and without worrying about getting anyone else's approval?

But if Bolton continues to insist on going to New York - and President Bush accommodates him with a political appointment - I have a suggestion that should make Secretary Rice's life much easier.

Tell Bolton that before he packs his bags, before he can utter a word in New York, before he can even get back into the Department for meetings, he has to go back to school. Send him to the Foreign Service Institute out in Arlington, which is responsible for teaching junior Foreign Service officers (and political appointees to ambassadorships) the art of diplomacy.

Tell him that if he doesn't obey his instructors, that if he fails the class, he doesn't get to go to New York. Tell him that he has to learn to listen to others - even seek their approval, perhaps for the first time in his life.

Maybe then he'll understand why there's a clearance process. I doubt it, but it's worth a try.

Senator Joe Biden has sent a letter to Secretary of State Rice asking her to clarify whether John Bolton has testified before the Fitzgerald grand jury. (Thinkprogress has the text; thanks to snowbird42 in comments for bringing it to my attention). MSNBC reported that he has -- and it is standing by its story. An anonymous senior administration official has been denying it, most notably to Suzanne Malveaux over at CNN.

Biden's letter deserves to be answered promptly. This is not the sort of question that can be left hanging over the head of a nomination, and, if unresolved, it would present a serious political obstacle to a recess appointment. Secretary Rice, unfortunately, doesn't have a stellar record of responding to Congressional requests for information, so if this is going to come out in a timely matter, it has to be done by the media. If anyone's looking, Stygius has got the questions that need to be asked just a few inches down the page.

If Bolton failed to report that he was questioned by the grand jury on his disclosure form (and remember how broad the question is), his only real out is if the questioning took place after March, when he initially filled out the report. Today's Washington Post Rove roundup, though, hints that "most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took place in 2004..." Which makes sense, since we've known for some time that Fitzgerald's investigation has been wrapping up for some time. And even if the testimony was more recent, Bolton's failure to amend his disclosure form suggests an intent to deceive.

-- Dave Meyer

Update: Reuters reports on the letter:

California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said Bolton, a blunt-spoken conservative who has drawn fire for his abrasive style, should not be sent to the U.N. post until lawmakers have a definite answer on the veracity of his response.

Hat tip to guest blogger Stygius.

Hello to all. I blog at Stygius, and I want to thank Steve for allowing me to guest-blog at The Washington Note while he’s away. Steve has been the anti-Bolton camp's center of gravity, and look how far we've come since the nomination was announced! Much of that has to do with Steve and his readers, who have been instrumental in making John Bolton a household name.

For this first post, I want to focus on an issue Steve raised yesterday, namely State Department IG investigations involving Bolton. Here is the SFRC question to which Bolton replied, "No":

Interviews -- Have you been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), Congressional or grand jury investigation within the past 5 years, except routine Congressional testimony? If so, provide details.

That's a very broad query. While questions have swirled as to whether Bolton testified or was interviewed in the Valerie Plame investigation, Steve pointed out that Bolton was most likely either interviewed, or had to provide information to the State Department Inspector General over the development of a State Dept. fact sheet which included the bogus Niger uranium claim. That led me to remember a second IG investigation involving Bolton's office.

A May article in The Hill reported on an Inspector General investigation even more closely centered on Bolton's office:

State Department officials have shared with Senate Democrats the findings of a sensitive State Department inspector general's report that could further undermine the nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The inspector general's report, which is considered sensitive but not classified, is critical of the expansion of a State Department bureau's role in assessing intelligence under Bolton during his service as the undersecretary of arms control and international security, according to sources who have read the report.

In this little bit of failed intrigue, Bolton was trying to end his dependence on State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the analytic agency that was getting its intelligence calls right during the run-up to war. The independence of the INR was problematic for Bolton, "lost confidence" and all that, as we saw in his treatment of its employees. Thus, Bolton wanted to turn one of his arms control shops into a stand-alone analysis agency that would feed him what he wanted to hear (see more).

But what is relevant to this new thread of controversy is that it indicates that Bolton faced a second IG inquiry that he would have had to disclose on his nomination form. (Who wants to bet there's a third lurking around somewhere?) Thus, this makes any omission not just a single hapless oversight.

Perhaps there is an explanation to all of this, but we won't know until senators and journalists raise these questions:

• Has John Bolton ever been interviewed as part of Fitzgerald's investigation?
• Has he supplied any information to Fitzgerald's investigation?
• Has John Bolton ever been interviewed by the State Department Inspector General as part of an investigation?
• Has he ever supplied any information to the IG as part of an investigation?

Relevant, timely questions that need to be publicly asked and answered before Friday's recess. Reporters at the White House and State Department are going nowhere by eliciting yawner non-answers on the Bush Administration's desire for an up-or-down vote (while off-the-record sources claim Bolton didn't testify). Instead, by probing along these lines, we might find that such stonewalling rapidly collapses.

One of the things that surprises me the most about the Bolton battle is that it has reignited a long-dormant debate over America's role in the world. Skepticism over Bolton's candidacy has led a number of Senators - including several leading Republicans - to reemphasize the need for the United States to engage more constructively with our friends. Even some of Mr. Bolton's staunchest defenders have argued that the U.S. must do a better job of working with its allies.

As a result, for perhaps the first time in a generation, Americans are expressing their deep-seated belief that the United States should back a stronger, more effective UN. This should not be regarded as some sort of revelation: in poll after poll, more than 60 percent of Americans say they favor greater U.S. cooperation with the UN. But in recent years, such support has tended to be passive, and thus not part of the debate in Washington.

The Bolton nomination helped change that dynamic. In fact, the public backlash against Bolton has prompted many Senators to urge President Bush to honor his second-term promise "to work as far as possible within the framework of international organizations." Particularly interesting is the fact that this has not been a partisan debate, but rather one between those (in both parties) who value U.S. engagement and international institutions and those (predominantly in the right wing of the Republican Party) who prefer unilateralism and disengagement. (I'll be posting more on how this has played out in the Senate later today.)

Sadly, however, neither the Bush Administration nor a majority of members of the House of Representatives have followed the Senate's lead. They continue to think that average Americans are either uninterested in, or unaware of, the rest of the world. They seem to believe that their constituents don't care about international issues or are opposed to policies that promote U.S. engagement or a more effective UN.

As a result, they continue to adopt positions on global issues that are contrary to the opinions of a majority of Americans. The President's dogged loyalty to Mr. Bolton is only one example. Another is the House's recent passage of the Hyde Act, which would cut U.S. dues payments to the UN in half if the world body does not undertake a series of specific reforms by October 2007 - a ridiculously short (and impossible to meet) timeframe. (For the record, the Administration has stated its opposition to the Hyde bill, but it has not threatened to veto it.)

For some, such shortsightedness is a matter of principle. For many, however, it is in the mistaken impression that they are reflecting the views of their constituents. And for a cynical few, it is because they think the American people don't care.

Further compounding matters is the reality that the very Americans who care about UN reform and other international issues also think that their leaders share their views. For example, a poll taken after the Presidential debates, during which George Bush repeatedly stated his opposition to the International Criminal Court, revealed that over half of those supporting the President's reelection believed that he shared their support for the ICC.

We need to convince those Americans who believe in global engagement and UN reform that their leaders are not making the right choices. And we need to demonstrate to those in office that ignoring their constituents' views on global issues comes at a cost.

The debate over Bolton has been a good start. But it's only a beginning. If we persist, John Bolton's most surprising legacy might be that his contentious nomination has laid the groundwork for the emergence of a new American internationalism - a movement that will once again see the United States promoting and strengthening effective international institutions capable of responding to a range of threats and challenges.

At Citizens for Global Solutions, we continue to work around the clock to oppose the Bolton nomination - and the possibility of a recess appointment. But if the President does decide to go around the Senate, it's important to remember that Mr. Bolton's time at the UN will be relatively brief and closely watched.

In contrast, the impassioned, bipartisan opposition that his candidacy generated could have an enduring impact on American foreign policy, one that will last far beyond Bolton's tenure at the UN. For that to happen, the battle over Bolton must be the beginning, not the end of the struggle.

Greetings Washington Note readers, and well met. It's an honor that Steve thought of me to help steward the site in his absence, and I'm looking forward as much as anyone to reading the motley crew of guest contributors he's lined up for the next couple of days.

This week, we'll get to hear from both some vets of the blogosphere and some new blood. Paul Glastris, editor in chief of the Washington Monthly and frequent contributor to its blog, will be chiming in, as will Mark Schmitt, a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation who blogs both at the Decembrist and at TPM Café. We'll also hear from Charles Brown, President and CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions, and Scott Paul, a chief organizer of the Stop Bolton campaign at CGS. Both have been huge players in Bolton effort, and both are new to the blogosphere. Be sure to extend a warm welcome.

I can be reached at:

.

I'll be following comments of course, but I appreciate feedback and commentary in any form.

There is an ongoing skirmish about whether John Bolton did or did not testify before or meet with investigators from the Valerie Plame case grand jury. It seems to me that the White House and State Department should simply state what the facts are for the record since that disclosure is required by the Senate for all diplomatic nominees.

If Karen Hughes can answer the question -- why can't Bolton? If the answer is NO, then say it.

However, whether or NOT John Bolton met with the Valerie Plame grand jury operation and thus potentially may have made an "untruthful statement" to the Senate in his disclosure statement, there is "another case."

Go back to the Waxman letter submitted to Chris Shays about John Bolton and the Niger/Uranium matter in early March 2005.

Here is the relevant excerpt:

Concealment of a State Department Official's Role in the Niger Uranium Claim

In April 2004, the State Department used the designation "sensitive but unclassified" to conceal unclassified information about the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation of a fact sheet distributed to the United Nations that falsely claimed Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

On December 19, 2002, the State Department issued a fact sheet entitled "Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council." (9) The fact sheet listed eight key areas in which the Bush Administration found fault with Iraq's weapons declaration to the United Nations on December 7, 2002. Under the heading "Nuclear Weapons," the fact sheet stated:

The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.
Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?

It was later discovered that this claim was based on fabricated documents. (10) In addition, both State Department intelligence officials and CIA officials reported that they had rejected the claim as unreliable. (11) As a result, it was unclear who within the State Department was involved in preparing the fact sheet.

On July 21, 2003, I wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for an explanation of the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, in creating the document. (12) On September 25, 2003, the State Department responded with a definitive denial: "Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John R. Bolton, did not play a role in the creation of this document." (13)

Subsequently, however, I joined six other members of the Government Reform Committee in requesting from the State Department Inspector General a copy of an unclassified "chronology" on how the fact sheet was developed. (14) This chronology described a meeting on December 18, 2002, between Secretary Powell, Mr. Bolton, and Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs. According to this chronology, Mr. Boucher specifically asked Mr. Bolton "for help developing a response to Iraq's Dec 7 Declaration to the United Nations Security Council that could be used with the press. According to the chronology, which is phrased in the present tense, Mr. Bolton "agrees and tasks the Bureau of Nonproliferation," a subordinate office that reports directly to Mr. Bolton, to conduct the work.

This unclassified chronology also stated that on the next day, December 19, 2003, the Bureau of Nonproliferation "sends email with the fact sheet, 'Fact Sheet Iraq Declaration.doc.'" to Mr. Bolton's office (emphasis in original). A second e-mail was sent a few minutes later, and a third e-mail was sent about an hour after that. According to the chronology, each version "still includes Niger reference." Although Mr. Bolton may not have personally drafted the document, the chronology appears to indicate that he ordered its creation and received updates on its development.

The Inspector General's chronology was marked "sensitive but unclassified." In addition, the letter transmitting the chronology stated that it "contains sensitive information, which may be protected from public release under the Freedom of Information Act" and requested that no "public release of this information" be made. (15) In fact, however, the chronology consisted of nothing more than a factual recitation of information on meetings, e-mails, and documents.

Now, the State Department Inspector General may have gone through an entire investigation of Mr. Bolton and his office in trying to assess his and the office's involvement with the Niger fact without ever speaking to Bolton.

BUT WOULDN'T THAT BE EMBARRASSING?! Could Bolton really state -- after an IG investigation of his office and his role -- that he was uninvolved with an IG investigation over the last five years.

And yet, John Bolton responded NO on the questionnaire.

Compliance problem. Compliance problem.

At minimum, a dozen red flags.

-- Steve Clemons

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee requires that all nominees that come before the Committe for confirmation answer a roster of questions, which must be answered truthfully and as if under oath.

This is the question that Karen Hughes recently responded to in the affirmative. It is also the question to which John Bolton responded, definitely, "NO".

From the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Disclosure Form:

Interviews -- Have you been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative (including an inspector general), Congressional or grand jury investigation within the past 5 years, except routine Congressional testimony? If so, provide details.

MSNBC stands by its story that lawyers involved in the Valerie Plame grand jury report that John Bolton was interviewed. CNN and other networks report that the White House and State Department are unofficially -- though not officially -- denying that Bolton met the grand jury or any of its investigators.

Someone is fibbing. Did John Bolton testify? If he did, when did he do so? Will the State Department be sending over an amended disclosure form soon?

This is still cooking.

-- Steve Clemons

TWN will have an amazing roster of guest-bloggers. I will be hovering in an undisclosed location, trying to improve the world in some modest ways.

But I will be reading, occasionally (perhaps) chiming in -- and hoping hard that Karl Rove does not exploit my absence to send Bolton to the United Nations without the Senate's seal of approval.

For those who are hyperventilating that Friday evening, it is all going to happen (and of course, it might), still read today's White House press briefing with Scott McClellan:

Q Last week you sort of indicated that there was no recess appointment for Bolton in the works. Now there seems to be a change in the atmosphere. Can you clear that up? Is he going to get a recess appointment?

MR. McCLELLAN: Nothing has changed in terms of our views about John Bolton.

Q That you want an up or down vote?

MR. McCLELLAN: We believe he ought to have an up or down vote. Nothing has changed in terms of that view.

Q So he's not going to get one?

MR. McCLELLAN: Nothing has changed at this point.

Nothing has changed.

Hmm...it's so hard to tell when the White House is being straight with the American people and when it is hiding the ball.

But still, the "hint" that a recess appointment was around the corner seems to have disappeared.

More later. . .from me, and lots of interesting other bloggers -- some brand new to the sport.

Dave Meyer, one of Washington's premier political researchers and blog coordinator extraordinaire, will be serving as the grand host this next week and a bit more.

-- Steve Clemons

What do Howard Baker, Sandy Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinksi, Warren Christopher, John Danforth, Lawrence Eagleburger, Lee Hamilton, Gary Hart, Rita Hauser, Carla Hills, Richard Holbrooke, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Thomas Kean, Anthony Lake, Robert McFarlane, Donald McHenry, William Perry, Thomas Pickering, Warren Rudman, Theodore Sorensen, and John Whitehead HAVE IN COMMON?

Well, they all agree with TWN that it is possible to put forward a bipartisan national security foreign policy that is not just a lowest common denominator approach.

And they are Advisory Board Members of the nearly newly-launched Partnership for a Secure America that breaks open the champagne next Wednesday, August 3rd.

PSA has been co-founded by Democratic national security staffer and former candidate for Congress Jamie Metzl and long-term Chief of Staff for Senator Richard Lugar Chip Andreae.

One of PSA's projects coincides with the conference I am helping to organize -- "Terrorism, Security, and America's Purpose" -- slated to take place in Washington on September 6 and 7.

We look forward to seeing how PSA develops -- and TWN is proud to provide the first link to its new website.

-- Steve Clemons

Efforts are underway to resolve "officially" whether John Bolton met with the Valerie Plame grand jury or its investigators. If he did before submitting his declaration statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his recess appointment will not occur. If he simply failed to amend his declaration but did meet with the Committee, there is still a chance he could squeak by during recess.

However, I just ran across this interesting site that allows the public to suggest to members of Congress whom they would prefer to represent them at the United Nations.

In the past, this blog has nominated a series of credible Republicans for consideration, including Paula Dobriansky, Richard Haass, Amo Houghton, Representative Heather Wilson, Rita Hauser, Robert Kimmitt (who has now been appointed to serve as Deputy Treasury Secretary), Carla Hills, and others. I'd even add Newt Gingrich today -- whom I increasingly think is edging out Paula Dobriansky as the likely nominee if Bolton's nomination finally dies.

Choose your own.

More later on the issue of whether Bolton met the grand jury -- and under what terms.

-- Steve Clemons

MSNBC reports to TWN that its source on Bolton being interviewed by the Valerie Plame Wilson grand jury "is unimpeachable."

MSNBC is standing "firmly" by its story -- and is shirking off the fact that other networks and major news organizations have been unable to confirm what MSNBC feels is a solid fact.

CNN has not yet responded to TWN on the White House source who allegedly stated that the Bolton report "was erroneous."

There are now rumblings, given what has been reported in the media, that various Senators may request the State Department to clarify whether or not Mr. Bolton met with the grand jury and/or its investigators. If he did so, they may ask when this took place.

This disclosure is a requirement of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which while Bolton's nomination has passed through the Committee without support, is still tasked with maintaing "the record" on John Bolton so as to inform the whole Senate.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I swear that there are few stories that just keep giving the way the John Bolton nomination has.

Robert George -- a conservative -- articulated well the reasons he thinks that the John Bolton nomination is dead, both by formal confirmation by the Senate as well as by recess appointment.

Today, AP's Terence Hunt tells another story and writes that he heard the White House actually hinting that Bolton would possibly get a recess appointment.

This alleged nuance, reportecd by Hunt, is important because McClellan and others speaking on behalf of the President have never moved beyond their predictable bleat that Bolton deserved and should get an up-or-down vote. They never mentioned recess appointment -- or anything that vaguely sounded like it.

I think that Hunt may be overstating the White House's "hint" of a recess appointment, but McClellan's words can be read either way. When queried specifically about recess appointments and the U.N., McClellan said "There's nothing that's changed, in terms of what we said previously on that at this point."

Nothing has changed -- and yet McClellan made clear in cases where things might have changed -- other than in the U.N. appointment -- recess appointments may be justified in Bush's view.

Here is the relevant part of the White House press briefing:

Q Congress is going home in a few days. How does the President approach the question of recess appointments? Does he see that as a sort of last resort, a back door, legitimate approach? How does he approach that question?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I don't want to get into speculating about anything that may or may not occur at this point. There is still this final week before they do recess. There are a number of nominees that I think the Senate is prepared to move forward on. We encourage them to act on those nominees.

In terms of recess appointments, there have been times when the President has used that authority that he has to get people in place that have waited far too long to get about doing their business. And I think that's the way that he approaches it, that there are important priorities we're working to advance, and it's important to have people in certain positions. And if the Senate fails to act and move forward on those nominees, then sometimes there comes a point where the President has needed to fill that in a timely manner by recessing those nominees.

Q Would the U.N. pick fall into that category?

MR. McCLELLAN: There's nothing that's changed, in terms of what we said previously on that at this point.

We are getting close to August. The White House has got to figure out whether it end-runs the Senate on Bolton or not.

But there is new material emerging that could finally end this interesting political drama.

More on that soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Robert George runs a cool blog, RaggedThots.

George, who is a brilliant, hilarious guy, is a thoughtful conservative who worked for some time as speech-writer/wordsmith to House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

He writes:

John Bolton, R.I.P.

John Bolton will never be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Whether he should be or not is no longer the question. Whether the "temperament" charges against him were fair or if he was just a victim of Chris Dodd's pro-Cuba fetish doesn't matter.

It is now politically impossible. On Friday, individual clouds that had been drifting around for months -- in some cases, years -- finally merged into a media perfect storm. It is now raging. Whether he knows it or not, Bolton has been thrown overboard as far more significant players start working overtime before the ship of state begins taking on water.

Read the whole thing. He gets it right I think.

We still need to learn more about the details of Bolton's grand jury interview/testimony, so stay tuned.

-- Steve Clemons

I spent much of Friday speaking with people at MSNBC, including officials in the network's communication and legal department, as well as with Hardball correspondent David Schuster.

All of the people to whom I spoke are standing by the report by David Schuster Thursday evening that John Bolton is among those who have provided testimony to the grand jury in the Valerie Plame investigation.

By Friday evening, CNN's Inside Politics had an interesting exchange between James Carville, Pat Buchanan, and CNN White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux. Whereas Carville echoed what had appeared on my blog and others that Bolton had met with the grand jury, Malveaux interrupted him and stated that she had heard from White House sources that this information is erroneous.

Despite TWN's efforts Friday evening, we were unable to reach Ms. Malveaux -- although we did query MSNBC again, after Malveaux's comments, and the network still says that it's information on Bolton meeting the grand jury is firm.

Here is the transcript of the Carville-Malveaux exchange:

CNN: INSIDE POLITICS 3:30 PM EST

July 22, 2005 Friday

CARVILLE: I don't know. But from what I know is, is that federal prosecutors in federal court take a pretty dim view about not telling the truth. I mean a real, real dim view.

And again -- you have, Mr. Libby -- according to Bloomberg, you have Mr. Libby saying I heard it from Mr. Russert, you have Mr. Russert saying he heard no such thing from me. You have Mr. Rove saying Mr. Novak, he first heard it from Mr. Novak. You have Mr. Novak saying essentially that Mr. Rove confirmed my story for me. Furthermore, you have Mr. Rove saying I had a conversation with Mr. Matt Cooper of "Time" magazine about welfare reform, then Mr. Cooper said we had no such conversation about welfare reform, we were talking about Valerie Plame. So it is -- my sense is that it matters greatly. And now the new wrinkle is reported on blogs, I understand, is that John Bolton has been called in to discuss the matter with them.

MALVEAUX: We've spoken to a senior administration official who say that that's actually not true, that that did not occur -- that that was actually an erroneous report.

BUCHANAN: That is exactly the point here. Grand jury testimony is secret. And so what we're hearing is strictly rumors. A rumor a day, people are moving all kinds of stories, we don't know how many times they've been transferred to other people before we actually hear the rumor. And so we do not know anything at this time. I agree with James on one count. I mean, if indeed they perjured themselves, if they lied before the grand jury, then we have a crime. But we will know that until they're indicted.

CARVILLE: Hold on. We do know, we can know if someone goes in, if I go in and I tell a grand jury something, I can come out and say this is what I told the grand jury. We know that they said, what Mr. Russert and Mr. Novak said, they can say what they said.

So, CNN and MSNBC reports conflict.

After personally speaking with those involved in the MSNBC reports, I will maintain my position that I believe that Bolton has met with the grand jury.

What we don't know is "when" Bolton met with the grand jury -- and under what terms. Was he subpoenaed? In that case, he would appear without lawyer present. Or did he voluntarily meet with investigators on behalf of the grand jury? In that case, he would have a lawyer present.

If he was interviewed when the bulk of other State Department officials were met by the grand jury or investigators on its behalf, then he would have been interviewed BEFORE he was nominated by President Bush to the Ambassadorship at the United Nations.

There is a declaration required by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that specifically asks if the diplomatic nominee had been interviewed by a grand jury or inspector general investigation any time during the last five years. Bolton answered "NO" on this form.

If he had met with the grand jury when others did, then he has technically perjured himself under oath before the Senate. if he met with the grand jury recently, he would not be in technical breach of this disclosure requirement.

But now the people do have a right to know -- and the White House should disclose when Bolton met with the grand jury. Was he in appropriate legal territory on his disclosure -- or did he violate this disclosure requirement?

If he met recently with the grand jury, then did Fleitz also get interviewed? These are fundamental questions that need to be investigated. Fleitz and Bolton were a team -- and Fleitz gave Bolton certain intelligence capabilities given his official CIA WINPAC duties that very few senior officials in the State Department would normally have.

TWN will still try to reach Suzanne Malveaux to learn what she learned -- or to encourage CNN to provide further comment, because right now, it's clear that the White House is either lying about Bolton and the grand jury meeting to Malveaux, or lawyers close to the grand jury investigation are lying to MSNBC.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.

The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.

It's all "thickening."

-- Steve Clemons

David Schuster of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews made a whopper revelation about grand jury testimony in the Valerie Plame-outing investigation: John Bolton has testified about the top secret document that Colin Powell had aboard Air Force One.

TWN has confirmed with MSNBC that it it standing by its story.

Shuster's report yesterday:

DAVID SHUSTER, NBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A witness who testified at the grand jury and lawyers for other witnesses say the memo was written in July of 2003, identified Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, as a CIA officer, and cited her in a paragraph marked S for sensitive.

According to lawyers, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and undersecretaries, including John Bolton, gave testimony about this memo. And a lawyer for one State Department official says his client testified that, as President Bush was flying to Africa on Air Force One two years ago, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer could be seen reading the document on board.

The timing is significant, because the president's trip on July 7 was one day after Ambassador Joe Wilson's column was published criticizing the administration. In other words, on July 6, Wilson's column comes out. On July 7, the State Department memo about Wilson's wife is seen on Air Force One. And, on July 8, Karl Rove had a conversation with columnist Robert Novak, but says it was Novak who told him about Valerie Plame, not the other way around.

Rove also says he never saw the State Department memo until prosecutors showed it to him. Six days later, on July 14, 2003, Novak published the now infamous column that publicly identified Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, as a CIA operative.

Grand jury witnesses say a call record kept by Ari Fleischer shows Novak placed a call to him during this period. And lawyers for several witnesses say their clients were questioned by investigators about Fleischer's conversations. Fleischer, however, did not have the power to be a decision-maker in the administration. And White House observers point out, he wouldn't have likely taken it upon himself to disseminate the State Department memo. In any case, Fleischer and his lawyer have declined to comment.

As far as Karl Rove is concerned, a recent line of questioning about him suggests the grand jury may be pursuing issues related to possible inconsistencies. For weeks, Karl Rove's lawyer has been saying the now deputy White House chief of staff testified his 2003 conversation with “TIME” magazine reporter Matt Cooper was about welfare reform and, only at the end of that discussion, did Rove talk about anything else.

Matt Cooper recalls leaving Karl Rove a message about welfare reform. But Cooper testified that, when he and Karl Rove spoke, Joe Wilson was the only topic of conversation. Cooper says this contradiction with Rove, combined with his testimony that Rove told him about the Wilson's CIA wife, prompted a flurry of grand jury questions. And Cooper told NBC's Tim Russert the grand jurors themselves played an active role.

This takes us back to whether it is possible that John Bolton's shop played a role in promulgating not only the Niger/Uranium story inside the State Department but in its cozy relationship with the Vice President's office tried to help undermine Joe Wilson by exposing the identity of his wife.

The John Bolton and Fred Fleitz rap was that they constantly crossed lines of appropriate behavior and conduct.

More on this -- as it develops.

-- Steve Clemons

CIA Director George Tenet was steamed when Valerie Plame Wilson's covert identity was revealed -- and his people put it to him to insist on a serious investigation. Tenet would not back off when others in the White House tried to evade at the time -- and Tenet demanded that this investigation take place.

If Rove and Scooter Libby fall, George Tenet had a lot to do with it.

Now it seems that a pattern of lies and deceit about who told what to whom is emerging -- and as Bloomberg reports, the Rove and Libby stories don't mesh with what has been reported by journalists.

Cover-up? Certainly. Conspiracy? Looking more like that every day.

What did the President know and when did he know it?

What did the Vice President know and when did he know it?

From Bloomberg:

Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.

These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation. The Plame case has its genesis in whether any administration officials violated a 1982 law making it illegal to knowingly reveal the name of a covert intelligence agent.

These guys took America into war and have relied on lies and deceit to accomplish much of what they have done. They are the most responsible for puncturing the mystique of American power, moral authority and status in the world.

It is when America is showing its limits that allies will not count on us and enemies will move their agendas.

Add that to Karl Rove's and Dick Cheney's roster of accomplishments.

-- Steve Clemons

. . .and while they are at it, Ned Flanders could enter the local "John Bolton Look-Alike Contest."

That might get a few more entries than the Ned Flanders look-alike contest, although JB could go for it.

Jon Stewart has got to pick this up. . .or Saturday Night Live. Or even Tim Russert.

John Bolton and the Great Global Tax. . .written, directed and produced by Frank Gaffney.

(I'm still sitting on the tarmac at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. I caught a 6:30 a.m. flight from Albuquerque -- and I'm sitting next to a guy who left there from 2:00 p.m. I feel like Jack Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick: Is this all a mistake. . .or did you do this on purpose?!)

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Just an hour ago, I mentioned that Frank Gaffney made a wrong-headed linkage between the Gaza pull-out and the London bombings.

Now, Gaffney is asserting that we are all at risk from the United Nations imposing a global tax on unsuspecting citizens everywhere. Talk about playing to the black helicopter crowd!

And his solution is to get John Bolton to the U.N. -- any way the President can (meaning out with the stamp of legitimacy of the United States Senate). He wants Bolton to stop the "Global Tax."

Someone, please call Wolf Blitzer, Al Franken, Jon Stewart, Doonesbury, Ted Koppel. . .call everyone. This would make a great show.

Can we get the "Simpson's" to run an episode with John Bolton stopping the great global tax?!

Maybe C-Span's Washington Journal will invite Frank Gaffney and me to square off over John "Beat the Global Tax" Bolton.

It would make SUCH a great show. . .

-- Steve Clemons

I may be making comparing things that should not be compared, but nonetheless, the connection was made when catching up with some reading this morning.

It turns out that the global "listening" infrastructure that was built as part of Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban obligations picks up not only the sounds of nuclear tests -- but also big schisms in the earth's crust. This is a fascinating clip about the long, grinding sound of the earth tearing itself apart during the December 2004 tsunami-creating quake.

Then, I turned to a powerful piece written by the Washington Post's Warren Bass on Gaza. There too, there are political plates tearing themselves apart -- and there are huge risks not only for the Israelis and Palestinians writ large but for the world in the Gaza withdrawal.

I, for one, think that we need to begin considering what lies beyond Gaza -- but we have to get through Gaza first. As I wrote the other day, Frank Gaffney linked the London bombings to the Gaza pullout, arguing that withdrawing from occupied territories is appeasing Islamofascists. I couldn't disagree more.

We must not allow the crime of terrorism delegitimate policies that make good public policy sense. For example, withdrawing from Gaza is a major step towards an eventual two-state solution in the Palestinian-Israeli standoff, and the Bush administration endorses this.

We need to split the "official" Bush administration off from the radicals embedded in and around the White House and move this deal forward.

More on this later, but I wanted to make sure that some of you got the opportunity to read this great Warren Bass piece -- and ponder what the earth tearing itself apart might sound like.

I'm still stuck in Denver at the airport.

-- Steve Clemons

There's a lot going on in the world. Most of you probably know that there was a low casualty terrorist incident in London involving four bombs. I've spent the last several days with some seriously smart -- and dangerous -- people out at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The focus of the meeting was roughly "Homeland Security and Terrorism." I'm involved in organizing a major conference on the subject of terrorism and democracies taking place on September 6 & 7 in Washington, D.C. I will be writing more about it soon -- but if you plan to be in D.C. at the time, zap me an email and I will issue you an invitation (there is no charge).

On the Bolton front, a lot of weird stuff is popping up. None of it seems too serious to me.

But despite the efforts underway by Dems to figure out how to place their marker in the coming confirmation debate about Supreme Court Associate Justice nominee John Roberts, I think it is clear that the battle over John Bolton -- still happily unresolved and withering on the vine -- may have chastened the White House (finally) to be more cautious. There are some who think Roberts is a trojan horse for reversals on Roe v. Wade and other important progressive issues -- and there is merit in their concerns. But compared to the roster of alternatives, he is just an order of magnitude better than what most expected.

Why did this happen? I think that the Bolton battle made a difference.

Secondly, one informed observer has shared his view with me that part of the reason that the administration was so resistant on releasing memos, emails, and other material requested by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Bolton-related NSA intercepts and Syria testimony was in preparation for a battle over minutes, notes, emails, etc. that involve John Roberts. Could be. I'm not sure -- but the link is plausible.

On other fronts, Chuck Hagel spoke to a German Marshall Fund breakfast meeting to which I was invited but was stuck on a plane and said that he thinks Bolton is still teed up for an August recess appointment.

Here is the latest from Congress Daily quoting Hagel:

Congress Daily AM July 21, 2005 HILL BRIEFS Hagel Predicts Bolton To Get Recess Appointment

Despite Bush administration prodding for another Senate vote to confirm John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said Wednesday he does not expect one to happen.

"I think the last vote on Bolton has been taken," Hagel said, referring to a 54-38 vote in late June by which Senate Republicans fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

At a breakfast hosted by the German Marshall Fund, Hagel said he expects President Bush to give Bolton a recess appointment to fill the job once Congress begins its August recess.

Democrats have demanded documents regarding Bolton's role in preparing testimony on Syria and weapons of mass destruction he was to deliver in 2003 and his requests to determine the identity of individuals cited in National Security Agency intercepts.

Bush administration officials have denied the request, and Democrats, led by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Joseph Biden, D-Del., have in turn refused to let the nomination be brought to a vote.

On other humorous fronts, various press outlets were reporting a "denial" of rumors that John Bolton was going to be appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines. It seems that the Philippines government went hard at work to try and make sure that John Bolton was not, in fact, headed their way.

Other highly-placed State Department sources have shared with TWN that Bolton himself was 'likely' the source that Charles Babington and Dafna Linzer referred to when it was disclosed that Bolton "would" indeed accept a recess appointment if offered.

Others have confirmed to TWN that Bolton did try to begin to get his staff and office space expanded in the Washington-based operations of the United Nations -- and that Condi Rice was completely unaware of this effort. Those who disclosed the information about Bolton's pre-confirmation stewardship of logistics related to the U.S. mission to the United Nations are admittedly not thrilled at the prospect of working under his lead.

Lastly, a note just came in -- and I don't have that much time to track all of the details down as I'm rushing to catch a flight -- but apparently there is a Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning involving former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senator George Mitchell.

Senator Hagel apparently welcomed Newt as "Ambassador Gingrich," following up on a background comment by Senator Biden that Gingrich ought to throw his hat in to be Ambassador to the United Nations.

But the White House remains steadfastly committed to its desire for an "up or down" vote on Bolton.

TWN suggests that the White House's lunk-headedness on the Bolton nomination is harming American interests in the United Nations -- and giving the world a display of what pugnacious extremism can do to undermine the best of what tug and pull democracy should generate -- in this case, a better U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Gotta catch my flight.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Interesting.

Bush did not pick someone who is a flaming right-wing ideologue for the Supreme Court. Roberts is someone who impresses people on both sides of the aisle -- and he certainly isn't going to be a good target for the left and isn't going to give the Christian right the kind of assurances it wants.

This was not a pugnacious move by Bush and company. And the fact that Edith Brown Clement and John Roberts were on the same roster says something about the White House's calculation of how little it can get away with right now.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Reports are coming in that conflict with CNN's tip that Edith Brown Clement will be nominated by President Bush tonight. Apparently, ABC News is reporting that she will not be the nominee.

Keep your powder dry. . .More later.

-- Steve Clemons

There will be a great number of legal analysts who pore over the record of Edith Brown Clement to debate whether she is the next version of an ideologically-predictable Antonin Scalia or a more pragmatic Sandra Day O'Connor-type.

President Bush is allegedly primed to nominate her at 9 p.m. Eastern time tonight. Perhaps he will surprise us with a different choice, but TWN doubts it.

I don't want to preempt the opposition to Clement if there is good reason to oppose her. I don't know. However, she was confirmed 99-0 in 2001 to the appellate bench.

When anyone is confirmed unanimously, it makes it very difficult to undo the nomination unless high crimes or terrible behavior have occurred since that vote.

In the case of John Bolton's confirmation vote for his previous position as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Bolton was confirmed in a 57-43 vote which provided a base to begin a meaningful opposition operation.

In John Negroponte's case, he was nominated by a 98-2 vote in the Senate for his current position after having received a 98-0 voice vote confirmation for the U.N. Ambassadorship (though three Senators voted against Negroponte in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings).

Bolton was the right target not only because he was the wrong man for this important job -- but because there was a record of opposition to him. Negroponte, though many have problems with his role in Iran-Contra, has received overwhelming support in the Senate -- and thus opposition to him could not be perceived credibly, no matter how hard Senator Ron Wyden tried to convince his colleagues otherwise.

Edith Brown Clement has the same sort of solid vote from the Senate in her dossier, and TWN predicts that beating her will not be something that Dems spend a lot of political capital on.

This doesn't mean for a nanosecond that Bolton stands a better or worse chance than he did yesterday. He's still in limbo -- and the confirmation is clearly losing air, buzz, and luster.

-- Steve Clemons

So, the failure to get a deal on the NSA intercepts and Syria testimony documentation is all Senate Majority Leader Frist's fault?

So goes it if one thinks through White House spokesman Trent Duffy's comments on the Bolton nomination at Friday's press gaggle aboard Air Force One enroute to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Here is the exchange:

Q What about the status of John Bolton's nomination to be U.N. Ambassador?

MR. DUFFY: Nothing has changed on that. The administration and the White House are still -- hope that Ambassador Bolton will get a fair up or down vote.

Q What support is the administration giving Majority Leader Frist to make certain that a vote does happen on the floor? He's tried twice and has been stopped twice. What now?

MR. DUFFY: I think the administration stands ready to help in any way Senator Frist asks for it.

Anything else?

Q Thank you, very much.

MR. DUFFY: Enjoy your lunch.

Two things going on here.

First, the White House just continually screws Senator Frist. The amount of abuse he has taken from the White House over John Bolton is incredible. The fact that Duffy essentially put this in Frist's lap must be making some in the Majority Leader's office a bit steamed.

Second, the White House has not budged on Bolton. They are just letting him swing. And many Bush administration officials have offered their personal views to TWN that they don't mind at all seeing Mr. Bolton linger in nomination purgatory for a while.

Senator Frist -- call me if you'd like to comment on Trent Duffy's suggestion that this is ALL your deal.

-- Steve Clemons

When nominations by the President make sense, they typically fly through without a hitch. Just check out the line-up that Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will discuss on Friday, July 22nd:

Ms. Karen P. Hughes

To be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, with the Rank of Ambassador

The Honorable Josette S. Shiner

To be Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business & Agricultural Affairs

Ms. Kristen Silverberg

To be Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs

The Honorable Jendayi E. Frazer

To be Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs

I wager that most of the questions and exchanges with the group will be with the celebrity-nominee, Karen Hughes, whom all on the Committee know well as President Bush's powerful "message czaress."

But a chunk of questions really should be directed toward Andy Card's former assistant, Kristen Silverberg, who is being considered for a job (Asst. Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs) that John Bolton had years ago -- when he was tasked with reversing the "Zionism is Racism" resolution in the United Nations.

A TWN reader just sent in this note about Ms. Silverberg and whether she will be up to one of the most serious challenges of this job -- SUPERVISING JOHN BOLTON. That's right, John Bolton will report to her, at least theoretically.

The reader comment:

This Friday, the SFRC is having a hearing to confirm Kristen Silverberg to be assistant secretary of State for international organizational affairs. She would be Bolton's boss, if he ends up as ambassador.

She's only 34, and beyond her work as deputy to Andy Card, has just one year of working for the CPA for Bremer on her resume (which apparently makes her a UN expert). But beyond her relative inexperience, does anyone believe that she'll be able to call the shots on Bolton?

I believe that there are many competent and visionary 34 year olds out there, and Ms. Silverberg may be one. I don't know her -- and I suspect that working around Bremer and Andy Card were very useful experiences.

But that aside, we should know a bit more about how she would deal with someone like John Bolton.

Here are some questions for the Foreign Relations Committee to pose to Ms. Silverberg:

1. Would you authorize the doubling of Washington, D.C.-based office space and personnel to support John Bolton's tenure as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations?

2. The administration is on record opposing Henry Hyde's U.N. reform bill and does not endorse compelling the withholding of U.N. dues in exchange for compulsory actions by the United Nations. However, John Bolton has endorsed such a formula in the past.

How will you assure that John Bolton pursues stated administration policy and not some version of policy that coincides with the Vice President's views but which are informal and unofficial?

3. What is the traditional access that a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations has to super-secret National Security Agency intercepts? If the Ambassador is able to make requests for NSA intelligence materials, will Mr. Bolton's requests be screened by you in advance?

4. What mechanisms will you establish to fully vet, control, and administer speeches that Mr. Bolton wishes to give? This was a problem for him in the past, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage required that every Bolton speech be cleared.

How will you formalize this process?

5. If Mr. Bolton engages in behavior similar to that documented in his behavior towards Christian Westermann, Rexon Ryu, and others, what steps will you take -- should you take -- to curb such abuses?

6. Are you prepared to deal with someone of the fiery temperament of Mr. Bolton who has stated oftentimes in his past role that he did not work for the Secretary of State, nor the Deputy Secretary of State, but directly for the President of the United States -- thus trying to rationalize a work plan for himself that differed from what his hierarchal superiors instructed him to do?

7. Are you prepared and fully aware -- eyes wide open -- of the brinksmanship that is ahead in dealing with America's operation at the United Nations if Mr. Bolton finds his way to the head of it?

Have you been offered combat pay?

There are probably many other great questions to pose. Feel free to list more in the comments section, and I'll send those that make sense to the Staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

-- Steve Clemons

(Kudos to N.P. for forwarding the comment.)

My email backlog is 10,732 -- but I am finally whittling it down. I found in the mix an email sent to me by a friend on February 25, 2005 that said the following:

It seems that the atmospherics of Bush's visit to Europe were good (except maybe with Putin) but that little substantive was achieved. It occurs to me that there is an opportunity here that may still be achievable.

We want a firmer line on Iran, no arms sales to China, and more help on Iraq. They want action on global warming and US participation in the International Criminal Court. Maybe a deal can be reached. Most US businesses accept that some restrictions on carbon emissions are inevitable. We don't have to sign on to Kyoto fully to make a significant move in that direction. Bush could offer some movement on Kyoto and ICC in return for European action on Iran and China.

I think this is a winner for Bush, even though his constituencies might see it as both gains and losses. The reason is that movement conveys its own benefits--he is seen to be effective and moving forward--whereas stalemate always looks bad. Plus he can repair some damage with US domestic environmentalists and internationalists (perhaps he attaches low value to that--but the deal does not require it).

Various quid pro quos are also possible on Israel-Palestine and the WTO round, but each can be separated from the other and the above deal.

This thoughtful note from someone who wanted to be supportive of the President provides good retrospective context of how poorly things have gone this last half year.

On Iran, he U.S. and Europe have had an unsteady, dysfunctional approach that has been characterized more by mutual grimacing and contempt than coordination. To refresh yourself on one of the more bizarre performances by John Bolton before our allies, read this.

And quickly ticking through the list, Bush failed to support Blair on any reasonable steps towards a globally coordinated effort on carbon emissions. We have done no horse-trading with the Europeans on the International Criminal Court or any of Europe's wish list items in return for help internationalizing the too-American face of our security and civil institution operations in Iraq.

America has missed many, many opportunities this past year. And the President's selection of John Bolton as his administration's choice to serve at the United Nations reflects one of many decisions that further alienate our allies and friends.

The White House is caught in a trap of its own making. It has not been truthful regarding who leaked Valerie Plame's CIA identity. Instead, it is playing a cat-and-mouse game with the press, public, and Patrick Fitzgerald.

It is choking on the Bolton nomination and has given no indication of ending this bad business and instead nominating someone whom Americans can support at the U.N.

And it has a Supreme Court nomination to make while its radical religious fundamentalist wing tries to extort from Bush an ideological zealot for the court.

America's prominence in global affairs has become more myth than real at this point. We still have assets, considerable ones -- but Bush's mishandling of "America's purpose" in this early part of the 21st century have constrained our choices as a nation.

As soon as Bush is officially a lame duck, we clearly need John McCain and other moderates to take back the Republican Party. I know that this sounds naieve to many who think that it is impossible to turn back the power of religious fundamentalists in the party, but I disagree.

And in the Democratic Party, they still haven't cleaned house. The party is still risk-averse, clinging to a 50%-plus-one attititude, which keeps it from appealing to the passions and hopes of those who want more from national leaders. And yes, I'll add to the mantra -- the Dems have been abysmally slow and ineffective in the manufacturing and production of "new ideas." There have been some gains -- but Dems need to unclog their arteries.

I really don't care if the White House is held by a Republican or Democratic president if that president reflects the best interests of a broad cross section of the public and manages public interests and goals honorably and competently. But right now, both parties are deeply flawed and controlled by forces that inhibit the leadership Americans deserve from coming to the helm.

In my view, it seems easier to hijack and redirect the Democratic Party towards great purposes than the Republican establishment. And I worry that if John McCain, whom I very much like, got the Republican Party nomination, he'd have to swallow George Allen or Jeb Bush in the Vice Presidential slots. If he sent either of these two off to work on highway beautification, or inner-city crime problems, perhaps we could live with that.

But we can never again accept or tolerate a Vice President of Dick Cheney's ilk.

Ok, enough of this -- I could ramble on all day about my frustration with the corruption of our political order but have other things that need attention.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Political cartoons are hit-and-miss with me, but this one on the scrubbed Bolton launch gave me a chuckle.

Note to Fred Fleitz: What do you know on Valerie Plame? Who did you give this information to? Call me.

-- Steve Clemons

(ed. note: Thanks to D&S H for the link)