A floor vote inevitable?

A thank you to Steve Clemons of The Washington Note for pointing his many readers to this blog. Not only have Steve's efforts triggered the momentum that turned an obnoxious-yet-fait accompli nomination into a bruising, high-stakes political war that is now totally unpredictable, I think in the end it will teach many Americans to think more critically about the disconnect between the rhetoric and ideology of militaristic posturing and America's genuine national security needs. It is because of that I am a fan of the folks at the New America Foundation.

That this debate is crucial to the future health and direction of the Republican Party is one reason why Cheney and the White House are working so hard to stop it. The real threat here is that the Cheney faction's logic of power --its ability to maintain discipline in Congress and among the grassroots-- is threatened. As soon as politics transcends the fallacious Left-Right divide, even for a moment, the narrative that entrenches it is suddenly hollow and empty, and its sputtering purveyors and dependents appear naked and comical. Look at the farcical ConfirmBolton.com to see what I mean.

Thank you also to Laura Rozen of War and Piece, who has not only linked here on several occasions, but has turned her blog into another front in this battle. The many news outlets that are now doing Bolton stories has the potential to become overwhelming -- Bolton's failures are legion, after all. Consequently, Laura's incisive distillations are a relief to the reader.

Steve has a post up today arguing that a Bolton confirmation, still an uncertainty since May 12 is far away, will at most by a Pyrrhic victory. Even if Bolton is killed in committee, the White House may get him through on a floor vote. But:

If we are going to lose this battle on Bolton, which we are no where near to losing yet, then I want the White House to compel its moderates, its sensible and generally fair team of Senators like Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander, George Voinovich, and Lincoln Chafee to choke down a candidate that makes many of them want to heave when they get into the muck of his behavior.

Make them spend the political capital on this. Make them pay. This fight over Bolton isn't worth a filibuster, but when the time comes it is worth stopping all other business for a couple of days while senators focus attention of Bolton's profound inadequacy, on the administration's blatant obstruction of the Senate's investigative prerogratives, and on the embarrassing lengths to which it is going to pressure senators -- whom it arrogantly disregarded in the first place by this nomination.

As I've said before, in the end FRC Democrats can't just come up with a legalistic list of objections. It needs to produce a coherent minority report that lays out a comprehensive narrative showing the interdependency of these problems, and the implications for government.

Update: New readers who care to sift through previous Bolton blogging, here are some recent posts (excluding today's) and a link to my last roundup:

• On "character assassination"
• The Times on Bolton's British Problem
• John Bolton, in mid-collapse comes Libya
• Bolton and ethics
• A John Bolton roundup

[Edited for typo -- Thanks, Bill]

Comments

[disillusioned conservative]

The confirmbolton.com website didn't post anything on Tuesday. The Cheney/Bolton team must have needed a day to get their stories straight.

[amorando]

It is almost unthinkable that Bolton is nominated for Ambassador to the United Nations when he has said that the US should have the only permanent seat on the Security Council. Does he and the president and Vice President realize that China is a permanent member and has told India that it should be too. Together these two countries have one-third of the worlds people. China holds billions of US dollars and holds them against us at this point. China is our competitor in the world oil market. Let's try to get along with China, please. Our military is about all that makes us strong at this point and that military has to run on oil. We are dependent on other countries for oil, none of whom will agree, as Bolton has said, that the UN is only of use then it is doing what the US wants it to do.