Well, the politics of personal destruction as once again reared its ugly head in Washington. Although Republicans have used this tactic (see the Clinton Impeachment, which almost cost them control of the House in the 1998 elections) before, it is the Democrats that have made it their #1 weapon in trying to derail nominees with opposing ideologies. The painting of Judge Bork as an extremist (as opposed to what I call a “strict constuctionalist”) was bad enough; their attempt to portray Clarence Thomas as a serial sexual offender almost split the country in two. No matter to the Democrats, they’ll turn citizens against one another if it can help their aims – sheesh, they were rooting for the death of American soldiers in Iraq in the hopes of defeating George W. Bush!
So here we go again. Unable to defeat Bolton on either professional competence or ideological grounds, the dirty Dems start chucking mud. With the help of Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich (who did not bother to attend even one hearing), the Democrats have forced a delay in the vote of up to three weeks. On what grounds? The WSJ reports: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006586
My conscience got me," declared Ohio Republican George Voinovich on Tuesday, forcing a postponement in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote. And what so shocked his sensibilities? An accusation, from avowed liberal and anti-Bush partisan Melody Townsel, that Mr. Bolton had shouted at her and pounded on her door when they were both out of government in the 1990s.
Melody Townsel is the head of MOB – Mothers Against Bush. No reason to doubt her testimony, right? That’s enough to derail a Presidential appointee? This tall tale has already been thrown into dispute with affidavits from more reliable witnesses with differing accounts (see this Yahoo story http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050421/ap_on_go_co/un_ambassador_63 ; towards the bottom, of course). No, wait, the Democrats have found two others who will bear witness:
There is former State Department career official Carl Ford, who claims Mr. Bolton rudely disagreed with his policy positions.
My God!! Bolton had the nerve to disagree with a state department careerist! Who does he think he is? Finally:
They have been investigating a dispute Bolton had with a woman over her maternity leave when she worked for him at the Justice Department — in 1988.
The National Review, in an editorial, explains to us why the Democrats are digging so deep to find some inconsequential dirt: (via Pejmanesque http://www.pejmanesque.com/archives/010090.html )
The attack on Bolton's temperament is an obvious misdirection anyway. Democrats simply object to his kind of multilateralism that aggressively pursues international support for the goals of President Bush's foreign policy rather than simply kowtowing to international institutions for its own sake. In other words, Bolton will "serve" the president rather than the U.N.
And that is the crux of the matter. The Democrats want an Ambassador that will make the foreign policy of the United States subservient to the whims of Crooked Kofi’s United Nations. And all it took was one Republican Senator, too lazy to even attend the hearings, to roll over, in fear of the editorial pages of the liberal media (the NY and LA Times are currently besides themselves with glee).
The derailing of this nomination via character assassination must be stopped. The stooping to slander when all else fails does not fall under the Senate’s right to “advise and consent”. For the good of the future of the Republic, the Democrats must fail here.
No matter what the NY Times says…
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