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White House worried on Bolton, the Washington Post reports:
Meantime, the WaPo reports what I heard today too. That the Republican staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee refused to let the Democratic staff sit in on an interview Friday morning with Amb. Thomas Hubbard:The fear, Bolton's backers said privately, is twofold. The new date will give opponents nearly three weeks to fan public reaction against him and to raise new questions about his conservative policy views and alleged bullying management style.
In addition, reports this week that former secretary of state Colin L. Powell told Republican senators his reservations about his former State Department subordinate's suitability for the post could alter the political dynamics of the Bolton battle. What had been a largely partisan quarrel could turn into a broader debate about whether Bolton's detractors have a reasonable case, a Bush administration official said.
No great tragedy, Hubbard is clearly quite willing to speak with Democratic staff at a time of their convenience. But the SFRC majority staff do seem to be feeling a bit sore, don't they? Perhaps because they failed to help out their boss the other day with that Voinovich move. Anyhow.In a sign of partisan tensions on the committee, Republican staff members yesterday interviewed Thomas Hubbard, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, without Democratic staff members present. Hubbard has said he clashed angrily with Bolton.
A senior Democratic committee aide said the interview was unfortunate, because Democrats thought they had an agreement between committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Vice Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) for proceeding with interviews that would allow both sides to be present, along with a court reporter.
"When we asked to participate, we were refused," the aide said.
Meantime, the LA Times reports another allegation of Bolton retaliation against an underling over policy differences, received by Sen. Barbara Boxer:
The LA Times also reports that Chafee's concerns about Bolton "weren't allayed" by his several recent conversations with Sec. Powell and Amb. Hubbard. But maybe this love note will change his mind:In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Lynne D. Finney said Bolton had bullied her and tried to have her fired when they clashed over U.S. policy on the distribution of infant formula in developing countries — an issue that was then highly visible and politically charged.
Finney said she was working as a USAID attorney and had developed relationships with foreign officials at the United Nations. She said that in late 1982 or early 1983, Bolton called her into his office and told her to use her influence to persuade the United Nations to ease a policy that restricted the marketing and promotion of infant formula in developing countries.
Finney objected, saying that she could not, in good conscience, push for such changes, because she believed that the improper use of formula in poor countries was jeopardizing the health of babies.
"He shouted that Nestle was an important company and that he was giving me a direct order from President Reagan," she wrote in the letter. "He yelled that if I didn't obey him he would fire me."
When she persisted, Finney said, "he yelled that I was fired."
Later Bolton learned that under a federal rule, he could not fire an employee for refusing an order that violated his or her conscience, she said.
Furious, he moved her desk from the General Counsel's office on the top floor of the State Department building in Washington "to a shabby windowless office in the basement, in order to force me to leave," she wrote.
I don't doubt a word of it. If they're lucky, they can get him back again soon.Meanwhile, Bolton's former colleagues at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington released a letter to Sen. Richard G. Lugar...disputing charges that he was a bully.
Those allegations were "radically at odds with our experiences," the letter said. It said Bolton was "unfailingly courteous and respectful to us."