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Senate debate on Bolton on C-Span 2. Stygius is covering it live. Barbara Boxer up now.
Noon update: Biden/Dodd letter on opposition to cloture to Senate Democrats:
(Emphasis added).Dear Democratic Colleague:
We write to urge you to oppose cloture on the Bolton nomination tonight. We want to make clear that this is not a filibuster. It is a vote to protect the Senate's
constitutional power to advise and consent to nominations.For more than a month, we have been requesting two types of information from
the Executive Branch. First, materials related to the preparation of congressional
testimony on Syria and weapons of mass destruction that Mr. Bolton planned to give in July 2003 and ultimately gave that September. We think this will show Mr. Bolton's continued effort to exaggerate intelligence information. It may also show that he misled the Foreign Relations Committee when he told us that he was not personally involved in the preparation of the testimony. Second, information related to National Security Agency intercepts and the identity of U.S. persons on those intercepts. During the past four years, Mr. Bolton requested the identity of U.S. persons on ten occasions. There may be nothing improper in this; or there may be something highly improper. But we won't know unless we see the very same information shown to Mr. Bolton. So far that
has not occurred. The Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on
Intelligence were shown the intercepts, but not the identities of the U.S. persons.
In refusing to provide the information about the Syria testimony, the State
Department has asserted that it does not believe that the request is "specifically tied to the issues being deliberated by the Committee." In other words, the Executive Branch is deciding what it thinks is relevant to the Senate's review. That's unacceptable. In the case of the NSA intercepts, no one in the Executive Branch has even tried to explain why the chairman and ranking member of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees are not allowed to see information that was made available to Mr. Bolton and even to his staff. That, too, is unacceptable.The refusal of the Executive Branch to provide information relevant to the
nomination is a threat to the Senate's constitutional power to advise and consent. The only way to protect that power is to continue to demand that the information be provided to the Senate. The only means of forcing the Administration to cooperate is to prevent a final vote on the nomination today. We urge to you vote no on cloture.Sincerely,
Christopher Dodd,
Joseph R. Biden
12:40pm Update: McCain stinks.
Barack Obama rocks: "When I look at record of Mr. Bolton as top arms control officer at the State Department, I am not impressed. On North Korea, the approach advocated by Mr. Bolton and this administration has simply not worked. On Mr. Bolton's watch, no longer international inspectors or cameras in North Korea. NK has withdrawn from NPT. They have drawn material for six to eight nuclear weapons...
"Another area Mr. Bolton responsible for was the Non Proliferation Treaty. Pres. BUsh pledged to strengthen this treaty...What's happened since? Virtually nothing. The administration has made very little progress on this issue and the NPT conference currently under way is not going well. According to an article at MSNBC, the US has lost control of this conference. Where has Mr. Bolton been on this? According to that article, 'Since last fall, Mr. Bolton, has aggressively lobbied for a senior job in the Bush administration. During that time Mr. Bolton did almost no ground work on the upcoming conference. Everyone knew it was coming....But Bolton stopped all diplomacy on this six months ago' In other words, Bolton was more interested in lobbying for the UN job than the conference."
..."Here's my point. If we thought Bolton was a super diplomat, we could maybe overlook the mountain of evidence of mistreatment of subordinates and misuse of intelligence....But the record indicates that in his current job he hasn't had much success. Why are we so confident that this guy is going to lead reform at the UN? As a consequence of Mr. Bolton's diminished stature, he is the exact opposite of what we need at the UN."