July 27, 2005
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Madame Secretary,
I write in connection with the nomination of John R. Bolton to be Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
On July 21, 2005, MSNBC reported that Under Secretary Bolton testified before the federal grand jury in Washington that is investigating the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.
I write to request that you or the nominee inform the Committee 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. As you know, the Committee questionnaire, which the nominee completed in March, requires all nominees to inform the Committee whether they have 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.”
Thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Ranking Minority Member
Oops – – – It’s not only the fact that there are rules that we Americans live by, it’s that Republicans never bother to check on what those rules are before making decisions.
When it rains, it pours! Bolton will be a recess appointment, and a catastrophic mistake.
When it rains, it pours! Bolton will be a recess appointment, and a catastrophic mistake.
Bolton will make an excellent U.N. Representative. If he has to be recess appointed then so be it, Democrats don’t have to share in the celebration if they don’t want to. If we have to party toa corrupt organization we may as well have a guy who can kick some ass while he’s there.
I guess we’ll see about that Right. I think the guy’s a loser, and someone who is driven more by ideology than reality. Ambassadors aren’t Chinese factory managers – it’s not a job that requires the cracking of a whip.
This guy has the potential of making us look like Kruschev made Russia look, pounding his shoe on the desk.
Source
karl: This guy has the potential of making us look like Kruschev made Russia look, pounding his shoe on the desk.
I wouldn’t mind people thinking we weren’t weak for once.
oops…that was a deadissue qoute
Micheal:
I don’t see how a ranting lying lunatic makes the US look good, maybe not weak, but certainly crazy.
I don’t see how a ranting lying lunatic makes the US look good, maybe not weak, but certainly crazy.
I seem to have missed the ranting and the lying but I would never have guessed lunatic. I agree with Michael, it’s like when you go into the prison yard with the rest of the inmates you want to look as dangerous and crazy as possible.
Maybe the U.N./Mafia need to see a little anger from the U.S. side and remind them that no one really knows what’s going on at Area 51 but what ever it is it ain’t good for our enemies.
Right:
Their is a difference between being a bad-ass, and being a loud mouth idiot.
I agree a big stick is a good thing, maybe losing a war in Iraq makes the US look like less of a bad-ass. Bolton is known for yelling at female staffers and lying about what grand juries he has testified before. You might be afraid of him if you are a subordidnate, but if you don’t depend on him for your paycheck, you are just going to laugh at this drooling moron.
Their is a difference between being a bad-ass, and being a loud mouth idiot.
And the difference is in the eye of the beholder. Whether you like Bolton or not is irrelevant as long as our enemies and the U.N. see him as an extension of U.S. impatience with the criminals like Kofi Anan.
maybe losing a war in Iraq makes the US look like less of a bad-ass.
Refresh my memory, isn’t Saddam in jail awaiting trial, the Baath party scattered to the wind and the “Elite Republican Guard” just a memory? I do recall something about Kuwait being invaded but is now liberated and also something about nerve gas being used on Kurds but not in a long time. Remember any of this?
Bolton is known for yelling at female staffers and lying about what grand juries he has testified before.
All a bunch of he said, she said crap no one cares enough about to digify with an investigation. Not worthy of the time, it would be a waste and has no bearing on anything in real life.
You might be afraid of him if you are a subordidnate, but if you don’t depend on him for your paycheck, you are just going to laugh at this drooling moron.
Saddam laughed too. So did Qadafi (sp?) and the Syrians. No, there is a new Sheriff in town and drool or not, this “moron” isn’t fooled by a bunch of forked tongue talking. And that’s the way I like it.
From wasington note:
“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.”
Much of what he says may be satifying to some peole but it does not do any good. Not to mention this man has been a disaster for nuclear non-proliferation. The goal should be to make the world safer, and this man does not do that.
BTW: I really don’t think you and Micheal should be talking about your time in prison, to much information.:)
Diplomacy is what out military commanders are saying is needed to win this war and future wars. They’ve clearly stated that the military cannot win this alone. How is Bolton diplomatic in any way?
What has he produced in terms of results in his current job? You’d think there’d be a list of accomplishments.
The Bush policy seems to be if it feels good do it. For some people the invasion of Iraq felt good, but it seems to accomplish very little. Bolton is the ultimate embodiment of this theory, what he says makes some people feel good, but accomplishes very little. A diplomat is supposed to do the opposite.
Bolton is sort of a feminine version of Ann Coulter.
We definitely see eye to eye on this karl. We’re children of the Hundred Years War – only the lessons learned, those lessons that prompted our creation in the first place – have been completely forgotten by these neo-cons.
The message Bolton has for all of us is un-American.
I can never decide if the Neo-cons are the “I love the smell of Nepalm” crowd grown-up, or if they are people who have figured out how to profit from war.
One thing is for certain with this crowd they are horrible war planners. Whether you are for or against the Iraq war, their is no doubt the neo-cons are losing the war.
I think they’re people who genuinly want to make the world better – only they tie in too much of their rationale with how to make sure America profits from making it ‘better’. They also assume that their version of ‘better’ is exactally what everyone else wants.
Kind of the thinking that goes behind sending evangelical missionaries out to far off tribes to convert them. They bring food and medicine, which is great – but of course they want something in return…souls.
DI: They also assume that their version of ‘better’ is exactally what everyone else wants.
This shows the classic equivelance theory of the Dems. Oh, the terrorist have a right to kill innocent civilians because they are stiving for their own form of a ‘better’ world. I live in a world of black, white, and very few grays. I’m not giving the same moral equivelance to terrorist as I do our soldiers. I leave that to the left.
It does nothing of the sort Michael. In fact, if you look at the events that transpired in the Iraq war, you’ll see exactally what I’m talking about here. The intent since the 90s was to invade Iraq and turn it into a democracy. Their idea was that the population would respond favorably, and economic forces would further stabalize the population. So we invaded and the honey was spread…meaning, hundreds of companies were given contracts for all kinds of services and reconstruction efforts within the country – and the cost for all this was going to be suplimented by oil revenues.
Their assumptions were that an insurgency wouldn’t derail their plans, and that the oil revenues would lessen the burden on US taxpayers. Why they assumed these two things? Because their theories wouldn’t be entirely viable at that point.
What happened instead was an insurgency did emerge and is still strong today – so the foreign investors who were given contracts saw their monthly insurance payments for each worker shoot up to 10K, so they were out of the picture. Then the oil revenues haven’t suplemented the cost of reconstruction…in fact, they’re pumping less than expected.
It has nothing to do with terrorists or soldiers, but in how the plans to make the world ‘better’ are drawn up on specific terms that don’t wash with reality. Bush Sr and Powell recogzinez this.
DI: It does nothing of the sort Michael. In fact, if you look at the events that transpired in the Iraq war, you’ll see exactally what I’m talking about here. The intent since the 90s was to invade Iraq and turn it into a democracy. Their idea was that the population would respond favorably, and economic forces would further stabalize the population. So we invaded and the honey was spread…meaning, hundreds of companies were given contracts for all kinds of services and reconstruction efforts within the country – and the cost for all this was going to be suplimented by oil revenues
Oh yes i see a comparison between the above qoute and the “They also assume that their version of ‘better’ is exactally what everyone else wants.” qoute. I mean, I inferred everything you just said from that one sentence, although there was no mention of Iraq, or Insurgency, or any of the other crap you just talked about. Liberal moral equivelance is the spear head of tolerance of the utmost wrongs. You make the moral ground from which we stand on, equivalent to the murderous terrorists. By saying that maybe what they want is better, for these people or those people. And betray the millions of Iraqi’s who stood up FOR democracy, by saying the terrorist who are deliberately targeting innocent civilians are on the same moral playing field as Iraqi troops, or coalition soldiers.
Here’s what I base the ‘better’ factor on…El Salvador. One example of MANY countries we have converted to democracy in the past 100 years. The one aspect of this ‘nation building’ concept we fail to understand every time is that when the process doesn’t take place on it’s own, the end result of it taking place at gunpoint is almost always a system where the people end up no better off than they were before we got there. I’m going to post the article I read about El Salvador, but here’s a list of facts:
The one that sticks out most for me is the ‘Foreign businesses visible immediately on the streets of the capital’ one. This was the intent of our government when we invaded Iraq, to open up a market…but none of the businesses in El Salvador can get anywhere near Iraq until the security situation is solved…and even then, who’s to say that the very existance of a McDonalds won’t prompt Arabs to blow up more people.
Osama Bin Laden’s primary message is that his disciples must drive the westerners from Arab soil. The exporting of our culture to their world…our version of ‘better’ being assumed as something better than what they could create themselves over time.
How long did it take for Europeans to leave and create this nation of ours? After a genocide or two or three, the gross subjugation of more than one race, a civil war that equals to this day the deadliest in our history…
It’s not as easy as overthrowing a dictator and sending in some troops. And assuming that we know best is part of the problem of why we don’t do this ‘nation building’ thing that well.