Paul Richter reports that Bolton's nomination will be far more contentious than originally expected and that the Democrats, for the first time, will most likely unanimously oppose a Bush administration diplomatic choice.

Richter reports:

Democrats are likely to vote unanimously against John Bolton when his nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations comes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week, according to Democratic and Republican lawmakers and aides.

It would mark the first time committee Democrats unanimously opposed a Bush diplomatic nominee and would put the nomination in peril if Republicans defected to vote against him.

But Republicans say they believe the outspoken conservative will win solid GOP backing in the committee, including from moderate Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), who has voiced reservations about Bolton's nomination to be UN ambassador.

The split on the panel is one of several signs that the proceedings, set for April 7, will be acrimonious. Advocates have organized letter-writing and ad campaigns for and against Bolton.

For example, former Sen. James Sasser and two other retired American diplomats added their names to an anti-Bolton letter distributed Tuesday to Foreign Relations Committee members. Sasser is a Democrat who was former President Bill Clinton's ambassador to China.

The two other former diplomats who signed the letter, raising the total to 62, were Patricia Byrne, deputy U.S. ambassador to the UN under former President Ronald Reagan, and John Hirsch, ambassador to Sierra Leone in the Clinton administration.

The good news is that the Dems, including Feingold who still is not rock solid against Bolton, are united, and this was not the case three weeks ago.

The other good news is that the stakes are rising for Chafee. Patrick Kennedy announced yesterday that he was not going to challenge Chafee in the next Senate race. Now, Chafee needs to shore up his credentials with his Rhode Island Democratic Party supporters and a vote for Bolton may be more consequential than he thinks.

Chafee is weighing in his mind, I bet, judicial appointments vs. John Bolton. He'll probably vote against the most outrageous judicial nominees -- and feels inclined to support Bolton and give that one to the right-wingers in his state

But that is before we had the larger story (reported in passages below) on Bolton and his long-term role as Jesse Helms' attack dog, a person with an ethically-challenged record running or working in various think tanks, and his record defying demands of Congress.

I think Chafee, when confronted with the whole picture and not the gloss or the talking points handed to him by the White House and State Department, is going to have a hard time explaining WHY he would vote for such a person as one of our nation's most important emissaries to the rest of the world.

I think the same thing about Chuck Hagel -- who has already said that he wants to see more of the whole picture now -- and said that after his words of endorsement.

We have a week to go before the hearings -- and Senator Hagel and Senator Chafee need to hear from those of you who care.

Just ask them to read this material -- to look not only at Bolton's comments on the United Nations, but his entire record.

-- Steve Clemons

This is intriguing. Bolton's ethically challenged pettiness rages full throttle in the tale that follows.

Do read the three excerpts.

First, in November 1987, Legal Times writer James Lyons reported that:

The once mighty National Congressional Club has fallen on hard times. The club, the Raleigh, N.C.-based right-wing political action committee associated with Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), has a $ 900,000 debt, according to Federal Election Commission records. Carter Wrenn, the club's treasurer, says that the PAC has been forced to reduce its activity, cutting expenditures on polling, research, direct mail, and legal work.

But then mentioning Bolton and his private role advising Jesse Helms' Political Action Committee for which Bolton's firm was due fees:

Covington & Burling is one of the club's largest creditors. Partner Brice Clagett and former partner John Bolton, now assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, have represented the club for many years. In 1978, they helped form Jefferson Marketing as a vehicle to supply candidates with such services as advertising and direct mail without having to worry about the federal laws preventing PACs, like the Congressional Club, from contributing more than $5,000 per election to any one candidate's campaign committee.

Covington also defended Jefferson Marketing and the club in its long-running battle with the FEC, which resulted in the club paying a $10,000 fine in 1986.

According to FEC documents, the club owes Covington $111,000, although it did make a $5,000 payment to the firm earlier this year.

"It's our understanding that they will pay the bill," says Covington spokesman H. Edward Dunkelberger Jr.

What we will discover later in this story is that Jesse Helms was getting nearly cost-free legal representation from Covington & Burling attorney John Bolton. That's a gift -- and it's illegal now and was illegal then.

Helms was giving Bolton patronage, access, political favors. Helms' PAC got fined $10,000 by the Federal Elections Commission for violations which Rep. Charlie Rose (D-NC) notified the FEC to investigate.

Ok. Pause. Move forward nine months. . .

Legal Times writer Terence Moran reports on some new complexity in this matter, and by this time John Bolton has moved from Covington & Burling to be Assistant Attorney General for Congressional Affairs at the Department of Justice.

Moran writes:

Rep. Charlie Rose (D-N.C.) might be forgiven for figuring that his 1988 citation for violating House rules put a nasty, embarrassing battle behind him.

After all, when the House ethics panel issued a public reproof to Rose in March 1988 after determining that the congressman had put money from his campaign committee to personal use, the matter seemed closed. Rose had survived what he perceived as a vengeful political attack orchestrated by allies of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) in the National Congressional Club, a Raleigh, N.C., conservative political action committee with whom Rose has sparred repeatedly over the years.

But now, more than 14 months after the ethics panel finished with him, Rose's case has been resurrected -- not in Congress but by the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. Last May, Rose was hit with an unprecedented civil action brought by Justice seeking the maximum $5,000 fine for each of six violations of the Ethics in Government Act (EIGA). Never before has the department's Civil Division brought such a suit against a sitting member of Congress.

Rose has moved for a dismissal; U.S. District Judge Thomas Jackson will hear arguments early next month.

The case against Rose has sparked a constitutional clash between the executive and legislative branches and marks another skirmish in the struggle over the scope of the Constitution's speech-and-debate clause. In addition, it represents a test case for EIGA, the 1978 law that numerous House members, including former House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas), have been charged with violating over the years.

Beyond any of the legal questions, however, the Rose case may be the opening volley in a fierce turf battle over the hot topic of ethics enforcement in Congress.

To remind readers what this was about was that Charlie Rose had improperly used campaign funds for personal use -- and six cases were determined. The norms of that time were to offer some sort of public censure and move on if the cases were generally minor. But Rose was found to have done an inappropriate thing, got knocked in the knees, and usually (in 1989 anyway) life moved on.

But John Bolton filed a civil action against Congressman Rose -- and this had never been done before. Why? Because Bolton was Jesse Helms' attack dog -- and Bolton compromised his role in the Attorney General's office to operate as the flack/attack dog of one of the most politically vile members of the U.S. Senate, Jesse Helms.

Let's get back to the chronology of events.

Rose offered his own view on why he was being treated to such a spectacular public crucifixion by John Bolton.

Moran reports:

To Rose, the department's action is pure politics. He claims that John Bolton, former assistant secretary of the division, pushed the case through the department because Bolton once worked for Helms' Congressional Club and still carries a grudge against Rose. Rose once filed a Federal Election Commission suit against the Congressional Club that resulted in a $ 10,000 fine against the PAC.

Bolton, now assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, was out of the country during the third week of August and unavailable for comment. A spokeswoman in his office says that Bolton "will not comment" on the Rose case.

Justice's Brown says Bolton "had nothing to do with this action. He recused himself from the case long before it was filed."

Rose does not believe the claim.

"I messed up John Bolton's little playhouse and now they're trying to pay me back," he says bitterly.

Rose's aggravation is understandable. He faces mounting legal bills and the possibility of stiff fines for being found guilty of the same violation that at least a half-dozen other members have committed.

In his fight to keep the Civil Division at bay, Rose has enlisted House leaders -- including Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the minority whip who rode the ethics problems of Democrats like Rose and Wright to the heights of power, Gingrich and House Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) signed on to Rose's defense team just after the Justice Department filed the suit in late May, when the House was consumed with partisan furor over the fate of Wright.

By nearly all accounts, Rose was guilty of a minor infraction. He argued that he was paying himself back for debts he privately fronted, but nonetheless the Congressional investigating committee had found that though he deserved some sanction, he had already initiated setting things in order.

More of the story:

Rose's troubles with the ethics laws are rooted in his first race for Congress in 1972. To win North Carolina's 7th District, Rose and his father pumped their own personal funds into the campaign. That money, the two men claimed 15 years later before the ethics panel, was only loaned to Rose's campaign by oral agreement, not contributed.

So in 1978, when Rose began using campaign money for his personal needs, he says he was merely repaying himself. The ethics committee rejected that argument, but acknowledged that Rose had taken some steps to set matters aright. When the case was resolved in March 1988, the panel recommended no sanction to the House.

More important, the ethics committee held that Rose had not been fully warned about the House prohibitions against tapping into campaign funds. He was "deserving of reproach," according to the committee's report, but he was not required to amend the disclosure forms that inaccurately reported his dealings.

The carefully structured settlement was a relief to Rose and a triumph for Oldaker. Their satisfaction was short-lived, however -- last December the Justice Department warned Rose that it would pursue an enforcement action under the EIGA.

The Case's Contorted Path

The department's campaign percolated up through the bureaucracy from the Office of the U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of North Carolina. After a brief review in the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division, the case landed in Bolton's Civil Division.

That paper trail convinces Rose that his old enemies in the Congressional Club are behind his persecution. Bolton, when he was in private practice with D.C.'s Covington & Burling, represented the PAC and was largely responsible for designing the financing scheme that the FEC found illegal. Rose finds this link dispositive.

"Covington & Burling, had to bring in a lot of firepower to defend that operation," Rose says. "Bolton should have built a Chinese wall between him and my case, and he didn't."

But Rose has no hard evidence that Bolton was aware of his case during the months of negotiations preceding the department's filing. Brent Hatch, Bolton's deputy at the time and now in the White House counsel's office, is adamant in Bolton's defense.

"Bolton knew this case would be hot, he knew that Rose would be trying to paint him into this corner, and he got out of it right at the onset," Hatch recalls. "When a case like this comes through and you know it's going to be trouble, you rely almost entirely on career people."

By February 1990, Legal Times writers Charles Babington bounced the watchful eye back to the Jesse Helms/John Bolton collaboration and asked important questions about the lingering debt of the National Conngressional Club to Bolton's former law firm.

Babington reports:

If the National Congressional Club accepted free legal advice from D.C.'s Covington & Burling, both could be fined and possibly prosecuted under laws that ban corporate campaign contributions.

So why, critics ask, is the political organization of Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) allowed to receive such advice while paying only a fraction of its sizable and interest-free debt to the law firm year after year?

The answer, some say, is a loophole in federal elections law. The loophole enables willing companies, including law firms, to give large amounts of goods and services to campaign organizations, provided that the campaigns dutifully report that they owe money for the services.

The results were these. Rose lost his separation-of-powers appeal and had to pay $30,000 to satisfy the assault led by John Bolton. The National Congressional Club ended up paying a $10,000 fine. And John Bolton's love affair with Jesse Helms and his crowd continue to deepen no matter what Bolton's job or position.

Oil-for-Food? If Helms had ordered Bolton to put such a scheme together, Bolton may have easily put even a more elaborate fiasco together. Bolton could fit in with those in corporate America who believed that rules were not 'really' made for them.

Alternatively, Bolton's m.o. is that some rules need to be imposed more harshly and brutally than others -- depending on whether they are friend or foe -- as in the Rose case.

The problem with John Bolton's nomination to the U.N. is not just that he is a blunt, undiplomatic diplomat or that he despises the very concept of a United Nations or that he provides a slighlty more respectable, well-dressed version of populist, pugnacious nationalism.

John Bolton has not had a crystal clear record regarding responsible and appropriate governance wherever he has worked -- with the one possible exception of his short time at U.S. AID according to private reports I have had.

Bolton promulgated the Niger-Uranium story after intelligence analysts had killed it in the State Department and may have had his staff lie about his role.

Bolton acted without vested authority in issuing the Russians a deadline on the ABM Treaty.

Bolton was accused by Senators Pete Domenici and Peter Fitzgerald of taking his eye off the ball in his current job and not moving quickly or effectively enough to tie up arrangements with Russians on weapons grade nuclear materials.

Bolton accepted money from the Taiwanese government for reports which he presented to Congress without indicating the source of said funds. Bolton also helped preside over a significant amount of Taiwanese government money that annually flows into the American Enterprise Institute and demonstrated no compunction about concerns over objectivity and that funding.

Bolton succeeded Michael Baroody as President of Haley Barbour's National Policy Forum which not only took foreign money but acted as an organ of the Republican National Committee to such an overt degree that its non-profit status was stripped.

Bolton has defied Congress on many, many occasions -- refusing to appear, holding back requested witnesses and information, and allegedly destroying Iran-Contra related evidence.

There is more on the way on John Bolton.

But the thing that Senator Lugar, Senator Hagel, Senator Feingold, Senator Chafee, and other Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should ask themselves is "WHY THIS PERSON?" What item in his record justifies such an important appointment?

The United Nations is not a normal ambassadorial appointment. It matters -- particularly now as we initiate the process of building a new and different U.N.

Empowering this guy, John Bolton, and the crowd he represents is the absolute worst thing that Lincoln Chafee could do. Frankly, I hope that Senator Hagel reconsiders his surprisingly enthusiastic endorsement of Bolton.

Are the Senators giving this job to Bolton just because Dick Cheney wants him there to constrain Zoellick and Rice? Or is there a constructive, understandable rationale that American citizens will understand and appreciate?

I don't think there is.

-- Steve Clemons

Lots of right-wing pundits (I won't call them conservatives -- because most conservatives I know are with the centrists and liberals when it comes to the issue of John Bolton) invoked the name of late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in trying to buff up the tarnished image of John Bolton as George Bush's ambassadorial nominee to the U.N.

Now, his daughter Maura sets the record straight on the type of Ambassadorial nominee who would be in the "spirit of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan" and WHO WOULD NOT.

Here is an excerpt from a stunningly good article by Maura Moyhnihan in Newsday:

Bolton has said that if the UN building in Manhattan "lost 10 stories it wouldn't make a bit of difference," and Robert Novak recently said, "No one had more contempt for the UN than Pat Moynihan." Nonsense. Moynihan said: "The UN was created by our country, and embodies our conception of international law ... these are the proclaimed standards of the nations of the world, to which they are bound by solemn covenant."

Moynihan sought to restore integrity to the UN, not to dismantle the institution created by the Allies after the defeat of Hitler and the Axis powers.

The senator frequently admonished his constituents that we'd be worse off without the UN, and was furious with the United States for not paying its UN dues, since it weakened our influence and stature.

Which brings us to international law. Bolton said in 1999: "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interests to do so - because over the long term the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are [sic] those who want to constrict the United States."

In his 1990 book, "On the Law of Nations," Moynihan wrote: "A great many people seem to think of law as a kind of self-imposed restraint on America's ability to act decisively or with force in world affairs. This misstates what law is, and obscures the fact that international law can actually enhance the national security of the United States. ... Macho strategists, much to be found in Washington just now, let it be known that in their view the law is for sissies ... real men do not cite Grotius."

I really miss Senator Moynihan, who if around right now, would have been working hard to make sure that John Bolton squirmed a great deal over his misplaced pretensions to be America's emissary to the U.N.

-- Steve Clemons

Here is an excellent write-up by David Corn on the long litany of reasons why John Bolton is really up for the wrong job.

Amusingly, David forgot he had co-written one of the best pieces on Bolton's bad side 16 years ago for The Nation. I posted an excerpt of the David Corn/Jefferson Morley piece the day before yesterday, but here it is again:

Bolton's record as Assistant AG for the Office of Legislative Affairs in 1986 and 1987 merits special scrutiny. He "tried to torpedo" Sen. John Kerry's inquiry into allegations of contra drug smuggling and gunrunning, a committee aide says.

When Kerry requested information from the Justice Department, Bolton's office gave it the long stall, a Kerry aide notes. In fact, says another Congressional aide, Bolton's staff worked actively with the Republican senators who opposed Kerry's efforts.

One would think that Congress would not be so easy on a guy who regularly and frequently decided not to show up at Congressional Hearings when requested, or withheld evidence or held back other witnesses. All of this is in his record.

-- Steve Clemons

Citizens for Global Solutions has taken its video clip of John Bolton arguing against the very concept of the United Nations and has turned it into a compelling television commercial.

The commercial starts running in TV markets tomorrow. Here is an excerpt from the announcement:

On Thursday, March 31st StopBolton.org will air television advertisements on three major Rhode Island TV stations in opposition to the nomination of John Bolton for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. The advertisements state that Bolton is the wrong man for the job because of his desire to dismantle the UN rather than reform it. The spots will air at 8 p.m. on WPIR (CBS), WNAC (FOX), and WJAR (NBC), as well as during the 6 p.m. evening news on NBC and during the 11 p.m. evening news on CBS.

The goal of the Stop Bolton campaign is to convince Rhode Island Senators John Chafee and Jack Reed that John Bolton is not the diplomat Americans want representing them at the UN.

A moderate Republican and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Chafee's up-or-down vote on Bolton will be crucial in determining the fate of U.S.-UN relations. It won't be easy for Senator Chafee to vote against a Presidential nominee from his own party. So it is vital that local constituents contact the Senator to let him know they want a "problem solver, not a loose cannon" at the UN.

-- Steve Clemons

This was the lead piece in the latest CQ Today

U.N. NOMINEE BOLTON GETS SCRUTINY FROM SENATE DEMOCRATS

Senate Democrats are digging through John R. Bolton's record to see whether there is enough controversy in his hard-line views on international security to derail his nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, who has been a vocal critic of the United Nations for years, faces a daylong Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on April 7. Committee Democrats appear to be unified in their opposition to Bolton, while most Republicans have endorsed the nomination.

Norm Kurz, spokesman for Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Foreign Relations Democrat, said members and staff are doing a thorough review of Bolton's entire career. Biden has not publicly said whether he would support the nomination, but he voted against Bolton when he was nominated to be undersecretary of State in 2001.

One Senate aide said the White House is putting on a "full-court press" to keep all 10 Committee Republicans behind Bolton.

A full-court press wouldn't be needed, President Bush, if this nomination made even a little bit of sense.

-- Steve Clemons

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has reported to Stern Magazine in Germany that he was furious that he was misled about Iraq's WMD programs before his February 2003 address to the U.N. Security Council.

Unfortunately, TWN tried but failed to get folks at Stern to ask Secretary Powell what his true feelings about John Bolton were.

Still ripe for more investigation is John Bolton's role inside the Department of State promulgating the Niger-Uranium story after State and CIA intelligence analysts had fully rejected the claim. In this case, they got something right -- and John Bolton was part of the DISINFORMATION campaign.

Here is an excerpt from the AP report:

Powell, who retired as secretary of state in January, also said he still is "furious and angry" about his Feb. 5, 2003, speech to the U.N. Security Council in which he said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that violated U.N. sanctions.

No such weapons were found, but Powell told Stern he had no reason to doubt intelligence from the CIA and other agencies suggesting Saddam had them.

-- Steve Clemons

While Senior Vice President at the American Enterprise Institute, John Bolton wrote this about the United Nations:

Here is an excerpt that appeared today at ThinkProgress.com:

This deep philosophical disjunction between the prevailing ethos of the United Nations and the fundamental American approach to governance is not something that will change in the foreseeable future.

What, then, does the foregoing analysis mean for the United Nations, and for America's role within the organization? It means primarily that the rest of the world should have realistic expectations that the United Nations has a limited role to play in international affairs for the foreseeable future.

According to Bolton, the UN can't become more relevant or effective through reform. And the "philosophical disjunction" is "not something that will change."

It seems to me -- and this will please Move America Forward's "Get the U.S. Out of the U.N." crowd -- that John Bolton's disdain for international engagement and the United Nations has been remarkably consistent.

Why expect anything different from him on April 7th?

-- Steve Clemons

I have spoken to several current and former senior foreign policy officials yesterday and this morning regarding John Bolton. Their chorus is the same.

They report that Colin Powell and Richard Armitage hated dealing with Bolton and that Powell did not want Bolton on his team. No one trusts him. He is lustful for power and position, disdainful of process, and frequently sees it as his right and obligation to "make his own weather" when it comes to foreign policy.

One of the more interesting tidbits I picked up in these conversations -- with several people -- is that John Bolton regularly and frequently defied command and control within the State Department. The first major example of this flamboyant disregard for authority above him -- disregard for Secretary of State Powell and the White House -- was Bolton's August 2001 announcement to Russian media that Russia had a deadline of November 2001 to accomodate the U.S. position on ballistic missile defense testing or the U.S. would initiate abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Several sources report that Secretary of State Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage were livid that Bolton had threatened (intentially or unintentionally) the Russians with a deadline -- and more importantly, had taken the lead himself (without vested authority) to argue under what terms the United States would abrogate the ABM treaty. According to insiders, Bolton had gotten ahead of the process and had spoken too early -- particularly when Bush was trying to "play nice" with Russia.

The fact is that the United States, by order of President Bush, did initiate formal abrogation proceedings of the ABM Treaty in December 2001. John Bolton also later withdrew his comments to the Russian media -- and even denied making them, though the media certainly heard what he said.

What I had not heard previously is the high level of consternation within the State Department and the National Security Council because of Bolton's cavalier behavior and failure to adhere to process and diplomatic rules when it came to speaking on behalf of the President of the United States on such an important treaty.

Some will consider this an argument over semantics as the outcome of America suspending its participation in the ABM Treaty would not have changed had Bolton followed protocol.

But these semantic issues are important if Bolton, a loose cannon on many occasions, is vested with the authority of serving as Ambassador to the U.N. and negotiating with other major players about U.N. reform.

He did not represent the President of the United States nor the citizens of this nation well when it came to ending America's ABM Treaty obligations.

He is a loose cannon who wants to call his own shots. This is not what the President needs or should want. It's what 'Move America Forward' wants.

It is what Condoleeza Rice and Bob Zoellick fear -- and is why they are already piling up the sandbags to protect themselves from Bolton.

-- Steve Clemons

Former Republican Senator and immediate past United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth on what Republicanism used to be about:

During the 18 years I served in the Senate, Republicans often disagreed with each other. But there was much that held us together. We believed in limited government, in keeping light the burden of taxation and regulation. We encouraged the private sector, so that a free economy might thrive. We believed that judges should interpret the law, not legislate. We were internationalists who supported an engaged foreign policy, a strong national defense and free trade. These were principles shared by virtually all Republicans.

But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.

Again: "We were internationalists who supported an engaged foreign policy, a strong national defense and free trade."

Danforth's piece is a dramatic rebuke to the zealots at the helm of the Republican wheel today.

John Bolton is just a symptom of a larger problem which Danforth highlights -- but progressives and moderates need to know that they can win these battles. But one has to start somewhere -- and John Bolton's candidacy is the right issue on which to push back.

-- Steve Clemons

Fox News has not offered more than entertainment in its coverage of John Bolton -- which is not really good for advocates or opponents of his U.N. nomination -- but CBS News is getting serious.

CBS News Foreign Affairs analyst Pamela Falk said Bolton is "receiving so much bipartisan criticism that there is a widespread question about whether or not the administration was expecting the nomination to pass the Senate.

"Without question, the administration has some serious questions about the credibility of the U.N., but coming on the heels of previous Ambassadors John Negroponte and John Danforth, the nomination of John Bolton -- known to have differences with Secretary of State Rice -- may well have been a nomination to satisfy conservative critics but appears now to possibly be a sacrificial lamb in the nomination process," said Falk.

And she didn't even mention Wolfowitz. The art of diplomacy, and politics, is knowing which wins are the big ones to go after -- and which are worth losing.

The Bolton nomination is too harmful to the country and should be withdrawn. There are better candidates. . .many.

-- Steve Clemons

Here is the entire text of the letter opposing Bolton from 59 former American Ambassadors.

Fox News has apparently been making fun of the diplomats' names.

Before they go to far down that path, perhaps they should consider some of the names of U.S. Senators -- particularly Republican ones?

Trent, Lamar, Saxby, Judd, Orrin. . .and that's even before nicknames like Libby. . .

Interestingly, 46 of the listed 59 Ambassadors served at least part of their tenure during Republican administrations.

The letter:

March 29, 2005

The Honorable Richard G. Lugar

Senate Foreign Relations Committee

450 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510-6225

Dear Senator Lugar,

We have noted with appreciation the moves of President Bush at the beginning of his second term to improve U.S. relations with the countries of the European Union and of the United Nations. Maintaining these ties and the willingness of those countries to cooperate with the United States is essential to U.S. security.

It is for this reason that we write you to express our concern over the nomination of John R. Bolton to be permanent representative of the United States at the United Nations. We urge you to reject that nomination.

By virtue of service in the State Department, USAID and Justice Departments, John Bolton has the professional background needed for this position. But his past activities and statements indicate conclusively that he is the wrong man for this position at a time when the UN is entering a critically important phase of modernization, seeking to promote economic development and democratic reforms and searching for ways to cope better with proliferation crises and a spurt of natural disasters and internal conflicts.

John Bolton has an exceptional record of opposition to efforts to enhance U.S. security through arms control. He led a campaign against ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Today, the administration is pressing for development of new types of nuclear weapons. John Bolton blocked more extensive international agreement to limit sales of small arms, the main killer in internal wars. He led the fight to continue U.S. refusal to participate in the Ottawa Landmine Treaty. Today, the U.S. has joined Russia and China in insisting on the right to continue to deploy anti-personnel landmines. John Bolton crafted the U.S. withdrawal from the joint efforts of 40 countries to formulate a verification system for the Biological Weapons Convention and blocked continuation of these efforts in a period of increasing concern over potential terrorist use of these weapons and of terrorist access to the stocks of countries covertly producing these weapons. John Bolton's unsubstantiated claims that Cuba and Syria are working on biological weapons further discredited the effect of U.S. warnings and U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction.

John Bolton led the successful campaign for U.S. withdrawal from the treaty limiting missile defenses (ABM Treaty). The effects of this action included elimination of the sole treaty barrier to the weaponization of space. In the face of decades of votes in the UN General Assembly calling for negotiation of a treaty to block deployment of weapons in space, he has blocked negotiation in the Geneva Conference on Disarmament of a treaty on this subject. The administration has repeatedly proposed programs calling for weapon deployment in space.

As chief negotiator of the 2002 Moscow Treaty on withdrawing U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons from field deployment, John Bolton structured a treaty without its own verification regime, without required progress reports from both sides, without the requirement to destroy warheads withdrawn from deployment, and without provision for negotiating continued reductions. Under his guidance, the State Department repudiated important consensus agreements reached in the year 2000 Review Conference of the Non-proliferation Treaty and has even blocked the formulation of an agenda for the next review conference to be held in May 2005.

Under John Bolton as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, the State Department has continued to fail to resolve the impasse with Russia about the legal liability of U.S. personnel working with Russia on the security of the huge arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of the former Soviet Union and has failed to accelerate measures aimed at the safety and security of this huge arsenal from theft, illegal sale and terrorist access.

John Bolton's insistence that the UN is valuable only when it directly serves the United States, and that the most effective Security Council would be one where the U.S. is the only permanent member, will not help him to negotiate with representatives of the remaining 96% of humanity at a time when the UN is actively considering enlargement of the Security Council and steps to deal more effectively with failed states and to enhance the UN's peacekeeping capability.

John Bolton's work as a paid researcher for Taiwan, his idea that the U.S. should treat Taiwan as a sovereign state, and that it is fantasy to believe that China might respond with armed force to the secession of Taiwan do not attest to the balanced judgment of a possible U.S. permanent representative on the Security Council. China is emerging as a major world power and the Taiwan issue is becoming more acute.

At a time when the UN is struggling to get an adequate grip on the genocidal killing in Darfur, Sudan, Mr. Bolton's skepticism about UN peacekeeping, about paying the UN dues that fund peacekeeping, and his leadership of the opposition to the International Criminal Court, originally proposed by the U.S. itself in order to prosecute human rights offenders, will all make it difficult for the U.S. to play an effective leadership role at a time when the UN itself and many member states are moving to improve UN capacity to deal with international problems.

Given these past actions and statements, John R. Bolton cannot be an effective promoter of the U.S. national interest at the UN. We urge you to oppose his nomination.

Sincerely,

The Hon. Terrell E. Arnold
Former Deputy Director, Office of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State (Reagan)
Former U.S. Consul General, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Harry G. Barnes, Jr.
Former U.S. ambassador to Romania, Chile, and India (Nixon, Ford, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert L. Barry
Former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria and Indonesia (Reagan, Clinton)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Carter)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Carter)

Ambassador Josiah H. Beeman
Former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Western Samoa (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Maurice M. Bernbaum
Former U.S. ambassador to Ecuador and Venezuela (Eisenhower, Johnson)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard J. Bloomfield
Former U.S. ambassador to Ecuador and Portugal (Ford, Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador George Bunn
Former member of U.S. delegation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) negotiations (Johnson)
Former U.S. ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference (UN) (Johnson)

Ambassador (ret.) James Cheek
Former U.S. ambassador to Sudan and Argentina (G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Carleton S. Coon
Former U.S. ambassador to Nepal (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Jane Coon Former U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) John H. Crimmins
Former U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic and Brazil (Johnson, Nixon, Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard T. Davies
Former U.S. ambassador to Poland (Nixon, Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Jonathan Dean
Former U.S. representative to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks, Vienna (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Willard A. DePree
Former U.S. ambassador to Mozambique and Bangladesh (Ford, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert S. Dillon
Former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon (Reagan)
Former Deputy Commissioner General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Donald B. Easum
Former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) (Nixon, Ford)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (Nixon, Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) James Bruce Engle
Former U.S. ambassador to Dahomey (Nixon, Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard K. Fox Former U.S. ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Holsey Gates Handyside
Former U.S. ambassador to Mauritania (Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) William C. Harrop
Former ambassador to Israel, Kenya, and Zaire (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)
Former Inspector General, U.S. Department of State (Nixon)

Ambassador (ret.) Samuel F. Hart
Former U.S. ambassador to Ecuador (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Arthur A. Hartman
Former U.S. ambassador to France and the Soviet Union (Carter, Reagan)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Nixon)

Ambassador Ulric Haynes, Jr.
Former U.S. ambassador to Algeria (Carter)

Ambassador Gerald B. Helman
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Geneva (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert T. Hennemeyer
Former U.S. ambassador to Gambia (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Lewis Hoffacker
Former U.S. ambassador to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea (Nixon)

Ambassador (ret.) H. Allen Holmes
Former U.S. ambassador to Portugal (Reagan)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs (Reagan)
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert V. Keeley
Former U.S. Ambassador to Mauritius, Zimbabwe, and Greece (Ford, Carter, Reagan)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (Carter)

Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr.
Former Deputy Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency(ACDA) (Carter)

Ambassador Henry L. Kimelman
Former U.S. ambassador to Haiti (Carter)
Ambassador (ret.) Roger Kirk
Former U.S. ambassador to Somalia and Romania (Nixon, Ford, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Dennis H. Kux
Former U.S. ambassador to Ivory Coast (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) James F. Leonard
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Samuel W. Lewis
Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Ford)
Former Director of Policy Planning, State Department (Clinton)
Former ambassador to Israel (Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Princeton N. Lyman
Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Clinton)
Director, Bureau of Refugee Programs, U.S. Department of State (G.H.W. Bush)
Former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Richard Cavins Matheron
Former U.S. ambassador to Swaziland (Carter, Reagan)
Ambassador (ret.) Charles E. Marthinsen
Former U.S. ambassador to Qatar (Carter, Reagan)

Jack Mendelsohn
Deputy Assistant Director of the Strategic Programs Bureau, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) (Reagan)
Senior ACDA representative on U.S. START delegation (Reagan)

Ambassador Carol Moseley-Braun
Former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Donald R. Norland
Former U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, and Chad (Johnson, Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) David Passage
Former U.S. ambassador to Botswana (G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador (ret.) Edward L. Peck
Former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Mauritania (Carter, Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) Jack R. Perry
Former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Christopher H. Phillips
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN (Nixon)
Former U.S. ambassador to Brunei (G.H.W. Bush)

Ambassador Stanley R. Resor
Former Secretary of the Army (Johnson, Nixon)
Former U.S. representative to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks, Vienna (Nixon, Ford, Carter)
Ambassador Nicholas A. Rey
Former U.S. ambassador to Poland (Clinton)

John B. Rhinelander
Deputy Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State (Nixon)
Legal adviser to the U.S. Strategic Arms Limitation Delegation (SALT I) (Nixon)

Ambassador (ret.) Stuart W. Rockwell
Former U.S. ambassador to Morocco (Nixon)

Ambassador (ret.) Talcott W. Seelye
Former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia and Syria (Nixon, Ford, Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Carl Spielvogel
Former U.S. ambassador to the Slovak Republic (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Monteagle Stearns
Former U.S. ambassador to Greece and Ivory Coast (Ford, Carter, Reagan)
Former Vice President, National Defense University (Carter)

Ambassador (ret.) Andrew L. Steigman
Former Ambassador to Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe (Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) Harry E.T. Thayer
Former U.S. ambassador to Singapore (Carter, Reagan)

The Hon. Hans N. Tuch
Career Minister, U.S. Foreign Service, USIA

Ambassador (ret.) Theresa A. Tull
Former U.S. ambassador to Guyana and Brunei (Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton)

Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (Carter)
Former U.S. representative to the United Nations, Geneva (Carter)
Ambassador (ret.) Christopher van Hollen
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Nixon)
Former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka (Nixon, Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) Robert E. White
Former U.S. ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador (Carter)
Former Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (Ford)

Ambassador (ret.) James M. Wilson, Jr.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, East Asia and Pacific Affairs (Nixon)
Coordinator for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Department of State (Ford)

Ambassador and former U.S. Senator (ret.) James Sasser
Former U.S. Senator (D-TN)
Former U.S. Ambassador to China (Clinton)

Ambassador (ret.) Patricia M. Byrne
Former Deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (Reagan)

Ambassador (ret.) John L. Hirsch
Former U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone (Clinton)

-- Steve Clemons

Remember Iran-Contra??

John Bolton has made a career out of defying Congress. During the Iran-Contra investigations, John Bolton refused to comply with Congessional demands for records. Bolton also believed that the Independent Counsel law was unconstitutional and did everything he could do preempt Congress's efforts to investigate Iran-Contra.

Many Americans feel that the United Nations needs to be modernized and reformed and problems such as "Oil-for-Food" resolved so that such corruption cannot again occur.

Bolton has no record of building up and reforming institutions. He defies laws, believes in might makes right, and has worked to undermine the system of checks and balances that is key to American democracy.

Here is a selection of articles and key excerpts that illustrate Bolton's contempt for American style governance:

Washington Post, December 24, 1986 Retired General Secord Refuses To Testify Before House Panel; Reagan Urges Quick Report on Iran Affair by Senate Committee By Tom Kenworthy, Lou Cannon

Attorney General Edwin Meese was sharply criticized by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter W. Rodino (D-NJ) for the Justice Department's refusal to produce information related to the Iran-contra investigation that was requested by the panel on Dec. 11.

John Bolton, assistant Attorney General for congressional affairs, refused late Monday to comply with requests by Rodino that the Justice Department produce a broad range of documents related to the controversy and that Meese answer questions about his knowledge and involvement. In refusing, Bolton said many items requested by Rodino are "highly classified" and that no staff member of the Judiciary Committee has the proper clearances to review them.

UPI, March 19, 1987
Washington News
By DANA WALKER

Attorney General Edwin Meese has grave doubts about the constitutionality of the law allowing for independent counsel to probe top officials such as those involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, a Justice Department official said Thursday.

Assistant Attorney General John Bolton, testifying before a Senate Governmental Operations subcommittee, stopped short of saying Meese believes the law is unconstitutional, despite being pressed by Sen. Carl Levin, co-sponsor of legislation to make the law permanent. The law, the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, expires in January 1988.

"There are grave doubts about the constitutionality" of key provisions of the law, including one that authorizes a special federal court -- instead of the Attorney General -- to appoint the independent counsel, Bolton said, adding that he personally believed the law was unconstitutional. Levin said: "I think it's clear to everybody that the Attorney General feels that this statute is unconstitutional. Why don't you just say it?"

Bolton said Meese would favor the law if he had more power over the scope of investigations, the appointment of the prosecutor and termination authority over the counsel. "You want us to gut the statute," Levin said.

Former special prosecutor Archibald Cox, whose firing by President Richard Nixon in the "Saturday Night Massacre" during the Watergate scandal sparked the push for the law, agreed with Levin, later testifying that Bolton in effect was saying, "We're for renewal of the statute with the guts taken out."

Bolton left open the possibility the Justice Department may argue against the law if the appropriate case came up. "We would be prepared to argue against the constitutionality" of certain aspects of the law. . .

UPI, May 29, 1987
Washington News
By LORI SANTOS

North, who renewed his constitutional challenge of Walsh's authority secretly May 8 before the appeals court - apparently to avoid a grand jury subpoena - was fired from his NSC job for his role in the scandal.

He is contending that Walsh's appointment by a special 3-judge panel is illegal because it usurps executive authority. He specifically challenged Walsh's authority to conduct a grand jury investigation. The case is scheduled to be heard publicly by the appeals court next week. The Justice Department and the American Bar Association also filed briefs with the court in support of Walsh.

But the department backed only his parallel appointment by Attorney General Edwin Meese. That appointment, the department said, "follows a respected tradition of appointing individuals outside of the Department of Justice to aid in sensitive investigations of officials within the executive branch" and is completely within the power of the Attorney General. At the same time, however, the department noted some officials have questioned the constitutionality of the ethics law, including Assistant Attorney General John Bolton, who has expressed "grave doubts" about the act and recently told Congress President Reagan could order Walsh to give North immunity from prosecution and fire the special prosecutor if he refused…

AP, June 16, 1987
Justice Department Continues Attack on Independent Counsels
By PETE YOST

Assistant Attorney General John Bolton also attacked an independent counsel who has been conducting a criminal investigation of a former Justice Department official for the past 14 months. Independent counsels, who are appointed by courts under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, are "utterly without review, utterly without supervision; nothing is too trivial for these people to investigate," Bolton said at a news conference.

. . ."To the extent that the present statute authorizes a prosecutor to investigate and prosecute federal crimes without...accountability, and makes a prosecutor subject to the direction and control of a court rather than the executive, we believe it is unconstitutional," said Bolton. "If this bill is enacted, we will have no choice but to recommend its disapproval by the president," he (John Bolton) said.

Los Angeles Times, June 18, 1987
POUNDING THE TABLE (editorial)

(John) Bolton would have us believe that the department's opposition is unrelated to the fact that Lawrence Walsh, the Iran-contra investigator, has been putting the heat on White House officials or that Attorney General Edwin Meese III is currently the subject of an independent counsel's investigation of his role in the the Wedtech scandal or that Meese was previously investigated for giving a federal job to a person who had done him a favor. The Administration would like to get independent counsels under its thumb to remove their independence. It has nothing to do with the Constitution.

Lawyers say that if the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither is on your side, pound the table. Administration officials are pounding the table, and Congress should not let them get away with it. The job of independent counsel may need some fine tuning, but the basic idea should be retained.

ABA Journal, July 1, 1987
Proposed changes in the law debated
By Debra Cassens Moss

. . .The Attorney General’s Office clarified its position on the law when John Bolton, assistant attorney general for the Office of Legislative Affairs, testified before a House subcommittee in April. He said that the present law is unconstitutional unless it is construed to give the president ultimate control over the decision to prosecute. The law says the independent counsel may be removed for good cause. Bolton says good cause should include failure to follow a president's orders to drop prosecution.

Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the subcommittee before which Bolton testified, complained that the Justice Department interpretation gives him a bad case of deja vu - Richard Nixon's firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in the "Saturday Night Massacre."

AP, July 8, 1987
House Panel Subpoenas Prosecutors In Contra-Drug-Gunrunning Probe
By BOB McHUGH

In a letter to (Subcommittee Chairman William) Hughes (D-NJ) last week, Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-IN, chairman of the House Iran-Contra committee, declined to share transcripts of the interviews. Hamilton's letter followed an April 20 letter to Hughes from Assistant Attorney General John Bolton, refusing to make the prosecutors available to Hughes' subcommittee. Bolton said any investigation relating to the Contras was under the jusrisdiction of the Iran-Contra committees. Hughes asked Meese again on June 12 to allow the prosecutors to be interviewed. Hughes said he received no reply.

Legal Times, March 7, 1988
Bolton Moves Up Justice Ladder; Lobbying Plans Frustrated, Official to Take Charge of Civil Branch
By Aaron Freiwald

. . .In late 1986, Bolton was the key administration representative during the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Bolton was heavily criticized for invoking executive privilege and for steadfastly refusing to release documents relating to Rehnquist's tenure at the Justice Dept in the 1970s. More recently, Bolton was an ever-present handler during US Circuit Judge Robert Bork's explosive and unsuccessful nomination to the Supreme Court.

In addition to his work on judicial nominations, Bolton has often gone to the front lines for the department's legislative agenda. He has been one of the administration's most vocal critics of the independent-counsel law. At a press conference last June, Bolton vigorously challenged the law's constitutionality in tones the White House later described as "intemperate."

Bolton was also one of the Justice Department's key legal advisers during last year's Iran-Contra hearings. Bolton accompanied several top department officials in depositions before the House committee, including Meese and Charles Cooper, assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. The committee has criticized the department - and thereby Bolton and his staff - for stonewalling efforts to obtain relevant documents during his investigation.

AP, January 19, 1989
White House Barred From Destroying Records
By PETE YOST

"We have filed suit only after prolonged negotiations during which no representative of the federal government, including counsels for the White House, National Security Council, and the National Archives, would assure us that these electronic materials would be retained at the end of the Reagan administration," said Scott Armstrong, founder of the National Security Archive, a non-profit group. "The Iran-Contra affair illustrated the importance of information stored in the PROFS system," Armstrong said in an affidavit. "Despite repeated attempts by NSC staff to shred the paper record and delete the computer record, the PROFS backup system on magnetic tape allowed investigators to reconstruct much of the Iran-Contra-related activity."

The computer tapes "are the only existing record of many important communications within the White House and specifically within the NSC at the close of the Reagan administration," Ms. Martin said in a memorandum filed in federal court. Destroying the tapes "will destroy an invaluable historical and political record that is available nowhere else and which Congress has on several occasions mandated be available to members of the public," Ms. Martin's memo said.

Assistant Attorney General John Bolton argued at the hearing that the destruction is "not some sinister conspiracy," but rather staffers in the Reagan administration staff trying to perform "house cleaning" chores so that the Bush administration can come in with "a clean slate. The archivist has given approval to erase these systems" and none of the information has "any relevance" or "anything to do with the Iran-Contra affair," said Bolton. Bolton said some material has already been deleted from the system, that the system is filled to capacity and that "it would be a grave impairment of the president's ability" to conduct the transition to a new administration "if the court were to intervene. When new people come in they have to have access to the system," said Bolton. A restraining order would impair the ability to get the administration "up and running," he said...

The Nation, April 17, 1989
From Meese to the UN; John Bolton