"HarryKrause" wrote in message
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Posted on Mon, Jun. 20, 2005

Bush may bypass Senate as Democrats again block U.N. nominee

BY JAMES KUHNHENN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Senate Democrats on Monday once again blocked the
nomination of John Bolton to be America's ambassador to the United
Nations, setting the stage for President Bush to consider bypassing Senate
confirmation by appointing Bolton while Congress is on a weeklong July
Fourth recess.

Democrats complained that the White House has refused to turn over
information about Bolton's activities while he was an official at the
State Department, which they say is crucial to determining his fitness for
the U.N. post.

Only three Democrats sided with Republicans in an attempt to end debate
and bring up the nomination for a final vote. Sen. George Voinovich of
Ohio, a Republican who opposes Bolton's nomination, voted with the
Democrats. Under Senate rules, Republicans needed 60 of the senators' 100
votes to end debate, but they mustered only 54.

"They put partisanship ahead of the Constitution and the Senate's right to
receive information from the executive branch of government," Senate
Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday of the Bush
administration. "Unless the president comes forward with information which
we're certain we're constitutionally entitled to, Bolton will not get
enough votes" to end debate on his nomination and move to a decisive vote,
Reid said.

On Monday, White House officials told one key Democrat that they were
willing to provide some but not all of the material Democrats had
requested. Democrats refused the offer and cast their challenge to Bolton
as a defense of the Senate's institutional rights rather than the merits
of his nomination.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...s/politics/119



Quack attack: quack, quack, quack, quack.


Clinton did a recess appointment of the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia...so
what's your point?