Bolton sunk… for now

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Wow, go see Laura Rozen for the details, but George Voinovich (R-OH) just sided with the Democrats in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to delay a vote on John Bolton’s nomination to the UN ambassadorship for two weeks. Good news. There are a lot of seamy details on Bolton just coming to light, including Bolton’s possible use of NSA intercepts “to wage war against rival officials in the State Department.” Moderate Republicans led by Richard Lugar tried to cut off debate, but Voinovich came out of nowhere to stop them. Again, good news.

From what I gather, Voinovich is something of a moderate on foreign policy, or at least what passes for a moderate in Republican circles. Back in 2003, he publicly encouraged the Bush administration to go to the UN for help with the war in Iraq. And that’s what this is all about. Can moderate Republicans who still believe in multilateralism wrest control of their foreign policy from the likes of John Bolton and his allies, including Dick Cheney? Two of the famous “moderates” on the Senate Committee—Lincoln Chafee and Chuck Hagel—have shown no such desire to confront the Bush administration on this issue. But if they don’t take a stand now, they have no hope whatsoever of pushing Republican foreign policy in a saner direction. (Heck, Chafee didn’t even vote for the president, so why is he voting for the president’s wild-eyed, anything-but-moderate nominee?) Perhaps that’s not what Voinovich’s vote was about, but it’s certainly something he ought to consider.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate