President George Bush and the upper echelon of the GOP establishment have been putting a full court political press on trying to get John Bolton shoved through as the new UN Ambassador but they’ve run into a stumbling block: former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The irony is somewhat sublime. Powell entered the first Bush administration a mega-star and left a bit diminished due to his role as key international spokesman for the argument that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But, besides that, there was always the feeling — suggested by some news reports and books — that Powell was never really part of Bush’s REAL inner circle and didn’t have maximum influence.
But, now, according to TWO news reports, it sounds as if Powell may have enough influence to squelch or pass Bolton’s troubled nomination — and that’s not good news for Bolton. The New York Times reports this:
President Bush issued a strong new defense today of John R. Bolton, his nominee as ambassador to the United Nations, even as associates of Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, said that Mr. Powell had expressed reservations about Mr. Bolton in conversations with at least two wavering Republican senators.
The associates said that in private telephone conversations Mr. Powell had made clear his concerns with Mr. Bolton on several fronts, including his harsh treatment of subordinates. The associates said that Mr. Powell had also praised Mr. Bolton’s performance on some matters during his tenure as undersecretary of state, but they also said that Mr. Powell had stopped well short of the endorsements offered by President Bush and by Mr. Powell’s own successor as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.
The accounts of Mr. Powell’s private message about Mr. Bolton suggested a new gulf between the former secretary of state and the president, who spoke out forcefully today in defense of Mr. Bolton. In a speech here, Mr. Bush portrayed Democratic opposition to Mr. Bolton as being politically driven, and urged the Senate “to put politics aside and confirm John Bolton to the United Nations.”
Mr. Bush’s comment and others by a White House spokesman suggested that the administration was determined to defend Mr. Bolton’s nomination, despite crumbling support among Senate Republicans that has left the nomination in peril.
Indeed, Mr. Bush showed no sign of backing away from the Bolton nomination. Speaking before the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, he brought up the subject in the first moments of his address, saying, “I welcome you to the nation’s capital, where sometimes politics gets in the way of doing the people’s business.”
By itself, this is unlikely to sway wavering Senators. And with Powell in the background expressing reservations, Bush’s charges of partisan politics in Washington (why, who could ever THINK that Democrats, Republicans or administration members could play politics?) will likely be a wash. Even worse, Powell — who no longer has to be the good soldier — is being candid to some highly influential people:
Mr. Powell has not spoken publicly about the Bolton nomination. But his associates said he had told Senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, in response to questions, that he had been troubled by the way that Mr. Bolton had treated an intelligence analyst and others at the State Department who disagreed with him.
Mr. Chafee and Mr. Hagel are both Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and both have expressed concern about Mr. Bolton’s temperament, credibility and treatment of intelligence analysts. The senators’ concerns, along with those of Senator George Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, were among the factors that have forced the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to postpone until next month a vote on Mr. Bolton’s nomination.
The Washington Post also has a strikingly similar piece on this — which by journalistic rules certainly qualifies as strong confirmation that this is indeed taking place. A key passage in its article:
Powell’s tenure as secretary of state was often marked by friction with the White House on a range of foreign policy issues, disagreements that both sides worked to keep from surfacing. It is not Powell’s style to weigh in strongly against a former colleague, but rather to direct people to what he sees as flaws and potential problems, former associates say. Powell’s views are highly influential with many Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Those who know Powell best said two recent events provide insight into his thinking. Powell did not sign a letter from seven other former U.S. secretaries of state or defense supporting Bolton, and his former chief of staff, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, recently told the New York Times that Bolton would be an “abysmal ambassador.”
“On two occasions, he has let it be known that the Bolton nomination is a bad one, to put it mildly,” a Democratic congressional aide said. “It would be great to have Powell on the record speaking for himself, but he’s unlikely to do it.”
But what’s unfolding now — accounts of Powell’s opposition running in arguably the two most influential newspapers in the United States — could be enough.
And should the nomination narrowly pass, Bush administration foes will be quoting these articles about Powell loudly from now through the 2008 Presidential election.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.