The Bolton Endgame

On the eve of the John Bolton vote, a dizzying stream of new information continued to wash in, filling in the portrait of Bolton and his loyalists as a kind of rogue political force engaged in all-but-open warfare against their bureaucratic enemies in the State Department and the U.S. intelligence community, and openly working to undermine the president's policies of supporting multilateral negotiations on North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs.

Emerging this week were more revelations about the unorthodox staff arrangements Bolton had, including the high-priced management consultant Matthew Freedman, who worked as a consultant for Bolton on a six-figure, taxpayer-funded salary with security clearance while also maintaining a side business consulting private clients whose identities he refused to disclose to the Senate committee staff. Also unusual was the fact that Bolton's acting chief of staff, Frederick Fleitz, worked simultaneously for Bolton and for his home agency, the CIA's non-proliferation department, WINPAC.

Then, on Wednesday, The Hill reported that some Democrats believe Bolton started to avail himself of an alternative intelligence operation bulked up during Bolton's tenure at State which some Democrats said resembled Doug Feith’s alternative intelligence shop at the Pentagon that produced hyped and misleading assessments of Saddam's collaboration with Osama bin Laden and Iraq's nuclear program. All these latest revelations were just more data points in the amply documented portrait of Bolton as a paranoid rogue operator who behaved as if he were dropped behind enemy lines while working in Colin Powell’s State Department, and using wired-in operatives to spy on his American bureaucratic enemies.

This persistent stream of revelations continues to damage Bolton, the moderate GOP senators who may vote for him (under tremendous threats and pressure from the White House), and the Bush administration. Indeed, this kind of all-or-nothing White House fanaticism shows how terrified the administration is to lose party discipline on any single issue.

While the Senate Foreign Relations committee chair Richard Lugar and even the Iowa trading group, TradeSport, predicted Bolton would get through committee on Thursday, a few observers said it was still too early to call the game.

"I don't think it's over," insists Steve Clemons, a New America Foundation senior fellow and former Hill staffer, who has led public opposition to the Bolton nomination from his blog, The Washington Note. "Lugar and everyone are acting as if it's a done deal. That's good psychological warfare. But my sense is that there are too many huge problems for these people to automatically vote yes on. It's very complicated for these senators."

On Capitol Hill—where Senate Foreign Relations committee staff have been pulling 20 hour days the past three weeks conducting an intensive investigation and more than 30 interviews since the Bolton vote was stalled in a surprise move by Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich last month—the mood late Tuesday night was that whatever the outcome, it was a process fought well with everything they had.

"We're going to convince one or more Republicans that this nominee is unqualified," says Norm Kurz, spokesman for Sen. Biden, only partly tongue in cheek. "Surely everyone must recognize that."

"We're going to win on the merits," said Kurz. "There's no dispute about Bolton's arm twisting, the cherry picking the material to fit his own views, surely no one can dispute that he tried to get Christian Westermann fired. He can't run a mission at the U.N. because of the way he abuses people, lied to the committee, under oath ... ."

Yet committee minority staff said Sen. Voinovich was still the key, and indeed, as of late Tuesday, the Ohio Republican had publicly refused to say which way he'll vote, except that he'll vote his conscience. "Voinovich is the guy who might just have his conscience pricked again," says Kurz. "I wouldn't bet on it happening, but I wouldn't say the game is over."