DINOcrat Tactics, Wrethuglican Strategery, and the Conservative Conscience

Steven C. Clemmons has an excellent breakdown of the situation on the Senate floor regarding the U.N. candidate John Bolton, who represents not the Nation as a whole but the American Enterprise Institute, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation.

Although many in the press are depicting this battle as one between the Democrats and Republicans, knowing what I now know about the extreme level of indigestion in Republican circles about the nomination, depicting this investigation as a partisan one seems nonsensical.

Thus, I think we need new terms to describe what is going on. I think we need to re-cast the players in three camps:
1. The Cheney-Bolton Advocates
2. The Cheney-Bolton Opponents
3. The Undecided and Wavering

The Cheney-Bolton Advocates include Senators Norm Coleman and George Allen. Senators John Sununu and Mel Martinez also fall into this category because they have given rumblings of their intent to support the President. Regrettably, TWN must include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar who has decided to support Bolton it seems no matter what the evidence and no matter what the circumstances. He sees his job as getting the nomination of Bolton out of Committee and not having the Senate preempt this Bush administration choice -- no matter how bad it may be.

The Cheney-Bolton Opponents include all of the Democrats on the Committee: Senators Biden, Sarbanes, Dodd, Kerry, Feingold, Boxer, Bill Nelson, and Obama.

The Undecided and Wavering include Senators Lincoln Chafee, George Voinovich, Lamar Alexander, Lisa Murkowski, and Chuck Hagel.

Lisa Murkowski made her discomfort with circumstances known yesterday -- and this is something TWN thought might be cooking. While Lamar Alexander has not made such a public comment (yet), TWN has reason to believe that Senator Alexander may feel that John Bolton's dossier "offends the sensibilities" of many. Lamar Alexander, a former Presidential candidate, and someone who values decency and fair play probably shares the view that America ought to be sending someone to the United Nations whom America can be proud of -- and that person is not John Bolton.

So, there is a great deal of fragility in this battle. TWN believes that a 9-9 tie is no longer likely in the battle over Bolton. Either Senator Chafee or some other Senator will indicate a steadfastness to oppose Bolton and vote against him in Committee and bring with that vote several others, or alternatively, the Republicans will maintain a block.

That means we will either see something that looks like a 12-6 or even 13-5 vote against Bolton, or we will see a 10-8 vote in favor of Bolton. One Senator can make the difference, but once one Senator unambiguously moves and indicates a decision to oppose, then several other Senators will quickly move as well.

The ultimate issue is this: every legitimate conservative by now realizes that the TheoCon agenda cynically propagated by Bu$hCo is nothing like real conservatism nor does it represent the morals of real Christianity.

Next to Dick Cheney and James Baker, John Bolton has only one real master he serves: the financial interests of theCarlyle Group.

Thanks to Lauren Rozen at War and Piece for the link, a site that is proving to be an excellent resource for monitoring this situation.