Bolton vote gets green light

Bush's pick for U.N. ambassador is likely to be confirmed by the Senate this week.

Published May 25, 2005 11:24AM (EDT)

In the wake of the filibuster compromise reached Monday night, it now appears that John Bolton, President Bush's contentious pick for the United States' next ambassador to the United Nations, will finally get a vote in the Senate and be confirmed.

That despite the fact that Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, wrote to his colleagues in the Senate yesterday urging them to vote against Bolton's nomination.

"I strongly feel that the importance of this nomination to our foreign policy requires us to set aside our partisan agenda and let our consciences and our shared commitment to our nation's best interests guide us," Voinovich wrote. "In these dangerous times, we cannot afford to put at risk our nation's ability to successfully wage and win the war on terror with a controversial and ineffective ambassador to the United Nations."

According to Reuters, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, agreed to let the nomination come up for a Senate vote. The haggling now is over how many hours of debate the Senate will allow for the confirmation vote.


By Eric Boehlert

Eric Boehlert, a former senior writer for Salon, is the author of "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush."

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