Frist: No More Bolton Votes

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced Tuesday that he won't schedule another vote on John Bolton's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

In so doing, the Tennessee Republican acknowledged there was nothing further he could do to break a Democratic stalemate with the Bush White House over Bolton.

"That's been exhausted," Frist said a day after Democrats again blocked a vote on the floor on Bolton's nomination. It was the second time the minority party in the Senate mustered enough votes to prevent Bolton's confirmation process from advancing.

Asked about Frist's remarks, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "We'll continue to work with the Senate leadership."

Frist said that "at this juncture, we have to go back to the president and see what the decision he's going to make is."

He said scheduling a third vote now would be fruitless because Democrats will just keep stalling over information they are demanding from the White House.

"Whether it is politics or whatever their concerns are with, the goal posts constantly shifting. Bringing up another vote's not going to change anything," Frist said.

The White House earlier Tuesday has issued a new call for a vote on the nomination, accusing Democrats of being unwilling to compromise. "They're only interested in blocking this nomination from moving forward," McCellan said at the time.

The president's options now include withdrawing the nomination, authorizing further concessions to Democrats over access to information they seek or bypassing lawmakers altogether by appointing the former State Department official to the job temporarily without the Senate's OK.

But any of those options could leave the president appearing weak as he confronts sagging poll numbers and fights to stave off a lame-duck label just six months into his final term.

Democrats made clear they weren't budging and most stood together Monday to defeat a GOP effort to force a final vote on Bolton. The Senate voted 54-38, six shy of the total needed to advance his nomination. The vote represented an erosion in support from last month's failed Republican effort.

"The republicans were six votes short, even though they have the majority in the senate," said CBS News Correspondent Gloria Borger on The Early Show. "You can always block a vote as a minority if the majority can't get 60 votes. They were six votes short last night. They don't think they're going to get them. So now it is up to the president to do what he wants to do, even if only appointing Bolton for a short time."

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who voted in May to advance the nomination, switched positions and urged Mr. Bush to consider another candidate, while only three Democrats crossed party lines.

Democrats have demanded that the administration check a list of 36 U.S. officials against names in secret national security intercepts that Bolton requested and received. They also want documents related to the preparation of testimony that Bolton planned to deliver — but ultimately never gave — in the House in July 2003 about Syria's weapons capability.

In remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the lead Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a chief critic of Bolton, said White House Chief Staff Andrew Card had offered to provide some of the Syria information.

"I indicated to him that was not sufficient," Biden said. Rather, Biden said Democrats want the administration to turn over all information they seek.

Mr. Bush has said Bolton, with a history of blunt talk and skepticism about the U.N.'s power, would lead an effort to overhaul the world body's bureaucracy and make it more accountable. Critics say Bolton, who has been accused of mistreating subordinates, would hurt U.S. efforts to work with the U.N. and other countries.

Republicans argued that holding Monday's vote — even if it didn't succeed — would at least put Democrats on record again of delaying final confirmation. That could provide political cover for the White House for a recess appointment or to withdraw Bolton's nomination by letting the administration say it was forced to take those steps because of Democratic stonewalling.

Some Republicans urged Mr. Bush to continue fighting for Bolton rather than appoint him on his own during the upcoming Senate break — a so-called recess appointment — for fear of sending a weakened nominee to the United Nations. "That would not be in our best interest," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"I think the resolution is going to be a recess appointment," Borger said.

Such an appointment would only last through the next one-year session of Congress — in Bolton's case until January 2007.

"If the President opts for a recess appointment, it won't be the first time," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk. "There have been many, the most notable were two Assistant Secretaries of State for Latin American affairs, Otto Reich and Peter Romero who were appointed after delays in Senate confirmation.

"But here, the President has to weigh the benefit of getting a hobbled Bolton to the U.N. for only five months against either trying to win the battle or withdraw the nomination," Falk added. "Bolton would preside over a General Assembly session in September and then have only three months more on the job."

Like the vote in May, Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana were the only Democrats to support the move to have an immediate final vote. Last month, Republicans fell four votes short of moving the nomination forward.