Bolton vote delay a blow to Bush
By Matthew Davis
BBC News, Washington

US President George W Bush has suffered an unexpected and embarrassing blow after a new delay in John Bolton's passage to becoming the US ambassador to the United Nations.


Although some Republicans had reservations about Mr Bolton, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had looked set to vote along party lines and send his controversial nomination to the full Senate.

But in a fractious meeting on Tuesday, one Republican senator sided with Democrats demanding a fresh hearing to air allegations that Mr Bolton was a "serial bully" who intimidated junior members of staff.

Aides are describing as "stunning" the latest development in an already protracted, and now highly personal nomination process.

Perhaps for the first time, it no longer seems certain that the fate of President Bush's choice for the job will run the way both of them would like.

Put woman 'through hell'

Mr Bolton's combative criticisms of the UN have endeared him to conservatives, but liberals and some moderate Republicans say he lacks the personal temperament for the UN job.

One of the claims against Mr Bolton is that he is a serial abuser of subordinates, and that his treatment of an intelligence analyst who disagreed with him on the subject of Cuba damaged the work of the state department.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4465527.stm