Ghost of John Bolton

By Ruth Marcus
WashPost
Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Meet the new John Bolton. Her name is Dawn Johnsen; she is President Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. And her selection is likely to trigger, as Bolton's did, a Senate filibuster and indignant squeals from members of the president's party that his nominees are entitled to an up-or-down vote.

As with Bolton's nomination to become U.N. ambassador, it's not at all clear that Johnsen can amass the 60 votes needed to shut down debate. Obama risks losing this nomination unless he puts some presidential muscle behind it. In one ominous sign, Johnsen is the administration's only Justice Department nominee to pass the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote.

Of course, my Bolton parallel is intentionally provocative. I happen to know both Bolton, back to his days in the Reagan Justice Department, and Johnsen, back to her days as legal director of the National Abortion Rights Action League. Dawn Johnsen is no John Bolton.

Bolton was as famously bristly as his trademark mustache. Johnsen is a slight, soft-spoken Sunday school teacher -- who also happens to be a serious legal scholar (like Bolton, a graduate of Yale Law School) with impeccable credentials (she was acting head of OLC during the Clinton administration). To my knowledge, she's never suggested lopping a few floors off the Justice Department, as Bolton did with the United Nations.

(More here.)