DEMS' UNDIPLOMATIC FLIP-FLOP SINKS BOLTON

By DEBORAH ORIN-EILBECK

December 5, 2006 -- A "not happy" President Bush yesterday accepted U.N. Ambassador John Bolton's resignation after the Democrats vowed to block a Senate confirmation vote he'd have won.

"They chose to obstruct his confirmation even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time," said Bush, who praised Bolton for a "fabulous" job.

Bush had named the strongly pro-Israel Bolton on a temporary basis because of a Senate filibuster - but some of his critics came around and last July Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) predicted another anti-Bolton filibuster was unlikely.

The dynamic changed when the Democrats won control of the Senate in November and vowed to block him - a sign that bipartisan cooperation between Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress could be in short supply.

Meanwhile, as he awaits tomorrow's Iraq report from a panel headed by his father's secretary of State, James Baker, Bush told an Iraqi Shiite leader that the United States was "not satisfied with the pace of progress in Iraq."

The Iraqi leader, Abdulazziz al-Hakim, stressed that he "vehemently" opposed any international or regional effort to solve Iraq's problems - an implicit slap at calls from the Democrats (and possibly Baker) to reach out to Iran and Syria.