Washington – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent the nomination of John Bolton to the full Senate without a recommendation for its approval, after Republicans fell short of the solid support among their members necessary to endorse him as ambassador to the United Nations.
The highly unusual move by the committee, the third time it has sent a nomination to the Senate without a favorable recommendation in the past 22 years, was nevertheless an important victory for the White House. It moved one of the most contested of its foreign policy appointments a step closer to approval, given the Republicans’ solid majority in the Senate.
The committee’s chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., had predicted that the panel would back Bolton on a party-line vote.
But Lugar was forced to embrace the fallback position after one Republican, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, broke with the party and denounced Bolton in scathing terms as unsuited for the job, calling him “the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be.”
The committee’s decision, on a party-line vote of 10-8, shifts the battle over Bolton to the Senate floor, where Republicans hold a 55-44 majority.
That majority keeps Bolton’s confirmation likely unless five additional Republican senators join Voinovich.
Eric Ueland, chief of staff for the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, said the Republicans hoped for a vote on Bolton before the Senate’s Memorial Day recess.
All eight Democrats on the panel remained united in opposition to Bolton. Among the Republicans, only Voinovich said explicitly that he intended to vote against Bolton in the Senate.
But one other Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, described herself as deeply torn. She said afterward that she had “not made up my mind publicly” about the nomination.
Three other Republicans voiced no more than lukewarm support, though two of them, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, said they would probably vote for Bolton.
Even Lugar’s endorsement was tempered: “Secretary Bolton’s actions were not always exemplary … But there is no evidence that he has broken laws or engaged in serious ethical misconduct.”
Voinovich cast his case against Bolton in terms so strong that Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said his own prepared presentation “would be redundant and not as eloquent as what we just heard.”
“What message are we sending to the world community,” Voinovich said, when “we have sought to appoint an ambassador to the United Nations who himself has been accused of being arrogant, of not listening to his friends, of acting unilaterally and of bullying those who do not have ability to properly defend themselves? Those are the very characteristics that we are trying to dispel.”
Biden was among members who said they had been assured by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in recent weeks that Bolton’s nomination should not cause alarm because he would be carefully supervised at the United Nations, with his speeches carefully reviewed.
But “why would you send someone to the United Nations who needed to be supervised?” Biden said.