Well, not really, but I don't know that there's ever been a clearer case of a Senator's willful refusal to discharge the responsibilities of his office and to abide by his oath of office than the Sen. Voinovich's disgusting act of cowardice today. It simply boggles my mind that a Senator could argue that a presidential nominee for U.N. Ambassador is "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be," and then vote the way Voinovich did today (with, of course, a nice interlude to flog the GOP line of "we need an up or down vote in the Senate" to help warm up the filibuster fight).
For those still on the fence, I'll explain why Voinovich was wrong on the flip.
First of all, let's evaluate what, on the face of it anyway, is Voinovich's problem with stopping Bolton's nomination at the committee stage. The Senator stated: "I'm not so arrogant to think that I should impose my judgment and perspective of the U.S. position in the world community on the rest of my colleagues," which was apparently Voinovich's justification for voting to submit Bolton to the full Senate, albeit without a recommendation.
On the subject of what the Senate "owes" to the President when evaluating the latter's nominees, Voinovich might do well to peruse Federalist No. 76, in which Alexander Hamilton addresses that very issue:
It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing.
Having attended to that passage, Senator Voinovich will realize that the process of providing "advice and consent," which is mandated by the Constitution, is not simply an empty excercise. Instead, it is calculated to prevent nominations like Bolton's in the first instance, by giving the President pause. Of course, since today's U.S. Senate is little more than a rubber-stamp for presidential nominations, and because President Bush is so mind-numbingly arrogant, it should come as little surprise that the threat of Senate rejection did not prevent Bolton's nomination in the first instance. However, given that this is a case in which, to use Hamilton's terms, "special and strong reasons for the refusal" of the Senate's consent exist (reasons articulated by Voinovich himself), it is wholly appropriate for the Senate to withhold consent and to refuse to sanction Bolton's nomination.
At this point, one might argue that Voinovich was correct to allow the entire Senate to decide whether to approve Bolton's nomination, but that argument seems stunningly weak. After all, if the committee is designed solely as a rubber-stamp, with absolutely no reason to actually vet these nominations, then why the heck should the committee review them in the first place? Well, the reasons are that the members of the Foreign Relations Committee have (at least in theory) extra expertise, through their service on the Committee, if nothing else, in the area of foreign relations and thus are more attuned to the qualifications necessary to serve as an ambassador. Moreover, the Committee has more time and can more carefully review the nominee than can the full Senate. And if the Committee decides that the nominee is unfit to serve, then it is the Committee's job to either block the nominee entirely or -- at the very least -- send him to the Senate with a negative recommendation.
Which brings me to the final point, namely Voinovich's abject cowardice in voting for "no recommendation" instead of "negative recommendation." If he honestly believes, as he stated in committee, that Bolton is not qualified for the job, that the U.S. can do better, that Bolton is likely to harm the U.S.'s already fragile international reputation, and indeed that Bolton is "the poster child" for what we do not want at the U.N., then it seems like there could not be a more tailor-made instance in which a negative recommendation was appropriate. Instead, Voinovich caved in and took the weasel's way out, voting for the option requiring the least commitment.
I fail to see how someone who is so unwilling to carry out the duties required by his office is fit to serve in the United States Senate.