US: A US Senate committee agreed yesterday to send the nomination of John Bolton to the full Senate, but took the rare step of refusing to endorse President George Bush's choice as ambassador to the United Nations.
The move by the Foreign Relations Committee keeps the controversial nomination alive, but the failure of the Republican-dominated panel to make any recommendation is a set back for the president.
"It doesn't appear that Mr Bolton has the confidence of the majority of this committee," said the senior Democrat on the panel, Senator Joseph Biden, "and it gives the president an opportunity to send another nomination." The committee decision came after Republican Senator George Voinovich made it clear he could not support a diplomat he called "arrogant" and "bullying".
In a deal with his party members before yesterday's five-hour committee debate however, the Ohio senator agreed not to vote against Mr Bolton in the committee, which has a 10-8 Republican majority, as a 9-9 vote would kill the nomination and deny the full Senate a chance to vote.
This gives the Democrats a further opportunity to try to block a nomination they oppose on the grounds that Mr Bolton sought to manipulate intelligence to suit his conservative ideology and bullied subordinates.
Mr Bolton's nomination has also been opposed by many officials in the State Department where he was a senior disarmament official, including top aides to former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Senator Voinovich told reporters afterwards that he would vote against Mr Bolton in the 100-member Senate where the Republicans have a 56-45 majority.
The Bolton nomination could now get caught up in a bitter partisan fight in the Senate over Republican moves to end the right to filibuster - a procedural device the minority Democrats can use to block a presidential nomination.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president was confident Mr Bolton would be confirmed by the full Senate.
In a passionate speech to the committee, Senator Voinovich forcefully opposed Mr Bolton but said they owed it to the president to give the nominee an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate.
"What message are we sending to the world community when in the same breath 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, of bullying those who do not have the ability to properly defend themselves," he said.
He called Mr Bolton "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be" and said he would be fired if he was in the private sector. In a vigorous intervention in Mr Bolton's defence, Republican Senator George Allen told the committee, "We are not electing Mr Congeniality. We do not need Mr Milquetoast in the United Nations.
"We're not electing Mr Peepers to go there and just be really happy, and drinking tea with their pinkies up and just saying all these meaningless things when we do need a straight talker, and someone who's going to go there and shake it up." The Republican chairman, Senator Richard Lugar, also voiced unease with the president's choice, saying "The picture is one of an aggressive policy-maker who pressed his missions at every opportunity and argued vociferously for his point of view. In the process, his blunt style alienated some colleagues." But, he said, "there is no evidence that he has broken laws or engaged in serious ethical misconduct." Senator Biden opposed sending the nomination out of committee, saying "I think we have undermined our authority and shirked our constitutional responsibility." He said, "We have already lost a lot of credibility at home and abroad after the fiasco over the intelligence on Iraq, and Mr Bolton is not the man to help us to rebuild it."
A vote on Mr Bolton had been put off by the committee for three weeks after four Republican members voiced doubts about his suitability for the post of ambassador to the UN, which Mr Bolton has dismissed as irrelevant in the past.