Trial by Committee

Previous, well-laid plans had gone awry at the committee’s last meeting on April 19, when Ohio Republican George Voinovich, suffering a bout of senatoritis, abruptly told his colleagues he didn’t feel “comfortable” voting for Bolton. Ten Republicans and eight Democrats make up the committee, and since the Democrats were uniformly opposed to Bolton, Voinovich’s change of heart meant the nomination probably could not be sent to the full Senate. Worse, once Voinovich jumped into the pool and said the water was warm, two other Republicans–Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee and Nebraska’s Chuck Hagel–leapt in and said they weren’t ready to vote for Bolton either. Lugar, wresting control of the proceedings, was able to postpone the vote until last week–by which time, he hoped, the committee’s Republicans could be herded together. Also Lugar said he’d order the committee staff to continue its investigation into Bolton’s background.

The inquiry was exhaustive. Both the State Department and USAID (where Bolton worked as counsel and then as assistant administrator for program and policy coordination during the Reagan presidency) provided 500 pages of documents to the committee. Intelligence officials from various agencies provided another 125 pages. Bolton sat through about 12 hours of committee hearings, met with 23 senators, and walked through a minefield of 157 additional questions submitted by the senators and their staffs. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff conducted 31 interviews with Bolton’s associates, and with his accusers. Meanwhile President Bush publicly reiterated his support for Bolton, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice privately spoke to senators on the nominee’s behalf.

When Lugar called the May 12 meeting to order, he had with him an eight-page, 40-minute-long statement that refuted, point by point, all of the various accusations against Bolton. Most of the accusations involve bureaucratic infighting at the State Department: Bolton had “pressured” several intelligence analysts; Bolton had refused a promotion to a career civil servant he considered untrustworthy (who got another top post instead); Bolton had delivered a speech in South Korea that the former ambassador there disagreed with. Lugar’s conclusion: “There is no evidence that he has broken laws or engaged in serious ethical misconduct.”

The other senators read along in silence, their heads lowered, except for Joe Biden, the ranking Democrat, who was staring at the cameras, and Barbara Boxer, who was chewing a piece of gum.

When Lugar mentioned Melody Townsel–the Dallas businesswoman and anti-Bush activist who, in a letter sent to the Democratic blog Dailykos.com, alleged that in 1994 Bolton had chased her around a Moscow hotel while “throwing things” at her–the reporters in the audience, and even some senators, laughed. Townsel’s unsubstantiated accusations had come to seem preposterous (a confessed plagiarist, she eventually admitted to committee staff that nothing was actually “thrown” at her, and that, according to Lugar, “‘chasing’ might not be the best word” to describe what happened in Moscow), though it was Biden’s reading of those accusations into the record on April 19 that had discomfited Voinovich in the first place.

Lugar finished his presentation with time to spare, and yielded the remainder to Voinovich, who had slipped in a few moments earlier. Voinovich’s face was wrinkled and ashen, and he thanked Lugar in grave and somber tones. Unlike Chafee and Hagel, who had told media outlets they were prepared to vote for Bolton, Voinovich had given no indication of how he planned to vote, so when he said he was “confident that I have enough information to cast my vote today,” everyone in the room leaned forward in suspense.

“There is a particular concern that I have about this nomination,” Voinovich said, “and it involves the big picture of U.S. public diplomacy.”

Democratic staff members, sitting against the wall at the front of the room, began to smile.

“Today, the United States is criticized for what the world calls arrogance, unilateralism, and for failing to listen and to seek the support of its friends and allies,” Voinovich continued. “We need the help of other countries to share the financial burden that is adding to our national debt, and the human resource burden that our armed forces, national guardsmen, and contractors are bearing so heavily now.”

George Allen, the Republican from Virginia, turned red.

“Mr. Chairman,” Voinovich said, “it is my opinion that John Bolton is the ‘poster child’ of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be.”

Barack Obama came in and took his seat, but no one noticed.

Voinovich went on, and for a moment it seemed as though Bolton was doomed. But then Voinovich said, “We owe it to the president to give Mr. Bolton an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” and suddenly the outlines of the deal that Lugar had brokered only hours before became clear: In exchange for sending the Bolton nomination to the floor “without recommendation,” Voinovich would have the opportunity–in a clever homage to his Democratic colleague John Kerry’s unfortunate votes first for, then against $87 billion in funding for Iraq–to vote for Bolton before voting against him.

So the five hours of debate that Lugar had scheduled turned out to be four hours too many. It took about 50 minutes to ensure Bolton’s passage from the committee. What followed was just for fun. There was Joe Biden’s impassioned, hour-long, showstopping imitation of . . . er, Joe Biden. (“Come back tomorrow,” muttered a reporter from the Washington Post. “He’ll still be talking.”) There was George Allen and Joe Biden’s extended football metaphor (Allen: “We have moved the ball downfield.” Biden: “We’re looking for an onsides kick.” Allen: “Say what?” Biden:”We’re looking for an onsides kick.” Allen:”We just got a first down. Haven’t scored yet”).

There was Florida Republican Mel Martinez: “I want to just briefly quote from a soliloquy that took place between Mr. Ford and myself . . . ” And there was the senior senator from Florida, Democrat Bill Nelson, a former astronaut who is apparently still lost in space–speaking of which, Nelson must have seen the latest Star Wars movie, because he began sounding like Yoda, the diminutive green-skinned alien who famously like so his sentences inverts. “We’re talking about the U.S. representative to the world body of nations to which we so desperately need at this time,” he said.

The clerk called the roll, and the final vote was 10 to 8 in favor. The New York Times reported the next day that it “was only the third time in 22 years that the committee has sent a nomination to the Senate without a favorable recommendation.” More striking, though, was the lack of enthusiasm with which the committee Republicans spoke of Bolton, and the Bush foreign policy more generally. Voinovich’s speech easily could have been mistaken for Barbara Boxer’s, or Chris Dodd’s, or Barack Obama’s. But so too could Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski’s (“My concern . . . has more to do with the conduct: how Mr. Bolton conducts himself, how he treats those who disagree with his assessments, how he conducts himself with his superiors, his equals, and those below him on the totem pole”), and Lincoln Chafee’s (“I am particularly concerned with the speech that Mr. Bolton gave in Seoul, South Korea, in the midst of those six-nation talks”), and Chuck Hagel’s (“The United Nations, like all multilateral institutions that we led on, we framed, we put together after World War II, have been extensions of America’s purpose and our power, not limitations”).

Although Boxer placed a hold on Bolton’s nomination shortly after the committee adjourned, the full Senate likely will vote on the nomination sometime in the next month. Chafee, Murkowski, and Hagel all say they will vote Yes. If they stick to that, Bolton will end up at Turtle Bay (eventually). But if the Bolton hearing is any indication, the Republican senators will cast their Yes votes in simple deference to the president, not in support of the Bush Doctrine, which John Bolton so perfectly embodies.

As I left the hearing room I couldn’t help but think that the Foreign Relations Committee was more John Kerry’s than George Bush’s.

Matthew Continetti is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.