Bolton update: Cowardice and confirmation

One of my favourite bloggers, Laura Rozen, has three new posts on the Bolton nomination at "War and Piece": here, here, and here. Check them out.

Plus, an excellent piece on Voinovich by Noam Scheiber (who now makes his second appearance at The Reaction today) in TNR -- alas, by subscription only. Last week, Voinovich stated in no uncertain terms that "John Bolton is the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be," but then he did little to block the nomination. Scheiber is right: By "failing to follow through when he could have blocked the nomination, he damage[d] the very principles he claims to espouse". If Bolton shouldn't be in "the diplomatic corps," let alone U.S. ambassador to the U.N., then why -- why?! -- refuse to block his nomination in committee? Was it not that important after all? Well, maybe. In the end, he caved in to pressure from the White House (not the first time he's done that, Scheiber notes). "George Voinovich proved himself to be an enabler of the administration's worst excesses when he caved on Bolton last Thursday." Indeed.

How sad, but how predictable.

(My own posts on Bolton, including a great haiku by Grace Miao and an open letter to John Bolton that I wrote with the help of a certain Michael Bolton, are, in reverse order, here (the haiku), here, here, here (my open letter), here, and here.)