After failing to attend two Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the nomination of John Bolton to be UN ambassador, and then suddenly changing his mind about whether he was ready to vote for Bolton in a third committee meeting, Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio was lavishly praised by liberal editorial pages in his home state and elsewhere. The Columbus Dispatch ran an editorial headlined: "Voinovich's break from party line on Bolton is refreshing." The truth, as many of his constituents were quick to tell him, is that Voinovich disgraced himself by failing to do his job as a senator. First, critics said, he should have attended the hearings. That is what taxpayers pay him to do. Secondly, even though he had a week to read the transcripts of the hearings he had missed before making up his mind about Bolton, he failed to do that also. Finally, when Voinovich showed up for the committee meeting at which the Bolton vote was scheduled, he allowed himself to be bamboozled by Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a notorious blowhard, who read a histrionic anti-Bolton letter from a women who formerly headed a local chapter of Mothers Opposing Bush.
