Ohioan made a good call (Cincinnati Post re: Voinovich)

WASHINGTON - <snip>

A few days ago Voinovich suddenly struck his forehead with his hand during a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and with a stricken look defied his president. He said a vote on Bolton's confirmation should be delayed to glean more information. <snip>

Such a move is not done lightly. Bush was furious. Voinovich knows what is in store - White House pressure of the most intense kind. <snip>

Voinovich, who can be a maverick when he gets his hackles up, has been down this path before now. He told the White House he would do whatever he could to block the president's efforts to make his tax cuts permanent, including voting against the entire budget, saying the nation can't afford ever-larger deficits. He also said the president is wrong to push for Social Security changes this year and has denounced some of the president's spending cuts as ill-advised. <snip>

Voinovich was courageously correct - Bolton must be thoroughly vetted before a vote. And for the good of democracy, the filibuster should be retained. Bush understandably doesn't want to risk losing, but the game has to play out or everybody, including the bully, loses.

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050423/EDIT/504230307/1003

Compared to the a.m. paper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, the Post is far-left :-) It has some enlightened columnists and reporters, will miss
it when the joint operating agreement ends, which likely will bring the
demise of the Post. Cincinnati may be one of the last mid-size cities
with both a.m. amd p.m. papers.

When I read local news, it is only from The Post that I will read it.

But I'm glad if any of the few moderate Republicans left are willing to stop marching in partisan lockstep to halt this lunatic nomination.

a pretty conservative editorial board too....

http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1114162506159261.xml

.. to the United Nations .. for his very persona as an anti-diplomat. The United States needs a U.N. ambassador versed in suasion, not stridency. The post should be a bully pulpit for America's aspirations, not a platform for America's bully."

The underlying question, of course, is whether centristsa have any future in American politics or whether Republican extremists are determined to force everyone to play their game, in which only losers compromise ...

but not penned by Cincypost. Good that it got printed in a conservative paper. Strange that conservative papers have not weighed in on either the fillibuster issue or Bolton's nomination to any great degree. Their silence speaks volumes.

but I'll never forget his speech on the floor when it came to the debate on the Electoral College Vote. I was SO MAD!

If you want to refresh your memory visit Thomas here, and just scroll down a bit. Here is a snippet from the beginning portion:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r109:1:./temp/~r109Uh8dwU:e127151:



Gets my dander up everytime.

... that Republicans tried to depress the Democratic vote in Ohio with pointless challenges designed to stall voting in Democratic precincts, among other dirty tricks. We certainly can't be naive about what happened in 2000 and 2004.

I'm not nominating Voinovich for sainthood. I don't even take the view that his motives are pure or that his will is steady in the Bolton affair: perhaps he just likes being in office, expected to take a big hit in the polls if he voted to confirm this week, and expects to reassess the political landscape in a few weeks.

<edit:> I posted this editorial on the theory that when somebody is doing some of what I want done, it might be a poor day for me to choose to p*ss on that person in public ...