WASHINGTON - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted Wednesday to approve Condoleezza Rice's nomination to be secretary of state, but after two days of strenuous questioning on the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, Democrats planned to delay her widely expected confirmation by the full Senate, NBC News reported.
The committee approved Rice by a 16-2 vote, with only Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California voting not to recommend that she be confirmed. She was the first nominee for secretary of state to receive any "no" votes since Alexander M. Haig in 1981.
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"There are a number of Democrats not on the committee that want to have a chance to debate her nomination [for] a couple of hours," Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, told The Associated Press later.
I don't know if I am pollyanna enough to believe that this will do anything more than just slow down the confirmation of Dr. Rice by the full Senate... but I am glad that some effort is being made to make the Bushies fight for this 'coronation' of incompetence. Harry Reid seems to be going beyond shaking the worst fears of him being just a 'dance card' Democrat, someone who just wants to help the President get his agenda passed, to being a real honest to goodness all-American patriotic pain in the President's ass.