This kind of reporting annoys me. It's sloppy and both the reporters and editors are on the hook for it. In an article in today's paper (Bush Urges Senate to 'Put Aside Politics' and Confirm Bolton) we first read that a committee vote on the Bolton UN nomination has been delayed because of Republican reservations.
Mr. Bolton, who is known to have the strong support of Vice President Dick Cheney, will have to wait until at least the second week of May before his nomination comes again before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which unexpectedly postponed a vote earlier this week after some Republican panel members expressed reservations about the nominee.
But keep reading and in the very next paragraph you'll learn that it was really the perfidious Democrats who caused the delay.
Senator Lincoln Chafee, the Rhode Island Republican who had earlier said he was inclined to support Mr. Bolton, said Wednesday that he wanted to consult with his colleagues in the wake of the stormy meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday at which Democrats forced the postponement of a vote.
We're not done yet. Keep reading. After all, it's Republicans -1, Democrats - 1. We need a tie breaker. And we get it just two sentences later.
Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, sided Tuesday with the Democrats, forcing the panel's chairman, Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, to put off a vote.
Confused? Well, here's what happened. The Democrats wanted to postpone the vote. The Republicans have the majority by one vote and they could have sent the nomination to the floor. But one Republican sided with the Democrats and as a result the Republican chairman postponed the vote. The Democrats didn't "force the postponement". But they were instrumental in the postponement. Too bad the story makes this unclear.
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