I missed the Foreign Relations committee meltdown on C-SPAN that rendered my earlier Bolton post as wrong as a 1 p.m. exit poll (which I’ve also been known to post). Chafee and Hagel were looking OK, so things seemed fine. No one focused on Voinovich, whose wilting caught everyone by surprise. The vote has been delayed yet again, giving the Democrats and Bolton’s many State Department adversaries a chance to dredge up more ridiculous charges. The New York Times today referred to a committee review of Bolton’s handling of the maternity leave of an employee when he worked at the justice department–in 1988! The kid in question is old enough to be in high school now. The lesson here is that if you are a conservative at the State Department who bucks the bureaucracy you will get maligned. Powell and Armitage are surely smiling right now. The way the Democrats are sounding, if Bolton eventually wins Voinovich’s vote in committee, they will try to filibuster the nomination on the floor. A distressing day in Washington…