Party Lines

When you're appointing someone to an important post, it's crucial to openly discuss the relevant issues, and not hold blindly to your dogmatic views. This rarely happens in practice of course. Nevertheless, yesterday, in the process to consider the nomination of John Bolton for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., there was even some dissent from Republicans. For example, as the BBC reports,

"... in a fractious meeting on Tuesday, one Republican senator sided with Democrats demanding a fresh hearing to air allegations that Mr Bolton was a "serial bully" who intimidated junior members of staff."

and

"Senator George Voinovich, a Republican from Ohio and not one of those who had previously questioned the nomination, said he had "heard enough today that gives me some real concern about Mr Bolton".

It'd be nice if there were more opposition to out-of-date, contentious appointments, but you can't bank on it.