Of course, now that the "pro-Israel" and "anti-China" lobbies have succeeded in derailing this nominee, won't that only set the next nominee up as being biased in their favor? Obama may have dodged this fight, but now opposing parties on the Mideast and China policies will probably be complaining "but of course your guy was handpicked by XXXXX, so he isn't fair." Giving one side in a debate veto power is likely to just make the other sides less likely to take the new candidate seriously. And while this job is more administrative and doesn't deal directly with foreigners much, it will give them ground to criticize future Estimates.