In parliamentary systems it´s common to turn a political nomination - or even an insignificant bill - into a show of no-confidence in the government or a policy. In the U.S. that´s far less common, but 12 Senate Democrats (plus the independent Jim Jeffords) have done just that over Condoleezza Rice´s nomination for secretary of state.

They have used it as a way to stake out opposition to the Iraq war. They are likely to pay a heavy political price. In this country, it is customary to allow the President to choose his own cabinet, so long as the nominee is minimally qualified. Rice is superbly qualified and everyone concedes that.

Secretaries of state are generally approved unanimously. This is the first nomination in a quarter-century to have earned even a single dissenting vote, and the largest number of "no" votes since 1825. It is certainly legitimate for senators to use whatever instrument they wish to make a political point. But it is not very smart.

Because of her race, her symbolism and her personal story, Rice is not a run-of-the-mill appointment, but a historic one. Which makes some of the more vitriolic charges against the first African-American woman ever chosen for the office once held by Thomas Jefferson particularly wounding and politically risky.

Mark Dayton of Minnesota accused her of lying in order to deceive the American people into going to war - a charge that is not just false, but also suffers from not being believed by most Americans. Rice didn´t generate intelligence. She was a consumer of a defective product.

Nor was she the principal architect of the war. That distinction lies with the President and vice president. So, to pin much of the war on Rice seems unfair and disproportionate.

You don´t expect to see an iconic civil rights leader like Andrew Young indignantly defending a Bush administration appointment. It took the Senate Democrats´ attack on Rice to produce that unlikely scene.

Will it matter politically in the end? Can Democrats take the African- American vote for granted? Perhaps, but it will be interesting to see whether Democrats would be willing to repeat this exercise if Bush were to nominate Clarence Thomas to succeed William Rehnquist and become the country´s first black chief justice. The Democrats´ performance on the Rice nomination has opened precisely that possibility for the President.

New York´s Hillary Clinton may have made not only the correct decision, but a politically appropriate one as well by voting for Rice´s confirmation. Clinton is steadily moving to the center with her relatively hawkish work on the Armed Services Committee, her recent conciliatory speech on abortion and now her unwillingness to go over the cliff in opposing the Rice nomination.

Who has the politics of the Rice vote right? My guess is: Hillary, as usual. (© 2005 Daily News, L.P. 01/28/05)