WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed President Bush's choice for secretary of state and advanced his nominee for attorney general yesterday, but in the process, Democrats registered discontent with Bush's Iraq war policies to a degree that surprised even some of their party's leaders.

The Senate voted 85-13 to confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, marking the most negative votes cast against a nominee for that post in 180 years. Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, voted to confirm Rice.

Meanwhile, all eight Democrats on the Judiciary Committee voted against Bush's appointment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. Because the committee's 10 Republicans voted for Gonzales, his nomination will reach the full Senate, where leaders of both parties predicted he will be confirmed to succeed John Ashcroft.

Also yesterday, the Senate confirmed Mike Leavitt as secretary of health and human services and Jim Nicholson as secretary of veterans affairs.

Alberto Gonzales' nomination goes to Senate.

Yesterday marked the second straight day that Democratic senators used high-profile nominations not to defeat Bush's appointees — which they lack the clout to do — but to attack the administration's policies regarding the torture of terrorism suspects and the execution of the Iraq war and transition.

As in Tuesday's daylong debate on Rice's nomination, yesterday's criticisms came not only from liberal Democrats but also from more centrist or independent members who have backed the Bush administration on key issues.

Mike Leavitt, health and human services nominee

For example, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., voted against Gonzales' confirmation even though he had voted in 2001 to confirm Ashcroft, a staunch conservative and irritant to many liberal groups. Feingold said Gonzales "too often has seen the law as an obstacle to be dodged or cleared away in furtherance of the president's policies."

Republicans defended Rice and Gonzales, sometimes a bit testily, and suggested Democrats were trying to score political points on sure-to-fail missions.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters that some Democrats seemed to be venting emotions in "a forum in which really heartfelt and sincere thoughts ... could be expressed to a national audience" for the first time since the Nov. 2 elections. In the criticisms of Rice, he said, "my feeling was that there was a certain amount of therapy going on."

Others, however, said Democrats are reflecting the growing dismay among Americans. Only 44 percent of Americans now think the war was worth fighting, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Not since 1825 — when 14 of the Senate's 48 members voted against Henry Clay — have so many senators opposed a secretary of state nominee. Even in 1973, during the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger's nomination drew only seven negative votes.

Rice was sworn in last night by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card in his West Wing office.

Jim Nicholson confirmed as head of veterans affairs.

Yesterday's discussion of Gonzales, now the White House counsel, again focused on his role in two memos written in 2002 outlining the permissible limits of interrogations of terror suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Although Gonzales testified earlier that he renounces torture, senators said he also signaled his belief that the president can override legal constraints if he wishes.

"Under his restrictive redefinition (of torture), such practices as threatening a prisoner with a firearm in a mock execution, 'waterboarding' a person to make him experience the suffocating effects of drowning, and ... perhaps even cutting off a person's fingers one joint at a time would not amount to 'torture,' " said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the judiciary panel's top Democrat. "Every one of us in this room would consider these practices torture if they were done to a member of the U.S. military or done to an American citizen."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said he had been inclined to vote in favor of Gonzales but was dismayed by the nominee's responses about his role in shaping interrogation policies. Schumer said he had "real doubts whether [Gonzales] can perform the job of attorney general."

"It's hard to be a straight shooter if you're a blind loyalist," he said.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.