While most of the main stream media has been reporting that a recess appointment this week is likely -- and they may be right -- there are new signs TODAY that this probably will not occur next week.

Senator Frist has sent signals that he wants to bring back a Bolton cloture vote "some time" next month -- along with a UN Reform package in the Senate.

This is huge news and it means that the Bolton story will keep on giving for at least another month.

I will post more later on what TWN has learned -- but do not expect a recess appointment this week. Either Bolton said NO to that track -- or the White House is simply sacrificing the position at the U.N. in order to compel Democrats to fight against a "probably" pernicious U.N. reform package.

Bolton's confirmation vote will not be "formally" connected to the potential UN reform legislation -- but they will be symbolically linked.

I'm eager for the battle. This is "new" news -- and could be mistaken. But most on the deep inside are no longer expecting a recess appointment -- at least not until August recess.

The White House is miscalculating again -- thinking that the public is tired of this subject and trying to wear down the opposition. But our team trains for marathons -- and is only now just picking up the pace.

-- Steve Clemons

Robert Kuttner hits the bull's eye in a compelling survey of the "Bolton Endgame" in the Boston Globe today.

Here is an excerpt:

With the Senate having twice refused to break a filibuster over Bolton, President Bush may use his power to make a recess appointment during Congress's Fourth of July break. Bolton would then serve without Senate confirmation until the next Congress ends, in late 2006.

Or Bush could withdraw Bolton's name.

Bolton's views on the UN are hostile. He is known as a short-tempered martinet. He got poor reviews for his last job as undersecretary of state for arms control. For instance, Bolton was a skeptic of a US joint program to keep Russian nuclear fuel from reaching terrorists. The effort was tied up in legal minutiae during Bolton's tenure, but soon after Bolton's departure early in 2005, the logjam was broken and agreement with Russia reached.

The Washington Post reported that our allies so distrust Bolton on the sensitive negotiations over Iran's nuclear program that they made sure to exclude him from high-level meetings in Washington last January.

More ominously, Bolton is suspected of using ultra-secret National Security Agency wiretaps to snoop on rivals in the intelligence and defense community. Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led by Senator Joe Biden of Delaware demanded to know the names of people on whom Bolton requested wiretapped information. For anything but legitimate national security purposes, this use would violate US law. But the White House has stonewalled this request, intensifying Democrats' opposition.

As the Senate debated Bolton, Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, declared that a recess appointment "would weaken not only Mr. Bolton but also the United States," but he soon recanted, very likely after some prodding. His first impulse was right. This recess appointment would insult both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, and the institution itself.

A Bolton recess appointment sends a signal to other nations to whom America is preaching democracy that minority rights can be trampled. A Bolton appointment would make a mockery of the President's own statement last night:

After a constitution is written, the Iraqi people will have a chance to vote on it. If approved, Iraqis will go to the polls again, to elect a new government under their new, permanent constitution. By taking these critical steps and meeting their deadlines, Iraqis will bind their multiethnic society together in a democracy that respects the will of the majority and protects minority rights.

TWN has not heard a word out of the White House on its next steps. Frustration abounds in Karl Rove's world that he was not able to just huff and puff and blow down those standing for principle both on Bolton and the Senate's rights to request documentary evidence from the Executive Branch.

The options remain the same. Release the documents, and an up-or-down vote is possible after recess. Make a recess appointment. Or, lastly, withdraw John Bolton's name from consideration.

The White House has lost much of its gruffness on Bolton, and is no longer issuing proclamations of its confidence in "Bolton."

It was fairly remarkable that Bolton's name was not mentioned by the President last night -- not even in taking a pot shot at the Democrats and single Republican who have stalled the nomination process in the demand for documents.

Bolton is probably thinking this through. The White House wants him to take a recess appointment -- and he allegedly doesn't want it under these conditions. There are other things he can do. AEI is probably warming a chair right now.

In the end, while the White House did not get its way in the Senate, it will probably prevail in nudging Bolton to accept the job any way he gets it. Principle will be lost, and Bolton knows it.

No more illusions -- and no weight at all on U.N. reform or on the coming Security Council efforts on North Korea and Iran.

TWN hopes that Mr. Bolton realizes that he needs to withdraw and take a role in the Vice President's office. The nation's interests will be better served -- and those Boltonian skills the President allegedly wants can still be close at hand.

-- Steve Clemons

If President Bush sends John Bolton to the U.N. with a recess appointment, he is sending two signals that are really quite dramatically bad:

1. Bolton will hold one of America's highest profile diplomatic portfolios without the validation of American citizens behind him. He will not have the Senate stamp of legitimacy on his Ambassadorship and thus will be perceived at home and abroad as without "weight."

2. During this era of preaching "democracy" throughout the world -- which means not just "electocracies" or "ballot box democracies" but rather a system of checks and balances, respect for minority rights, and rule of law -- sending John Bolton to the U.N. is a lesson that legislatures can be ignored and minority rights in government trampled by the demands of the Executive Branch.

America is undermining its message to the world with this highly visible post -- but, of course, that has been the problem with John Bolton since the beginning.

-- Steve Clemons

Well, it's fairly official.

John Bolton's nomination will not be brought up this week. This morning, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist went through an extensive list of what he hoped the Senate would consider this week before going into July 4th recess.

Frist also mentioned a number of pending nominations that he hoped the Senate would move through. Not on that roster was John Bolton.

To bring up a Bolton cloture vote again this week, Frist would need to file a NEW cloture petition -- which would have to sit and "ripen" or be considered by the Senate (theoretically) for at least two and usually three days. There is just no time for that to happen.

So, either the recess appointment will be made the following week (or Friday evening) -- or the Battle over Bolton will continue after the recess period, which most people doubt.

There is no word now that Bolton will not accept a recess appointment. This seems to be part of the story that has changed -- and whether Mr. Bolton wants the appointment under these circumstances or not, the White House may be using what leverage it has left on him at this point to insist he accept the President's decision.

So, this is really just news that Frist made it official that Bolton will not be brought up during the balance of the week.

More to do.

-- Steve Clemons

I have been offline much of the day as I'm working to see what Karl Rove's machine is planning to do on John Bolton.

The White House does not want to lose this battle over Bolton and is increasingly turning towards a recess appointment. But that deal is not done. However, Senator Pat Roberts and others have basically conceded that the battle for confirmation is over for now -- and that a recess appointment or withdrawal are the only options left.

There's no time for a deal on the documents this week -- so the only option if Bolton is to make it to the U.N. is either to appoint him during next week's recess -- or to continue the battle for confirmation after recess.

Most give that a very unlikely chance of happening -- but it's in the realm of possibilities.

On the two other fronts I am working, I need more time. Let me just say that many of those who lump John Negroponte and John Bolton into the same camp seem to be mistaken. Negroponte was Colin Powell's deputy on Reagan's NSC staff -- and is very close to Powell, which I simply did not know.

There are some who speculate that besides names like Armitage, John Wolf, William Burns and others in the NSA intercepts -- John Negroponte's name is one of those on the list. I must repeat that this is speculation, and I will have a longer comment on this tomorrow.

But this will do for now.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Just to clarify, there is no doubt that John Bolton became vigorously attached to undoing the "Zionism is Racism" resolution at the U.N.

What I am looking into is the position Bolton took on the resolution before the administration at that time had become committed to the course it took. Some have suggested that Bolton's enthusiasm for this effort was wanting.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Today has been intense.

First of all, I had an incredible afternoon at CNN's Washington Bureau -- meeting many of the producers and anchors in the bureau. Wolf Blitzer chatted with me a bit and told me he was going to check out the blog. His team has already been reading it regularly.

Next, I had a great time with Al Franken on his show on Air America Radio.

But two stories -- both of which are stem-winders -- have come my way, and I have to do more due diligence on them.

One deals with John Bolton's supposed "herculean efforts" against the "Zionism is Racism" resolution.

The other deals with the surprising contours of John Negroponte's relationship with John Bolton.

I can't write more -- particularly if these stories don't hold up.

But stay tuned.

-- Steve Clemons

Reuters reports a comment by Senator Biden that indicates the Senator's assessment that the Bolton confirmation battle is quickly coming to a close.

Joanne Kenan writes:

"If they don't have (the documents) by the end of the day, it's finished," the Delaware Democrat said of the bitter dispute over President Bush's choice to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

TWN has done some digging into whether this was Biden drawing a firm line and what drove this comment yesterday evening.

Biden's declaration that all document requests must be satisfied by close of business today -- or all deals are off -- is more the Senator's "assessment that the window for confirming Bolton is closing fast," according to an official familiar with Biden's stance.

But TWN has learned that Biden's comment fits in a context of interactions with Senator Frist these past several days about potential deals on the document requests.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist approached Biden on Tuesday asking that if Frist could, in fact, secure access for the Senators to the requested NSA documents and names of U.S. officials redacted from these documents, what mechanisms could Biden's side propose that would be satisfactory to the Democrats given the sensitivity of the material.

There was no indication whether the White House was supporting Frist's initiative or whether Frist was on his own -- attempting to demonstrate to the administration and to Bolton supporters that he was doing all he could to try and secure an up-or-down vote on Bolton.

Nonetheless, Biden's side took Frist's proposal seriously.

Frist wanted to know how the NSA materials would be handled. What mechanism would be proposed regarding access to the documents? Which Senators would need to see the documents? Would digests of the NSA intercepts be enough? Or, what form of the NSA intercepts would be acceptable to Biden and Dodd?

Frist sounded Biden out on all of these questions, and serious discussions were had.

However, according to reports from those close to this negotiation process, Frist backed off from all of his offers and chose not to pursue the matter further. It's not clear whether Frist was trying to demonstrate some illusion of progress or whether the White House -- when it learned what Frist was negotiating with Biden -- told Frist to back off and stop trying to "successfully" negotiate a deal on the NSA intercepts and the Syria testimony -- two of the three pending document requests made by Senators.

TWN has learned that Senator Biden made clear in these discussions with Senator Frist that while he, Senator Dodd, and other Senators were not going to request more documents if the pending requests were satisfied, they would need some time to assess the significance of the evidence.

In other words, a day or two would be needed after getting access to the materials to connect the dots. Biden had no sense that anyone -- including Senator Frist -- objected to this if they were going to actually provide the documents.

Then, indicating either White House intransigence on the issue of not conceding to the requests by Democrats or that Bill Frist may have been unable to deliver on the deal he was cutting, there was no follow-up to this discussion.

During this period of discussions, Biden's team gave some serious thought to the questions posed by Senator Frist and prepared some very detailed mechanisms to assure responsible management of the NSA materials and still satisfy the need of the Senators to interpret and communicate any problems (or not) discovered in the Bolton material.

One part of this story that has not been reported in the press is that the Democrats offered that JUST ONE Senator seeing the "unedited" NSA intercepts would be enough to satisfy that element of the document requests.

The three Senators that the White House could choose from would be Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden, Ranking Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence John D. Rockefeller IV, or Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. Senator Dodd agreed to defer to either of these three Senators as interpreters of the NSA material with the expectation that the chosen Senator would report back on findings.

Biden's staff had begun to work out a plan to highlight the "topical areas of concern" and roster of "connect the dot scenarios" for whichever Senator was given access as Biden had been closer to the micro-detail of the Bolton investigation than either Senator Rockefeller or Senator Reid.

This suggestion of a "single Senator" was an attempt by Biden's team to be flexible about modalities of gaining access to this material. Biden has repeatedly made it clear that he and the other Senators requesting access to the NSA material and the Syria documentation are aware of the sensitivity about the materials, even though the NSAS has made clear that there are no "sources and methods" issues involved.

Biden's comment last night is that the clock is ticking. As one staffer told TWN, "time is awasting. . ."

Today is Friday -- and if the materials are not received today, or at the latest on Monday, there will be no time for Senators to be able to interpret and assess the materials so that a vote can be held next week.

Karl Rove is known for Friday "close-of-business document dumps," so there remains a possibility that the White House will provide something this evening. We just have to wait and see -- though there is no evidence of movement by the White House -- and no one on the Democratic side reports that a deal is anywhere near being reached.

The other procedural reality is that a NEW cloture petition on the Bolton nomination will have to be made. What that means is that Frist will have to announce his intention to call for another cloture vote -- but that petition will have to "ripen" for 2-3 days.

That means that if Frist calls for a new vote today (Friday), then Senators can consider a vote on Tuesday or Wednesday. But if the Senate puts the cloture petition on the schedule next Monday, the Bolton debate and vote really mucks up the mountain of other business Senators want to get through before close of business Thursday when Senators want to go into recess for the July 4th break.

Stay tuned.

-- Steve Clemons

Senators Trent Lott, Susan Collins, Lincoln Chafee, John McCain, George Voinovich and Lamar Alexander have all stated that they believe that the White House should release ALL requested documents on Bolton.

These are:

1. NSA Intercepts and names of U.S. officials redacted in them and requested by Bolton

2. All preparatory and deliberative material and communications on Syria WMD testimony that was to have been presented in 2003

3. The client list of Matthew C. Freedman who continued to work as a lobbyist while he worked as a six-figure "special assistant" in John Bolton's office and being listed in the State Department staff directory

With so many Republicans now joining the Democrats and conceding the point of principle to Senators Biden, Dodd, and Boxer on these document requests, the White House is in a tough position.

If it continues to stubbornly resist giving in to the Democratic leadership on the documents, the White House is stiffing its own team. The costs to the White House are rising precipitously on the stalled Bolton nomination.

TWN has no idea whether the White House will yield. It made sense for them to yield long ago. That would have been the rational calculation -- so rational assessments about what the White House might do now are not necessarily productive indicators.

There is basically one working week to go before the 4th of July Senate recess -- so time is also tricky.

If the White House does provide a package of documents and provides access to Senate Democrats on the NSA intercepts, there must be time to investigate the materials, connect whatever dots need to be connected, and then make a public statement on the relevance of these materials to the larger questions about John Bolton's "fitness" to be America's UN Ambassador.

For about half of the Senate, Bolton's record -- as is -- is already problematic enough that they will vote against John Bolton on an up or down vote.

If further "concerns" emerge after reviewing the blocked documents, then Bolton's nomination in a full floor vote is quite doubtful. Senators know that this debate on Bolton has reached a sufficiently high level of public awareness that they can't easily turn a blind eye to the pattern of national security recklessness and professional and personal abuse in Bolton's record.

The vote will be too consequential for some. Watch Lisa Murkowski. I think that she's had it with this Bolton mess and is irritated with the White House for shoving such an inappropriate and flawed candidate down the gullet of the Senate.

Word is that John Bolton may not accept a recess appointment. The bottom line there is that any U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. not confirmed by the Senate will not be perceived as legitimate. Without legitimacy, the person in this position can accomplish little of real value as he or she would have no perceived "weight" of the American public behind him or her.

That may not stop the White House from trying to compel Bolton from accepting a recess appointment. However, all of this depends on how Bush, Cheney and Rove react to the reality that an increasingly large number of Republicans are calling for the same documents Democrats are requesting to be released.

This was never a fully partisan battle -- as much of the media described it. The effort against Bolton would have been futile without the brave testimony by a number of leading Republicans like Lawrence Wilkerson, Carl Ford, and others. Other Republicans worked feverishly behind the scenes to try and convince various Republican Senators why Bolton was such a poor choice.

Now, Republicans have joined Dems in the document requests.

The White House -- particularly Karl Rove -- is digging in and arguing that Dems keep moving the "goal posts." Well the Republican Senators who have spoken know where the goal posts are. They are clear.

Give up the documents. Look at the materials. Connect the dots.

My bet right now is that what we learn will end this matter. Bolton will be voted down, and the White House will quickly try and distract the nation with other news.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Greetings folks. Sorry if I seemed AWOL today. I organized a very large-scale conference on U.S. economic policy today that went quite well -- but I have not lost focus of our effort to encourage President Bush to reconsider John Bolton.

Today's conference, however, was excellent -- and is actually part of the work I do in my real job.

Here was the lineup:

NATIONAL POLICY FORUM on AMERICA'S ECONOMIC FUTURE

New America Foundation

Wednesday, 22 June 2005

Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington, DC

9:00 am

Welcoming Remarks

Steven Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation

9:05 a.m.

The State of the U.S. Economy: No-Nonsense Realities and Some Thoughts on Prescriptions

The Honorable Douglas Holtz-Eakin

Director, Congressional Budget Office

9:30 am

Beyond Ideology: What is Going on in the American Economy? A Discussion about Deficits, Jobs, Innovation, and Offshoring

The Honorable Edward Rendell

Governor, State of Pennsylvania

Paul Magnusson

Washington White House & International Economics Correspondent,

Business Week

The Honorable Richard Durbin

Deputy Democratic Leader, U.S. Senate

Sherle Schwenninger

Director, Global Middle Class Program, New America Foundation and Founding Editor, World Policy Journal

moderator

Edward "Ted" Alden

Washington Bureau Chief, Financial Times

11:00 am

Beyond Stockholder Value: Corporate Accountability and Responsibility Today

The Hon. Michael Oxley (OH-4-R)

Chairman, House Committee on Financial Services

U.S. House of Representatives

Sidney Harman

Chairman & CEO

Harman Industries

James V. DeLong

Senior Fellow & Director, Center for the Study of Digital Property

Progress & Freedom Foundation

Phillip H. Rudolph

Partner, Foley Hoag LLP

and former Vice President & International General Counsel, McDonald’s Corporation

moderator

The Honorable Tom Daschle

former U.S. Senate Majority Leader

12:30 pm

America's Eroding Economic System: Comments from an Iconoclastic CEO

Leo Hindery, Jr.

Managing Partner, InterMedia Partners

Former CEO of TCI, AT&T Broadband and Yankee Entertainment and Sports Network

What Should America's Future Economic Road Map Be?

The Honorable Byron Dorgan (D-ND)

U.S. Senator

2:00 pm

Is America's Middle Class Making It?? What Needs to Happen to Keep the Middle Class Foundation of America's Economy Thriving?

The Hon. Gene Sperling

Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

and former National Economic Advisor to President Clinton

Alfred Checchi

former Chairman, Northwest Airlines and former Gubernatorial Candidate, State of California

Peter Gosselin

National Economics Correspondent, Los Angeles Times

Maya MacGuineas

President, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

William A. Niskanen

Chairman, Cato Institute

moderator

Jodie Allen

Senior Editor, Pew Research Center

and former Managing Editor, U.S. News & World Report

3:15 Adjournment

However, while we were presenting this conference today, I was working the Bolton issue behind the scenes. I will have a post on the latest on Bolton in a few hours.

Sorry to scare some of you folks with the slow posting today.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Bill Frist said today that the legislative effort to confirm John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations had been "exhausted" and that there were no more votes on the matter planned.

After lunch with the President today, however, Senator Frist changed course:

Reversing field after a meeting with President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he will continue pushing for a floor vote on John R. Bolton for U.N. ambassador. Frist switched his position after initially saying Tuesday that negotiations with Democrats to get a vote on Bolton had been exhausted.

Talking to reporters in the White House driveway after he joined other GOP lawmakers for a luncheon with Bush, Frist said: "The president made it very clear that he expects an up or down vote."

Just about two hours hour earlier, Frist said he wouldn't schedule another vote on Bolton's nomination and said that Bush must decide the next move. Frist, R-Tenn., had said there was nothing further he could do to break a Democratic stalemate with the Bush White House over Bolton, an outspoken conservative who, opponents argue, would undermine U.S. interests at the world body.

But he changed his tune after talking to Bush.

What does this all mean?

The marathon battle continues.

Unless the White House concedes on document requests, the Bolton nomination will remain in permanent limbo. Because the administration has yielded on nothing regarding these requests, the media and others watching this process will not settle for much less than full disclosure and provision of the requested documents -- viewing anything held back as material that demonstrates problems in Bolton's record.

So many people are surprised by the White House's intransigence on the documents that they believe that something seriously damaging must be in them. At this point, the White House has to make everything available -- or nothing will be acceptable.

That is not likely to happen.

That means that the White House maintains a stance on Bolton that pushes a vote. The Dems "lock down" as Frist has said. And nothing changes.

That then gives the White House some excuse to make a recess appointment -- but that would be yet another sad commentary on the White House's refusal to take advice from the Senate that this person is wrong for the job and a flawed representative of American interests to the United Nations.

-- Steve Clemons

I have just written a selection this morning posted at TPM Cafe on the choices that the White House faces on Bolton. I hope you find it of interest.

And here is a piece I wrote about the evening I spent watching "Seven Days in May" with Senator Lindsey Graham and Margaret Carlson about a week ago. It was a strange night -- and it would be interesting to hear what many of you think about Graham's expressed concerns about modern demogoguery.

The White House has not indicated how long it is willing to keep bleeding bad news over its hard-headed advocacy for John Bolton, but TWN will report what I learn shortly.

A BIG thank you to all of you who have emailed and otherwise contributed to this effort. You know who you are. It's been an incredible ride so far -- but there is still a bit farther to go.

-- Steve Clemons

The Senate spoke loud and clear today.

John Bolton is NOT getting the approval of the United States Senate unless the White House fully concedes on the document requests that Senators have requested since April that might help better inform them as to controversial and important parts of John Bolton's record.

Tonight, ABC's Nightline is going to look at today's Bolton vote and consider what the loss of the White House and Senate Majority Leader Frist means.

More later on my own perspective. I need to share a bottle of wine with some of our team who have helped make the principled case against John Bolton's nomination.

-- Steve Clemons

BOLTON VOTE CLOTURE RESULTS

CLOTURE ON BOLTON VOTE BLOCKED BECAUSE OF WHITE HOUSE OBSTRUCTIONISM ON DOCUMENTS

John Bolton is the wrong person for the job. It was high-handed enough of the White House to appoint him, but even more high-handed for them to not yield on legitimate document requests from the Senate.

It will be even more high-handed if the Cheney-Bolton wing of the White House now pushes John Bolton into the U.N. with a recess appointment.

-- Steve Clemons

We just gained George Voinovich, who favored cloture last time.

We also kept Senator Joseph Lieberman whom the White House was furiously courting.

The White House is losing more ground than expected.

But it does seem that Senator Mark Pryor did stay with the White House despite his many signals that he would defect if the White House failed to yield to the reasonable requests put forward by the Dems.

Arlen Specter voted for cloture, which is an unknown from last time.

Senator Feinstein remained opposed to cloture. She, along with Senator Lieberman, was among those the White House hoped to sway -- but failed.

-- Steve Clemons

It is fascinating that Senator Frist had Senator John McCain join him in a pro-Bolton press conference the other day, and I have no doubt that John McCain will vote in favor of cloture on Bolton and would probably support John Bolton.

However, McCain worked hard to get the White House to do a deal on the Senate-requested documents. The White House stiffed him.

McCain was notably absent in the floor debate on Bolton today.

-- Steve Clemons

There are two reasons why this cloture vote on Bolton is taking place today.

First, Frist wants to try and paint Democrats opposing John Bolton as obstructionists, but the media covering the Bolton nomination are clearly not letting Frist have his way on that claim. The major media do get the reality that the White House has FAILED TO BUDGE on any of the three outstanding, legitimate document requests made by Senators of the Executive Branch.

The second reason is "grand theatre". Frist wants to demonstrate that all steps were taken to try and get Bolton through, so "going through the motions" even the White House (and Frist) will again lose -- is an important part of the political process. This failure that TWN thinks will occur in the next 30 or so minutes gives the White House the excuse to either make a recess appointment -- or better yet, to withdraw John Bolton from consideration for this Ambassadorship at the United Nations.

-- Steve Clemons

Debate began at 5 p.m. on the Bolton cloture vote, and a vote is scheduled at 6 p.m. but may come as early as 5:30 p.m. if the entire debate time is not used.

-- Steve Clemons

Stay tuned. . .

-- Steve Clemons

The Bolton market at TradeSports.com is dropping dramatically. The chances of Bolton now getting through as Ambassador to the United Nations are measured by the market at 45% chance of confirmation.

This is amazing as he was considered quite likely, 95% likely at the end of May, and then hovered around 90% through early June -- after which it has been plummeting since.

We are winning.

-- Steve Clemons

(ed. note: If one goes to TradeSports.com, clicks "Current Events" in left column, and then "United Nations," one can find latest value of "Bolton U.N. Confirmation contract" -- now only at 45%)

There is talk of a recess appointment for John Bolton bubbling everywhere which is the first serious admission by the main stream media that efforts to oppose Bolton have the edge.

The media for more than two months has constantly parroted the line that Bolton was still likely to be confirmed. That mantra has disappeared from coverage.

Here is a piece I wrote on what happens if Bolton does receive a recess appointment.

And this excerpt from a Congressional Research Service document is worth reading again:

How Long Must the Senate Be in Recess Before a President May Make a Recess Appointment?

The Constitution does not specify the length of time that the Senate must be in recess before the President may make a recess appointment. Over the last century, as shorter recesses have become more commonplace, Attorneys General and Offices of Legal Counsel have offered differing views on this issue. Most recently, in 1993, a Department of Justice brief implied that the President may make a recess appointment during a recess of more than three days.

Appointments made during short recesses (less than 30 days), however, have sometimes aroused controversy, and they may involve a political cost for the President. Controversy has been particularly acute in instances where Senators perceive that the President is using the recess appointment process to circumvent the confirmation process for a nominee who is opposed in the Senate. Although President Theodore Roosevelt once made recess appointments during an intersession recess of less than one day, the shortest length of a recess during which appointments have been made during the past 20 years was 10 days.

More shortly on the talking points those opposing Bolton and cloture on his nomination are distributing. . .

-- Steve Clemons

I've been off at a board and staff retreat of the New America Foundation and just back to town today -- so apologies for being offline.

Today, the second attempt to secure cloture on the John Bolton nomination as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations will occur at 6 p.m.

The White House has yielded on nothing. Nothing.

It's remarkable -- and heavy-handed.

Senator Mark Pryor plans to defect from those supporting cloture and will stand with those Democrats who believe that there is a larger principle at stake regarding the Senate's right to expect the Executive Branch to comply with legitimate document and information requests when considering political appointments subject to Senate confirmation.

John Bolton's nomination will fail yet again today.

Lots on the Republican side are now saying that a recess appointment is likely. It would be a historic decision as the July 4th recess is only five days -- and during the last 20 years, the shortest period of recess for such an appointment was 10 days.

But this administration is precedent-setting in many ways. Recess appointments are the President's right. If he wants to send his embattled nominee who failed to get confirmation in a Republican-controlled Congress, there is little that can be done to stop it.

But those in this battle who stood for principled American engagement in the world and who want to make international treaties and institutions instruments that promote American security as well as global stability and well-being will have won the war on Bolton.

More in a bit. I need to wake up after a late night flight.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm off to the Claremont Resort to spend weekend with Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, Francis Fukuyama, Christine Todd Whitman, Walter Mead, Steve Rattner, and other interesting folks.

I will be watching matters in the Bolton arena very closely -- particularly for any late-day breaking news out of the Karl Rove operation. He often uses close of business Friday opportunities to release news so that the White House gets one-way spin through the weekend.

If that happens, we will be hard at work -- despite being out here in the incredibly nice Bay Area -- to unspin the Rovian line.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Rumors are bubbling again that the White House may be cooking up a "package" that they think might appeal to the Democrats -- opening the way for a potential vote on Bolton. . .but these sorts of rumors have bubbled before with nothing coming.

John McCain is actively trying to "broker" a deal -- but he has been at it for some time and is frustrated with White House intransigence. He supports the principle of document requests that the Dems are making -- and the White House doesn't like McCain criticizing the administration on that front.

John Bolton actually visited Senator Biden yesterday, and Senator Dodd was in the meeting. Dodd quickly put out a release that he encouraged Bolton to go see Vice President Cheney to get the administration to stop blocking the Senate's document requests. Biden made clear to various media that he told Bolton that the current impasse was not about Bolton per se -- but rather about the principle of separation of powers and about the Senate's constitutional responsibility and right to request documents on executive branch nominees.

Interestingly, the White House -- at first -- denied that such a meeting had taken place. That was odd. It seems that Bolton's initiative may have been one that he himself initiated. Good for him if that's the case.

All of those who voted against cloture previously have reiterated their intention to vote against cloture again. Senator Mark Pryor might join those opposed to cloture on Bolton as well.

If the Senate does receive a "package" from the White House -- it will come at the end of the day, after the news cycle -- but perhaps in time for weekend talk shows. . .though there may be not enough time before Monday to study whatever relevant comes through the document requests.

TWN will keep you posted.

Now. . .I'm off to Berkeley.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm writing this from the Red Carpet Lounge in San Francisco International Airport and have been offline today while I flew across country, but all the news looks good.

This just came in from The Hill's E-News:

GOP Action on Bolton Stalls

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), facing unified Democratic opposition, has postponed until Monday a vote to cut off a filibuster of the nomination of John Bolton to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Frist said that if negotiations with Democrats progressed over the weekend, he may not move on Bolton's nomination until later next week. Republicans had expected

Frist to attempt to end debate on Bolton today. Senate Foreign Relations chairman Richard Luger (R-Ind.) said, Frist indicated there might be a cloture vote on Bolton today, but added that the leader had "discretion."

Meanwhile, Democrats are holding firm in their opposition. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said that Democrats have the votes to extend the Bolton filibuster. Republicans lost ground on that front earlier this week when Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who had previously voted to move to an up-or-down vote on Bolton, said he might change his mind and join his fellow Democrats in blocking Bolton.

Bob Novak is apparently nudging the White House to give up this charade in the Senate that seems to be backfiring on Frist and the administration and give Bolton a recess appointment.

Momentum still on our side.

More posts soon. . .Need to get to the hotel.

-- Steve Clemons

oops, I mean Batman Begins.

-- Steve Clemons

Ok. . .A legitimate question might arise as to why Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts would behave so rudely and presumptiously towards his colleagues, Democrat or not, in this inquiry into the names of U.S. officials on the NSA intercepts.

TWN has learned how the idea was hatched.

A senior level Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff person who has been a key player in the NSA intercepts battle was racing off to catch a plane scheduled to leave on a foreign trip with this person's Senator during recess. This person literally bumped into a top aide to Senator Roberts on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the SFRC staff member said to the SSCI staffer that the Committee was considering submitting a roster of names of "individuals of interest" to the administration. The SSCI staffer began to ask lots of questions about where thing stood, and the SFRC staffer said, "READ THE MINORITY REPORT" on Bolton.

Well, it seems that the SSCI staff member just began to read through and picked out names -- thinking that was what the SFRC was going to do -- and then coached Senator Roberts to take this track.

It made no sense because all but one of the names selected by Roberts' staff to check against the NSA's list would never have been suggested by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority staff. They would not have fit the criteria that Bolton himself had indicated as to his interest in the names of various U.S. officials.

So, the Intel Committee staffer misunderstood -- and gave the misunderstanding a significant vehicle -- which just made his own boss look poorly informed and out of touch with the Bolton investigation.

THE IMPORTANT THING, however, is that some good has come from this error. Senator Roberts has now established the precedent that running names by the Director of National Intelligence is a legitimate way to proceed. It would be very easy now to check against the list.

I wonder if Roberts knows that he has now opened the door -- far and wide -- for further investigation now?

-- Steve Clemons

At about 6:30 this evening, Senator Pat Roberts proposed a so called compromise. Senator Roberts said he had gone through the minority report and found names that were listed in it, Carl Ford, Christian Westermann, Mr. Smith (Fulton Armstrong), Rexon Ryu, Jack Pritchard and two unnamed individuals.

Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told Roberts that none of these names are in the intercepts. Of course not! This is a sorry gambit to try an appear as if the Republicans have assisted in the information requests.

Rememember that John Bolton said he wanted the American names to give context to conversations between the Americans and the foreign source.

Almost all these names don't fit the bill, now do they?

Pat Roberts has not been investigating Bolton. He is in no position to try and connect dots -- and now he has embarrassed himself with the illusion of compromise when the roster of names he selected was just a bizarrely inappropriate roster of likely candidates on those NSA intercepts.

Charging Rino is covering tonight's silly escapade. It changes nothing other than making Senator Roberts look sadly uninformed.

Is this the best scam that the U.S. National Intelligence Director can pull off?

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight, I am seeing Batman Begins. My friends are trying to slowly wean me off of constant "strategery" in the John Bolton battle.

Don't worry though, I think that the film will give me some new ideas.

Tomorrow there could be another Bolton cloture vote. Senator Pat Roberts has just pulled one of the most idiotic moves in the Bolton Battle -- trying to match the names of Bolton intel analyst victims with the redacted identities of U.S. officials in NSA intercepts.

Roberts then took the names of Rexon Ryu, Christian Westermann, and other Bolton road-kill and asked John Negoponte if those names are in the intercepts. Negroponte said none were listed of course -- all staged, all kabuki. . .stacked deck. It would be funny if not such a pathetic act.

What a stupid, uninformed, ridiculously idiotic move for the Senator to make.

The NSA intercepts are conversations outside the United States, usually between foreign individuals, and not at all with intel analysts.

Senator Roberts has just demonstrated why we need to improve our education system in this country. . .for some Senators.

It is such an apples and oranges thing. I can't think about it anymore.

The thread is yours. . .

Have fun.

-- Steve Clemons

Senate Minority Leader gave this statement this morning:

BOLTON NOMINATION

~ From the outset of the debate on John Bolton's nomination, Senate Democrats have had a clear and consistent position: If the Administration works in good faith to give the Senate the information it deserves, Senate Democrats are ready to immediately give this nomination an up or down vote.

~ We said this in May and it remains our position today.

~ Despite the Administration's refusal to turn over any of the requested information during this time period, Senator Frist informed me yesterday that he is inclined to seek another vote on the Bolton nomination.

~ While he is certainly within his rights to do so, unless the Administration changes course before this vote is held, the outcome will be the same as it was last month and here is why.

~ The history and precedent in the Senate make it clear that the Senate has a right to information that bears directly on the fitness of a potential nominee to serve. Every other Administration has recognized the Senate's rights and provided the needed information. Every Administration except this one.

~ Many colleagues on the other side of the aisle have stood up for the Senate's right to get information from the executive branch in the past. My colleagues have made it clear with their words and deeds that it was perfectly legitimate for the Senate to withhold action on an executive branch nominee until the executive branch provided certain information, even if the information requested had nothing to do with the nominee in question.

~ In this instance, we are seeking information that bears directly on the fitness of John Bolton to serve as our representative to the United Nations. And we are not engaging in a fishing expedition. We are seeking clearly defined documents and information about two very important issues:

-- Did Mr. Bolton attempt to exaggerate what Congress would be told about Syria's alleged WMD capabilities?

-- Did Mr. Bolton use, and perhaps misuse, highly classified intelligence intercepts to spy on bureaucratic rivals who disagreed with his views or for other inappropriate purposes?

~ The Administration position on these requests has been that political appointees are qualified to see this information but the duly elected representatives of the American people are not. This is unacceptable.

~ Senate Democrats have repeatedly demonstrated our good faith to break the current impasse and give Mr. Bolton a vote. Yesterday, I heard some of my Republican colleagues assert that Democrats have been shifting the goalposts on resolving this issue.

~ They are absolutely right. We have -- toward their goal line. Just last week Senators Biden and Dodd made another effort to resolve the impasse over the Bolton nomination.

~ Everyone in the Senate and outside this body should understand that this offer moved significantly away from our initial request in a sincere effort to resolve this situation. Everyone should also understand that unfortunately, this latest effort to reach an accommodation with the White House has apparently met the same fate as previous efforts to work things out: Silence from the Administration.

~ Even yesterday Sen. Rockefeller, the Vice Chairman offered his assistance to break the impasse and sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte.

~ We have said publicly if this Administration -- like previous Administrations -- respects the requests of the Senate, we will immediately move to grant Bolton an up or down vote. I stand by that pledge today. I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle recognize we are following their precedent with our actions today. I also hope this Administration brings an end to its pattern of abusing its powers and treats this co-equal branch of government with the respect it deserves.

Compelling. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Here is a cute piece that ran in the Financial Times today on Bill Frist's comment yesterday that during the 200 days that the U.S. Ambassador spot in the U.N. has been vacant, all sorts of momentous things have occurred.

From the FT's Observer Column:

Senator Bill Frist, the US Senate Republican majority leader, yesterday held a press conference to urge Democrats to stop blocking the nomination of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. Appearing with John McCain, the maverick Republican, Frist emphasised that it was crucial to fill quickly the UN position, which he said had remained vacant for 200 days since the resignation of John Danforth, the previous US ambassador.

In an attempt to reinforce the urgency of the UN position, Frist listed a series of significant events that had occurred in those 200 days.

"We have seen the orange revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the vote in Iraq, the vote in Palestine, the hope of opening the presidential elections in Egypt."

That just leads Observer to wonder whether the US should even bother sending an ambassador to the UN. Democracy seems to have fared better when the US chair has been empty.

This does make one wonder if leaving the seat vacant is better, in fact, than confirming John Bolton.

The bottom line is that we should be sending someone to the U.N. who can competently pursue American interests in the U.N. reform process. This person has to help other major global stakeholders move further than they would be inclined to do -- and the final package will have to be sold to the Congress and American citizens. Bolton is just not the right guy to manage this important role.

President Bush needs to stop stalling and send someone worthy of American support.

-- Steve Clemons

The Washington Post's Charles Babington covered the Frist/McCain press conference yesterday as did Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times. In the press gaggle that followed the formal press conference, both journalists confronted John McCain with queries about Senator Bill Frist's insistence that the Dems kept "moving the goal posts." During the conversation with McCain, both of these reporters made the point that if anything the Dems had made it far easier for the administration to satisfy document requests.

McCain responded suggesting that he just had not followed the document request issue and didn't know whether the requests had broadened or narrowed -- but was not surprised at all by the comments by Babington and Stolberg. McCain then offered that he thought that Senators Biden and Dodd were reasonable people with reasonable objectives. He maintained his view that there should still be an up or down vote on Bolton -- but he steadfastly refused to criticize the right of Dodd, Biden and others to do what they could to wrangle documents from the administration.

But it seems like Bill Frist's gambit in calling for another cloture vote has backfired. Mark Pryor is now signalling that if the White House fails to concede on these key document requests, he will join his fellow Democrats in opposing cloture on the Bolton nomination.

As Charles Babington reports:

A key Democratic senator warned yesterday that the Bush administration may be losing ground in its bid to confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, as the White House continued to rebuff Democrats' request for documents related to the nominee.

Senate GOP leaders, acknowledging no apparent progress on Bolton, said they will call for another vote to end debate in a renewed effort to portray Democrats as obstructionists, probably this week. But one of the three Democrats who sided with them on an unsuccessful "cloture" vote on May 26, Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.), said he may abandon the Republicans, leaving them farther from their goal than they were three weeks ago.

If Democrats "continue being reasonable [in their requests] and the White House won't provide the information, I want to reserve the right to change my vote," Pryor told reporters.

And as the New York Times' Stolberg writes:

But support among Democrats for the filibuster seems only to have deepened recently, and a number of Democrats seemed mystified by Dr. Frist's remark about goal posts.

"If the goal posts have been moved at all, they've been moved in the administration's direction," said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, who is pressing the case for more information. When the nomination came up last month, three Democrats - Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas - joined with Republicans in favor of ending the filibuster. But Mr. Pryor has now suggested that the Bush administration is in danger of losing his support.

"If they continue to be reasonable," Mr. Pryor said, referring to Democrats, "and the White House won't provide information, I want to reserve the right to change my vote. I think this is a matter of balance of power and checks and balances."

Other key comments made yesterday:

Senator Richard Durbin: "Instead of calling a vote, [Frist] should call the White House. Because if they will produce the basic information which [Bolton] and his staff had access to . . . it's the end of the controversy. Clearly, there is something in those documents which is so damaging to Bolton, they don't want to release it."

White House spokesperson Erin Healy: "This is about partisan politics, not about documents. They have the information they need."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist: "Democrats keep moving the goalposts."

Senator Christopher Dodd: "If the goal posts have been moved at all, they've been moved in the administration's direction"

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid: "As long as the White House is not allowing the information to come forward, there's going to be no change in the vote."

Senator Frist seems to be nuking the Bolton nomination by calling for a second cloture vote which will fail. With Pryor defecting, the White House is losing even more ground on Bolton.

This doesn't mean that those opposing Bolton are sure to win.

The White House could surprise us all by providing generous access to the NSA intercepts and names of redacted identities of U.S. individuals. Condi Rice could say that since the State Department provided other "documents on policy deliberation" to the Foreign Relations Committee on Bolton, she might as well send over the documents on Bolton's planned Syria testimony in 2003. And White House ethics could send over the roster of Matthew Freedman's international clients, which he maintained while pulling down more than $110,000 a year for a part-time gig with John Bolton's office as "Special Assistant."

The White House could provide these three modest packages of information -- and the vote on Bolton would occur very soon after.

TWN hopes that the material is enough to derail a couple of other Senators on Bolton, but the White House could still surprise us with a dose of magnanimity.

It's not at all likely. . .but I suppose it could happen.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm off to spend part of the evening with Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) and John Whitehead, who is being feted tonight.

But last night, I was at a very fun gig with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and mega-pundit Margaret Carlson. . .just to keep myself informed about the latest on both sides of the aisle.

I spoke to Lindsey Graham quickly and told him that we were on opposite sides on John Bolton -- and the Senator quickly said, "Well, Bolton's gonna improve fast, or he'll be out."

Ok -- now the bandwidth is yours. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Frist may call for another cloture vote on John Bolton on Thursday this week. Both sides are going to accuse the other of obstruction.

There are three evidence requests:

1. NSA intercepts and identities of U.S. officials redacted from the intercepts (there has been effort by Senators Biden and Dodd to avoid seeing intercepts if 36 "names of interest" are not listed in the material)

2. material related to planned 2003 Syria WMD testimony by John Bolton

3. information related to Matthew C. Freedman, a free-lance "management consultant" and lobbyist who worked part time and received a tax-payer funded, six-figure salary in Bolton's office

Frist wants to make those seeking information from the White House seem like obstructionists -- when it is the White House blocking everything.

Vote down cloture again. Again. And Again -- until the White House concedes on Documents.

White House intransigence is keeping America from having an Ambassador to the United Nations.

More to come.

-- Steve Clemons

TWN has talked with a number of leading Senate players in the Bolton battle today, and the general response that Senate Dems have for Bill Frist's Bolton press conference are the following:

1. Senator Frist has the story "exactly backwards." The only way the "goal posts" have been moved is in the direction of the administration.

2. The three outstanding document requests each go back at least six weeks -- all of them made in April 2005. Nothing has been added to these requests. No one has repeatedly asked for more information. To the contrary, the Senators making requests have narrowed the requests on Syria and the NSA intercepts to be accommodating -- even though the Senate is fully entitled to all the information requested.

The Administration has never claimed "executive privilege" and has offered no legitimate rationale for not providing this material.

3. The request for the NSA intercepts was made by Senator Dodd orally on April 11 at Mr. Bolton's hearing and then in writing a few days later. The administration has stonewalled ever since.

The administration has not explained -- because there is no explanation -- how it is that Mr. Bolton and his staff could see the names but Senators Lugar, Biden, Roberts and Rockefeller could not. Roberts and Rockefeller were ultimately shown the intercepts, but with the names blacked out. Lugar and Biden have not even been shown the intercepts, much less the names.

Despite this ongoing stonewalling by the administration, in an effort to move this matter forward, Senators Biden and Dodd offered to drop their legitimate request to see the names and instead to provide a list of names of concern for the administration to compare to the names on the intercepts -- a process that would probably take about 20 minutes.

4. If there is overlap between the list submitted by the Senators Biden and Dodd and the intercepts, the Senate would need to explore the issue further. If no overlap, these Senators would consider this part of the request closed. The administration has refused even this compromise.

5. The request for the information about the Syria testimony was made in writing on April 28. The only change to that request was by Senator Biden to narrow it in an effort to be accommodating.

6. Both Senators Frist and McConnell are on record as saying a filibuster for the purposes of getting information is legitimate.

Senator McCain also put holds on several Bush administration nominees -- and ultimately blocked the appointment of Department of Defense official Michael Wynne because of evidence requests related to concern about the Boeing air-tanker deal.

Those Senators leading efforts to extract this information on John Bolton have stated that as soon as the administration provides the information they have sought for more than six weeks and to which they are clearly entitled, they are ready to proceed to an up or down vote.

Sounds pretty clear to me that the White House is the one obstructing progress on getting that vacancy at the U.N. filled.

-- Steve Clemons

As I have said many times on this blog, I do like Senator McCain -- though we clearly disagree on the "fitness" of John Bolton to pursue American national interests if confirmed as Ambassador of the U.S. to the United Nations.

John McCain is a radical centrist and is one of the few moderates in the Senate occasionally willing to stand up against wrong-headed White House policies -- though clearly McCain and TWN still have several significant differences.

Bolton is wrong on so many fronts. He has been reckless with intelligence and irresponsibly abusive towards intelligence analysts, undermined his boss Colin Powell, engaged in dangerous brinksmanship with problem nations while delicate negotiations were underway to "tie down" their burgeoning WMD programs, and has a long tenure in many positions of not respecting Congress or the importance of the separation of powers. Slice practically anywhere in Bolton's career and serious problems are immediately apparent.

Today, Senator McCain told TWN that there are very few circumstances that a nominee appointed by the President should be blocked. He repeated the oft-repeated phrase, "The President deserves to have the team he wants."

McCain believes that if a person behaves in ways inimical to the national interests of the nation, the nominee should be blocked. He or she should be rejected for ethical problems as well.

However, John McCain did block the appointment of Michael Wynne, then acting Pentagon acquisition official, because of McCain's demands that the White House turn over all information, email, correspondence, and other communications on the Boeing tanker lease deal.

McCain may have viewed Wynne's actions in the tanker deal controversy as such that met the Senator's bar for "unethical behavior." In this case, Wynne had been appointed by the President in a recess appointment, and then shortly replaced after McCain's refusal to let his nomination proceed.

Senator McCain is a straight-forward guy, and TWN knows that nothing we scribble out here is likely to change the Senator's mind on John Bolton. However, all we can suggest the Senator to do is to move beyond what is in the popular press on Bolton and go refresh his memory on three parts of Bolton's past that certainly do raise questions about Bolton's ethical framework.

First, read the Waxman File on Bolton and the Niger/Uranium fiasco at State.

Second, reacquaint yourself with Bolton's role running the National Policy Forum -- which eventually lost its non-profit status in part because of the combination of foreign money and RNC-support activities mounted by the one-time non-profit organization. The place was run in such an ethically-challenged manner that Bolton's predecessor, Michael Baroody, quit -- and gave testimony in the Senate on the problematic governance at the National Policy Forum, of which Bolton was the next CEO.

Third, while few have mentioned this in recent Bolton debates, does it not strike you as ethically challenged, Senator McCain, that John Bolton prepared testimony and papers paid for by the Government of Taiwan and failed to disclose these to those Members of Congress before whom he was testifying?

Bolton has frequently misled (at best) or lied (at worst) to Congress -- and this should raise some interest on your part about his ethical disposition.

Senator McCain, you were asked by Senator Frist to stand with him on the Bolton nomination -- calling for an up/down vote.

Some of your fans are now calling on you to scratch beneath the surface of this Bolton nomination. Invite some of us up to your office to share with you quick vignettes on Bolton's tenure -- not only as Under Secretary of State for International Security and Arms Control -- but throughout nearly ever corner of Bolton's career.

If you gave us an hour, we could give you 60 one minute vignettes of Bolton misjudgments, recklessness, hackery, and ethically-challenged behavior.

60 distinct problems in 60 minutes. . .

Shouldn't you avail yourself of such information before jumping in so deeply into John Bolton advocacy.

Your position on Michael Wynne and the manner in which you championed the public interest in exposing the administration's fraud on the Boeing tanker deal seems oddly in conflict with your Bolton stance.

TWN is happy to help with the 60-minute briefing if you are interested.

And thanks Senator for reading the blog.

-- Steve Clemons

Excerpts from the Press Conference with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Senator John Mccain (R-AZ) on the John Bolton Nomination

10:30 a.m. Tuesday, 14 June 2005
Mansfield Room, U.S. Capitol

Senator Frist:

We are here to urge our colleagues to allow the Bolton nomination to come back to the floor for an up-or-down vote. That's the purpose of John McCain and Bill Frist today spending a few minutes with you. And I believe we can accomplish that. There's a lot going on in terms of negotiations and letters and talking.

But now we're at a point where the filibuster against Bolton -- and, yes, I'll call it a filibuster, because that's where we are until we get it to an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate -- is continuing.

Just looking back at the data and the statistics, it was over 200 days ago that the position of the U.N. ambassador came open with the resignation of our former colleague, Jack Danforth, who was then ambassador at the United Nations.

On March 7th, the nomination was announced. On March 17th, the nomination was sent to this body, the United States Senate. On April 11th, the Foreign Relations Committee held its hearing. On May 12th, sent to the floor, to our executive calendar. But on May 26th, through a cloture vote, this filibuster was begun.

At the same time, we have seen a whole sequence of events, over the last 200 days. We've seen the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the vote in Iraq, the vote in Palestine, the hope of opening the presidential elections in Egypt.

It's been 200 days that this vacancy sign above our U.N. ambassador's door in New York has been blinking. It is now a time to end that.

Senator McCain:

I think it's very important -- it's very important -- that the United States be represented today in the United Nations.

I am convinced that if we're going to see true reform in the United Nations, as now proposed by a bipartisan commission just in the last few days, as proposed by the secretary general himself, the United States, who contributes enormously taxpayers' dollars in the functioning of the United Nations, should be represented.

I believe that John Bolton has proven his credentials. I also believe that a president should have the right to appoint their own team, particularly in as important a position as ambassador to the U.N.

So I am very hopeful that we can continue these negotiations, wrap them up as quickly as possible.

In my usual nonconfrontational style, I have urged Leader Frist to go ahead and schedule a vote on Bolton on cloture and get people on record, because this is very important.

Senator McCain:

I do not deny the Democrats their right to do this, I just hope that they would see their way clear in recognizing that this is a very important situation and a post that cannot remain unfilled. It's not in the best interest of the United States.

Senator Frist:

When we say that negotiations are under way, we really say that in part because John has said we need to go out and do another up-or-down vote. We need to get to an up-or-down vote. The only way we're going to get there is have another cloture vote to demonstrate that the other side is unreasonably and irresponsibly filibustering this nominee.

When we say negotiations are under way, let me also say that the goal post keeps shifting again and again and again. I believe the administration has handled this very well. They have -- for the issues that have been raised by Senators Dodd and Biden, have fully briefed our Intelligence Committee, the leaders, in a bipartisan way. That briefing was complete and that briefing has been shared in terms of the concerns that have been raised by Senators Dodd and Biden.

There'll be questions about a letter which was sent or copied to me from last either Thursday or Friday. The letter requested a list of 36 names. And then there was some statement that if these 36 names were turned over or were checked and were double-checked, that would move us a step closer. I forgot the exact words.

These goal posts are shifting. Initially, people were talking about five or six names.

I believe that the administration has provided all of the information that is necessary, that is relevant to John Bolton serving as our U.N. ambassador. And I believe that, yes, we need to continue talking over the several days, but that after a couple of days or several days we do need to bring this back to the floor of the United States Senate and let 100 United States senators speak their will with an up-or-down vote.

Some Q&A:

QUESTION: Two questions. First, are you saying that you will schedule an up-or-down vote? And second, have either of you discussed this with the White House and urged them to perhaps deal with the Democrats?

FRIST: I have discussed this and actually worked with Joe and Chris in terms of opening up for other opportunities or information. And let me just say, every time that I've offered to provide that information in some shape or form, a lot more information has been demanded and more background that is beyond any, sort of, reasonable limits.

Number two, we would take it back to the floor with a cloture vote again.

QUESTION: When?

FRIST: Well, you just heard. Right now, my good friend here John McCain is saying, Let's go do it today. And I'm saying, let's continue talking.

That doesn't mean -- the letter that they sent last Friday is absurd in the requests that are being made. And therefore, I don't want people to look back at that request or that letter and say that is a starting point.

But some time -- I would say at the end of the week. But, again, we want to continue talking with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Here is question posed by TWN:

QUESTION: Senator McCain, you mentioned the words executive privilege. There are three evidence requests which are still pending made in April, and in the press you've said that you saw that your Democratic counterparts had a point; that there was a point about these evidence requests. Have you changed your position?

MCCAIN: What I've said is...

QUESTION: And also on executive privilege, the White House has been very careful not to use those words. So I'm interested in your use of them now.

MCCAIN: Well, my use of them is that, in order to withhold any information you have to say, This is executive privilege. I don't know if you have to send a formal letter saying so.

But what I said was, and I continue to hope, is that there can be some agreement worked out which protects the rights of the executive branch to have privileged communications within the executive branch and at the same time satisfy the concerns that Dodd and Biden have. They are both highly respected, highly regarded members of the Senate.

MCCAIN: And I continue to hope that can be worked out.

Now, I didn't say that they had a point or not have a point, because, frankly, I haven't seen the information that they are seeking.

But I do know that they have an appreciation for the need to get this position filled, and I'm glad that negotiations and conversations continue between them and the executive branch.

On Syria:

QUESTION: Most of the discussions have been on the intercept issue and not -- hardly any discussion of the Syria testimony of 2003. Have either of you had any discussions, like, when Secretary Rice was here last week, did you (OFF-MIKE)

FRIST: On the Syria issue, I have not talked to Secretary Rice directly.

I can tell you at the end of last week, as we were moving toward what I thought and what I have been encouraged by the Democratic leadership would be an up-or-down vote, I, on behalf of our really collegial relationship with Senator Biden and Dodd, did say, What is the problem? One of the issues had to do with Syria and the speech that had been given. And I made the offer, which was turned down, to get more information about that speech. And when I did that, even earlier drafts, I thought I was making pretty good headway and then further requests were made, not just earlier drafts, but e-mail traffic, all the background.

And, again, these shifting goal posts is what's bothering me a little bit now, is that every time we, sort of, make a step forward, the demands grow and numbers of names being looked at, or shifting goal posts in terms of background information.

It makes me think that it isn't really whether or not John Bolton would be a good ambassador, representing us as we address the challenging issues at the United Nations, but there is something beyond that. And that's what's frustrating for me as leader.

QUESTION: What did you offer to get them?

FRIST: Again, I'm going to keep that. Let me just say...

(CROSSTALK)

FRIST: I'll say what I just said. Earlier drafts and then -- I really don't want to go into the details of what sort of negotiations.

But my point is, is that these goal posts keep shifting, which is going to make it impossible ever to get to an up-or-down vote unless we just set it another date, which we probably will have to do.

Full transcript available for those who email me at steve@thewashingtonnote.com.

-- Steve Clemons

(ed. note: Thanks to N.P. for making this material available.)

Because it is proprietary, I cannot post the full transcript of the press meeting with Senators Frist and McCain on John Bolton's nomination -- but I am happy to forward it to others if you would like it. Make an individual request by emailing steve@thewashingtonnote.com and TWN will immediately forward the transcript.

If you would like to be added to the TWN listserve, please indicate that on your email -- and as always, your generous support is much appreciated for those who feel inclined. There is a support button for TWN here.

We have word that those leading the battle on the Bolton evidence requests may be preparing a response for Senator Frist.

More on that later.

-- Steve Clemons

This morning, Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist and Senator John McCain held a press conference in the Mansfield Room of the U.S. Capitol in order to "urge" their colleagues "to allow the nomination of John Bolton to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations to come back to the floor of the Senate for an up/down vote."

Senator Frist said that the position that John Bolton has been nominated to fill became vacant 200 days ago and that since that time, "a velvet revolution broke out in the Ukraine and Lebanon. Democratic progress has been made in Iraq, Egypt, and Palestine. . .and yet these last 200 days, America has not been represented in the U.N."

Frist reiterated that it is time to get to the work of reforming the U.N. and that he wants to bring the Bolton vote back to the floor "in the next several days" and put cloture to a test again. He said that if Democrats want to continue their "filibuster -- and I will call it that," Frist said, then let their votes be counted.

When pressed as to whether or not he was scheduling an actual vote, Frist said "no." He wanted to wait a few days to see how negotiations between Senators Biden and Dodd and the White House went -- to give them time for something to work out.

Frist did say, however, that he felt that the Senate Democrats kept "moving the goal posts" on the evidence and information that they were requesting from the White House. Frist also said that he had tried to be helpful in some of the documents requests but had been rebuffed by Senators Biden and Dodd, whom both Senator McCain and Frist kept complimenting repeatedly despite differences on Bolton and the evidence requests.

When pressed as to what his precise role was in the negotiations over document requests, Frist stated that he had offered to try and get several "earlier drafts of the Syria testimony" that Bolton had planned to give and which is one of the topics of three outstanding evidence requests made by Democratic Senators of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Frist said that after making that proposal, then he got requests to get email traffic, and "all sorts of other information" and that his Senate Democratic colleagues kept moving the goal posts. Frist would not respond to a question of what he thought was an appropriate as compared to an inappropriate evidence request -- or what the proper "goal posts" should be.

Frist gave the impression that he felt that Senators Biden and Dodd had continued to widen and broaden their requests. During the press conference and later in discussion in the corridor with Senator McCain, McCain made clear that he did not have much detail about what the pending evidence requests were or the degree to which they had been widened or narrowed. Several senior journalists at the meeting expressed their surprise to McCain that Frist had lodged such a complaint as nearly every journalist there was aware of the number of times that the bar on evidence requests had been lowered by the Democrats.

Senator McCain used the term "executive privilege" to describe the reason why the White House was blocking some material from the Senate. TWN followed up with a question to Senator McCain asking if he had changed his mind about his earlier comments that Senators Biden and Dodd "had a point" in their evidence requests of the administration and asked about this use of the term, "executive privilege," which the White House has been careful not to use.

McCain said that he thought that Senators Biden and Dodd were outstanding Senators and doing what they thought they needed to do to try and use leverage to extract information from the administration. But he also believed that we had come to a point where we needed to get serious representation of American interests in the U.N. McCain said he strongly supports bringing the Bolton vote to the floor for an up/down vote.

It was made clear to Senator McCain by other members of the press that the White House has not yielded on a single evidence request -- all of which had been lodged in April 2005. McCain said that he was "hopeful" that the negotiations would lead somewhere and that a balance could be struck between protecting the rights of the Executive Branch while at the same time addressing the concerns of Senators Biden and Dodd.

McCain continued to articulate a line that implied some contrition or flexibility by the White House would be useful in this standoff over Bolton.

When asked if either Senator had discussed the pending evidence requests of the State Department on John Bolton's role in generating Congressional testimony in 2003 on Syria with Condoleeza Rice, Senator Frist stated that he had not talked with her about this.

Senator McCain said that while he had been promoting the notion of a compromise between the White House and the Democratic Senators, he had not been directly involved with negotiations. Frist said that he was also not directly involved in negotiations at this point but had tried to be helpful in the past. Frist said that this debate on Bolton "really isn't whether he's a good Ambassador or not but about other things. . .and the Democrats keep moving the goal posts of what they want."

In the corridor outside the Majority Leader's office, TWN asked Senator McCain about this line that "President deserves his team," which so many Bolton supporters use to justify his confirmation. I asked what the Senator's criteria would be for rejecting a nominee -- or should everyone just be let through that the President nominates.

Senator McCain responded thoughtfully stating that McCain would vote against any nominee "who supported policies inimical to the national security interests of the United States or had personal or ethical difficulties that surfaced." McCain said that in the latter case, those kind of difficulties usually surface early on "before the nomination gets to the floor."

McCain said that on those grounds, he had "voted for Clinton nominee after Clinton nominee even though I had some serious differences on policy with some of these people."

When asked why McCain had joined Frist in this press conference, McCain stated "because Bill Frist asked me to." McCain made clear that he had been supportive of the Bolton nomination throughout the process and thus it was no hard thing to support a call for an up/down vote.

However, the press conference really broke very little new news -- other than that Bill Frist is attempting to pressure Senate Democrats to yield on their objections to a cloture vote and may call for a vote this week -- even if Frist fails once again to get cloture.

Essentially, the state of play remains the same. . .for the moment.

-- Steve Clemons

I am writing up my notes on the Frist/McCain press conference on John Bolton held today in the Mansfield Room. Check back shortly. . .

But until then, a couple of teasers.

When asked why he was there with Senator Frist talking on John Bolton, Senator McCain said, "Because Bill Frist asked me to...."

McCain does support Bolton; little chance of reversal there. But at least he has criteria that determine what type of candidates he will and won't support. More on those later.

The whopper comment today though had nothing to do with Bolton. John McCain reiterated his objection to holding detainees at Guantanamo who have not been charged with crimes. He stated that two years ago, after a trip that he and Senator Maria Cantwell made to Guantanamo, he returned and sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld that said essentially, "try them or release them."

McCain stated:

There is no doubt there's a problem when it comes to America's image and Guantanamo, but the real problem has to do with the disposition of people detained there. . .the key to this is that we must try them or release them."

Senator Frist jumped in and said emphatically that we "absolutely must not shut down Guantanamo."

Frist continued:

"We need to address the fundamental issues, the legal issues. . .but we can't just cut and run and shut down facilities."

The Mansfield Room in the Capitol, where the press meeting was held, was packed, perhaps 100 people, lots of cameras. Frist's people treat the media well. M&M favors for all.

Ok...need to move back to the substance of the meeting.

One nice moment for TWN is that Senator McCain complimented my blog and said that it was great that National Journal's Hotline was now covering The Washington Note.

More coming soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Something seems to be breaking on the Bolton battle. The White House may be yielding on evidence requests and communicating this through John McCain. Or they may be announcing that they think they have enough votes on cloture? Or -- though I seriously doubt it -- they may be throwing in the towel.

However, the most likely scenario to me is that the White House is yielding on something and letting McCain take credit.

Tomorrow a press advisory meeting has been called in Senator Frist's office at 10:30 a.m. -- and TWN will be attending.

Here is the announcement. There are no leaks thus far on what the content of Frist's and McCain's statements may be.

-- Steve Clemons

feel free to visit this new website, StopJohnBolton.com.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

I have a somewhat odd request. There are quite a number of interesting organizations opposing John Bolton's nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and among the roster of individuals -- there are a lot of centrists, and even conservatives, who have been working against Bolton's appointment. But the level of public overtness of these efforts varies.

For reasons I would rather not disclose, I'm interested in identifying a centrist 501(c)4 organization that is comfortable with a "high-road" opposition statement regarding John Bolton.

I don't know if there are any out there -- but it would be useful if folks in the know could email me any solid thoughts. Unfortunately, I don't have time this week to track down leads and test the interest of institutions -- so I'm mainly interested in people who have some leadership or board role in such organizations so that quick decisions can be made.

If this effort proceeds, I will disclose more later. . .but something potentially exciting and impactful on the Bolton debate is in the works.

-- Steve Clemons

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has seemingly been pushed into the Bolton mess by Karl Rove, who pretends to be Card's Deputy. They may be setting up the Senate for a good cop/bad cop routine -- with Rove positioned to resist on all document requests and Card saying to Reid and other Dems, "I'll see what I can do."

Few people apparently know about the call from Card to Senator Reid, but TWN feels it is important to emphasize what Reid's response should be.

Senator Reid, when asked by Card "Whaddya need?", should reply that all three document requests need to be satisfied.

First, the NSA intercepts including the identities of 19 U.S. officials whose names had been redacted from the material and had been requested by John Bolton.

Second, all materials -- emails, speech preparation info, position papers, and other communications -- surrounding the preparation of testimony John Bolton planned to give on Syria's WMD programs. Bolton stated -- under oath -- that he was entirely uninvolved with the preparation of this public statement on Syria. The documentation will show that to be true or untrue, and most suspect that Bolton seriously perjured himself before Congress.

Third, the client list of Matthew C. Freedman, whose employment in John Bolton's office reflects on Bolton's judgment. Freedman was an old friend of Bolton's, someone he knew since at least the early 1980s and who Bolton got hired as a part-time management consultant (believe it or not) at a six-figure salary. At the same time that Freedman was actually listed in the State Department personnel directory as a staff assistant to Bolton, he continued to operate a for-profit lobbying and consulting firm. In years past, Freedman had lobbied for Nigeria, the family of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, and other unseemly clients. Senators want to know if he managed international clientele while he was in this role. It should be easy to get an answer of "yes" or "no", but even this information the White House has failed to disclose.

So, Andy Card -- Whadda We Need? Three things....simple really.

The NSA stuff alone -- too little, too late.

The Syria stuff alone -- make sure it's the whole package.

Freedman -- check his file and tell us what this guy was really doing? You wouldn't run a guy like Freedman on your White House personnel roster, would you?

It's real simple, Andy. . .THREE items. That's it. Then the Senators get to review, digest, and make a decision as to whether John Bolton has the kind of "impeccable credentials" that this job in the U.N. requires and whether or not Bolton is someone that Americans are going to be able to feel pride in his appointment.

I think that the answer to those questions is already NO, but maybe there is something in these three items that will buoy his tattered and disappointing candidacy for this position -- but the burden of proof is on those holding the evidence, not those asking to see it.

Senator Reid -- Tell Andy what we need. . .the package is reasonable, and if the White House concedes defeat on these items, Bolton gets his vote.

If no Bolton info, no vote. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Senators Chris Dodd and Joseph Biden have sent another letter (TWN will post letter on Monday) to the administration proposing that if National Intelligence Director John Negroponte is willing to deal, the Dems will send the names of three dozen U.S. official's names to learn if any were among those revealed to Bolton.

Doug Jehl reports this morning:

Senate Democrats have prepared a list of approximately three dozen "names of concern" and are asking the Bush administration for assurances that John R. Bolton did not misuse his access to highly classified intelligence to seek information about them.

The request is outlined in a letter sent Thursday by Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, two of the leaders of the Democratic opposition to Mr. Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations. The letter was sent to the senior Republican and Democratic senators on the Intelligence Committee, who have also been involved in negotiations with the Bush administration over access to information about Mr. Bolton's actions when he was an official at the State Department.

The letter did not identify those on the list, but Democratic aides said they included intelligence officials and others with whom Mr. Bolton had clashed. They said the Senate Democrats would provide the list to John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, if Mr. Negroponte made clear that he would provide appropriate information in response.

The Dems are doing all that they can to demonstrate flexibility. But I fear that corroboration of names does little to show malfeasance on Bolton's part if there was such. Seeing the intercepts seems vital as far as I am concerned. But thus far, the White House has not "formally" responded on any of these modified Senate requests.

Furhermore, the documentation on Syria is vital -- and not being discussed as much as it should. This Syria material potentially shows a pattern of brinksmanship behavior by Bolton when it came to matters of promulgating false, unsupported claims on WMD programs in "countries of concern" to the U.S.

TWN has learned that there has been some shifting of position in the White House -- and that a deal of some sort may be in the works.

I an investigating and will be posting more on this later.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm heading over to a big bash at the Dutch Embassy tonight -- and then on a long run with my dog, Oakley. You should hear what he thinks about the prospect of John Bolton at the U.N.

Have fun.

-- Steve Clemons

In case folks are interested, I just posted this on the Howard Dean controversy over at TPM Cafe.

Mark Williams also was kind enough to post a video link of similar comments I made Wednesday on MSNBC on DemBloggers.com.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

As TWN has previously reported, the White House must concede on documents if it wants a Bolton vote. Every day the White House delays is another opportunity to turn Republicans against Bolton as they realize that this vote is no longer a throw-away vote and that their constituents are watching.

Supporting Bolton now has profound negative political consequences for a number of Senators.

Reid put the state of battle simply to the White House -- which has been obstructing the process on getting Bolton documents since mid-April.

As reported by CNN:

"You can't ignore the Senate. We've told them what we've wanted. The ball is in his court," Reid, D-Nevada, told CNN. "If they want John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, give us this information. If they don't, there will be no Bolton."

The Senate fell four votes shy of the 60 needed to cut off debate on Bolton's nomination in May after two Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee urged their colleagues to hold the issue open.

Cheney's wing of the White House could still potentially get Bolton to the United Nations despite the best efforts of this blog and others in this debate -- but only if it concedes defeat on the evidence requests. Will the Cheney-Bolton wing concede? There is no evidence of it yet -- and if this never happens, then Bolton hovers in purgatory for a long time.

The heavy-handed tactics the White House has used in the Bolton battle have weakened the resolve of moderate Republicans to support or push Bolton.

If the Dems stand strong -- and slowly pick off Republicans -- those opposed to Bolton will win an up-down vote.

We have the time to accomplish that now.

-- Steve Clemons

I participated in a terrific lunch today hosted at the home of the Dutch Ambassador, Boudewijn Johannes Van Eenennaam, for Anneka and Marc Chavannes, who is the brilliant outgoing Washington Bureau Chief for the NRC Handelsblad, Holland's most important daily newspaper.

Chavannes does the kind of unlazy, informed, empirical, non-ideological serious journalism that I wish more American journalists were on par with. We have great journalists in this town too -- such as Doug Jehl at the New York Times, Walter Pincus at the Washington Post, Warren Strobel at Knight-Ridder, and others -- but many could do better.

In any case, at today's small lunch, many proposed and somewhat asserted conclusions about the Bolton battle to me, adding a question mark at the end testing whether or not I agreed. They said, "There's going to be a deal on Bolton. . .right? Didn't I hear about a deal today?" And the other oft-repeated assertion/question: "He's going to get through. . certainly. . .right?"

The answer to both is not if we continue to win these battles -- and so far, we are.

The White House could have confused matters if it had compromised on one or two of the evidence requests and stiffed the Senate on the most important. But remarkably, the White House is stiffing the Senate on all three -- the NSA intercepts complete with identities of U.S. officials, the material on Bolton's planned Syria testimony, and the client list of Matthew Freedman, a well-paid, part-time old Bolton-pal turned "management consultant" who had a role in the Bolton-Melody Townsel affair that turned Bolton, in part, into a household name about ravingly bad bosses (though he wasn't her boss -- just a lawyer who apparently harassed Ms. Townsel).

If the White House had yielded on the Syria material and Matthew Freedman's client list, TWN thinks that the up-down vote on Bolton would be upon us, even though all evidence requests were not met and even though that would still leave a principle to fight for. Or if the White House gave in on the NSA intercepts and held back the other two items, it would have been concession enough for some Democrats to step forward and support cloture on the Bolton vote.

Providing just the Freedman material would not be enough; one of the other two requests would have had to accompany any revelations about this former lobbyist for the Marcos family and Nigeria.

But quite surprisingly, the White House is saying NO, NO, NO. It has refused to entertain any of the flexible deals that Senators Dodd and Biden have proposed. It snubbed Senator McCain for trying to suggest an arrangement where the "needs" of the White House and the duties of the Senate were both met. Lugar is just staying out of it -- but reportedly is not at all irritated that the White House is now paying a price for the bad candidate it sloppily shoved through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The White House is so CLEARLY the obstructionist in this battle over Bolton documents that Scott McClellan is just becoming a ridiculous caricature of a guy accusing others of doing what he himself is doing. Again, let me remind all that none of these vignettes on John Bolton-related politics would be possible without a significant degree of Republican complicity.

And what makes this fight even more winnable is that Senator Frist has very little invested in Bolton. As TWN has argued all along, if Dems are angry about the appointment of right-wing ideological judges, then a vote against Bolton shows their constituents that they are still fighting on other fronts. For those 14 Senators who did the deal to save the filibuster on judicial nominees, then they can show that the Senate tool still exists for non-judicial nominees.

But most importantly, with the White House screwing up and just saying NO, NO, NO on all the documents requests -- Bill Frist is not going to bring the Bolton matter back up until he's assured of victory, otherwise it's egg on his face. And it seems to TWN that victory is becoming ever more distant for the pro-Bolton faction in town.

To make my point, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist just announced the Senate schedule for next week.

On Monday, there will be a debate on one more judge. After that, a "lynching apology bill" will be brought up.

On Tuesday, the Senate begins debate on energy legislation. Those in the know predict that the energy bill will consume up to two weeks.

Then the Senate hopes to complete two appropriations bills before the 4th of July.

There was no mention of John Bolton and no mention of the Defense Authorization Bill. Senator Warner must still be on President Bush's naughty list.

That's a full plate. Conceivably, Senator Frist could call for Bolton action whenever he thinks he has a vote -- but the absence of Bolton's line-up from the roster of work means that people should begin changing their assertive questions on Bolton's survivability.

Bolton's not getting through I guess. . .right? The White House is just killing any possibility of a deal on Bolton. . .right?

The one legitimate "Bolton might get through" assertion/question folks could still make is the possibility of a July 4th week recess appointment -- but that too would be precedent-setting. More here on how rare that would be.

-- Steve Clemons

Did Arlen Specter misspeak? TWN hopes not.

In his commentary about newly confirmed judge Janice Rogers Brown, Specter argued that she was "undiplomatic" but deserving of confirmation -- because "she's not in the State Department."

Full stop.

Senator Specter -- John Bolton IS in the State Department and doesn't belong there. We hope that your lucid, grounded clarity on this matter holds.

This from the Washington Post:

But Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called Brown "a superb judge" who has been subjected to "harsh and, I believe, unfair attacks." Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said Brown "has made undiplomatic statements, but she's not in the State Department." He called her "worthy of confirmation."

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

This sculpture at the Visitor's Plaza of the United Nations in New York was a gift from the Government of Luxembourg and presented to the United Nations in 1988. The sculpture depicts a 45-calibre revolver, the barrel of which is tied into a know and was created as a "peace symbol" by artist Karl Fredrik Reutersward.

A talented, aspiring political cartoonist, Jonah Lobe, sent me the following depiction of Bolton's plans if confirmed to be America's Ambassador to the U.N. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Frist called for cloture on John Bolton's confirmation vote because he thought he had the votes. They thought they were so in the clear that they did not need Arlen Specter on hand for the vote.

However, the next vote -- when it occurs -- will be much more deadly potentially for either of the losing sides of the Bolton Battle.

The White House seems to think that it can wear down Democratic resolve and get two Dems to switch to cloture. On the other hand, if the White House fails to concede on any of the three major outstanding evidence requests, I think that Senators -- now better informed about the standoff -- may actually join those opposing cloture.

Senator John McCain is one of those who feels that the White House tactics have been heavy-handed. McCain thinks that there is little credibility in Scott McClellan's comments that Senator Dodd's requests on the NSA intercepts are "another delaying tactic," since the request was made in MID-APRIL, and Dodd has demonstrated great flexibility regarding the manner and form that the NSA intercept information is conveyed to Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The White House is arguing that it is holding the line on all of those who already FAVOR cloture. TWN says count again. I'm not going to out the Senators who are now favorably disposed towards battling the White House on cloture -- but the line on their side is not solid.

And let's just say that Frist thinks he has the votes all in order again. I say -- let's vote on cloture.

The other side will lose yet again -- and John Bolton's nomination will probably be over at that point; and Bill Frist's reputation tarnished further.

This is no longer about Bolton. It is about Frist's presidential chances -- and whether he wants to gamble his national identity on win/loss records on judges or John Bolton. The White House is invested in Bolton; Frist is not.

The Dems and Republican moderates need to use that simple fact to their advantage in this stand-off.

Bill Frist -- smart guy that he is -- needs to learn quickly that his own political ambitions are best met if he wins most of these judges and then theatrically fights the fight on Bolton to the point where it won't go further and lets Bolton languish for months in limbo, unresolved, stuck in Senatorial purgatory. . .with lots of other "internationalist" Republicans telling the White House that Bolton needs an alternative assignment.

-- Steve Clemons

My colleague Robert Wright, who authored the acclaimed Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, penned a very smart op-ed on the currents of thinking around John Bolton's nomination to the U.N. in Slate today.

Here is an excerpt from the piece:

. . .you don't have to be a global-governance visionary, or even a big U.N. fan, to oppose Bolton's nomination.

Common-sense patriotism -- the intelligent championing of national interest -- will do. Hence the many Republican moderates who are uncomfortable with this nomination. And if there's a sense in which ardent U.N. aficionados are a problem, it's not because they're on the verge of squashing America's sovereignty, but because sometimes, in their enthusiasm, they give rhetorical ammunition to the David Brookses of the world.

Bob does a nice job in the article of deconstructing Bolton's views as expressed in commentary he made about the United Nations in 1994. Click here to watch the three minute video.

What is interesting about this video is that proponents and opponents both agree that the John Bolton they see on this video clip is the REAL John Bolton -- not the newly converted "multilateralist" we heard from in his confirmation statement given under oath before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

For those interested, StopBolton.org is a good site to see what the activists in this cause are up to and how you might help.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

. . .so reports Vicki Allen in a new Reuters report.

Here is the opener:

Senate Democrats back from a weeklong recess said on Tuesday they were holding firm against allowing a vote to confirm John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations until the Bush administration turns over more information on him.

"I think the support is just as strong as it was," Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Senate minority whip, said after a meeting of Democratic senators.

In the Senate's last act before leaving for its Memorial Day break, Democrats mustered enough support to block a final vote on Bolton, who they said tried to misuse U.S. intelligence and intimidated or tried to remove intelligence analysts who did not conform to his hard-line views.

Democrats demand the administration turn over more classified material on Bolton, but the White House has refused and accused Democrats of using partisan delaying tactics.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said he expected to proceed with Bolton's nomination "very soon," but could not say "with certainty" when that would be. He has accused Democrats of using a procedural hurdle called a filibuster to block the confirmation vote.

"I would hope that the Bolton situation is not a standoff," said Senate Minority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. "I hope the president recognizes that he has an obligation" to provide the material, he said.

On Lieberman, Vicki Allen reports:

One of the Democrats the White House is trying to enlist, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, said he was sticking with his colleagues' demands for the information.

"I remain undecided on how I would vote on the Bolton nomination itself but I do think this is a point of principle for the Senate and the public's right to know," he said.

And Senator Dodd hits one out of the park on White House obstruction on the Bolton documents:

"This is now beyond Mr. Bolton. It's about whether the Senate should have a right to certain information pertaining to a nominee," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.

Dodd offered a compromise in which the administration would confirm whether certain names were on the NSA intercepts Bolton asked to see. Democrats said they were trying to determine whether Bolton requested the classified intercepts to exact retribution on his opponents.

Dodd said the administration rejected the offer.

I think that this is all quite a good response to those naysayers who see the Bolton Battle ending quickly.

We win with time -- and the more this process is tortured by White House high-handed tactics -- the more difficult it becomes for Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, Mike DeWine, Lisa Murkowski, Chuck Hagel, and others to vote in favor of Bolton's nomination.

-- Steve Clemons

On Face the Nation in an interview with Bob Schieffer, Senator Frist states that the filibuster is legitimate if used to obtain more information.

SCHIEFFER: "...why did you vote to filibuster Judge Richard Paez when President Clinton nominated him to the 9th Circuit?"

Sen. FRIST: "Filibuster, cloture...as a scheduling [matter] or to get more information is legitimate. But not to kill nominees. He was not killed by us, he was confirmed. . ." [Face the Nation, Nov. 21, 2004]

Then AGAIN, in an exchange with Senator Schumber, Senator Frist again embraced the use of filibusters in order "to postpone, to get more information, to ask further questions."

Here is the exchange from May 18, 2005:

Mr. SCHUMER. "Isn't it correct that on March 8 of 2000, my friend from Tennessee voted to uphold the filibuster of Richard Paez?

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in response, the Paez nomination --we will come back and discuss it further. . .The issue is not cloture votes per se; it is the partisan leadership-led use of the cloture
vote to kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees. That is the difference. Cloture has been used in the past on this floor to postpone, to get more information, to ask further questions. But each and every time, the nominee, including Paez, got an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate..." [Congressional Record, May 18, 2005]

ANOTHER LEADING REPUBLICAN, Senator Mitch McConnell, embraced putting holds on nominees and using "delays" as a tactic when pressuring the Executive Branch to provide information.

In October and November 1993, Senate Republicans blocked confirmation of five Clinton ambassadorial nominees for several weeks in order to secure information from the State Department about a pending investigation on an unrelated matter. In early November, Senator George Mitchell filed cloture petitions on all five nominations. Below are excerpts from statements made by Sen. McConnell justifying his effort:

Mr. McCONNELL: "With all of this indifference, I felt obliged to take some action to get the Secretary of State's attention. So for the past 3 weeks, I have held up five State Department political nominees. . .The reason [we are] holding up the nominees, the [reason this] device [was] chosen, is because there are not any others. As [Sen. Dole] pointed out, we are not exactly running the Government these days, and we do not do it lightly. . .[W]e are going to continue to debate here. I take no personal pleasure in putting holds on these nominees...The issue is how do we get [the Administration's] attention. I have not been here as long as the leaders, but I am unaware of any other device by which we can get their attention." [Congressional Record, Nov. 3, 1993]

Senators Frist and McConnell acknowledge resorting to filibuster-like tactics in order to compel vital information on nominees from the Executive Branch.

Senators Dodd, Biden, and others are doing the same thing on John Bolton. Three key pending evidence requests are being arbitrarily dismissed by the White House -- and NO YIELDING on cloture will be possible until the Executive Branch concedes on these document requests.

John Bolton will be in the State Department's 1st Floor transition space for a long time until the evidence requests are made.

Senator Frist should be among the first to acknowledge and support his colleagues' efforts in this regard.

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Leahy is opposed to John Bolton but seems to want to convey that in the end John Bolton is going to squeak through. This comment is not only wrong-headed but undermines the very hard work and serious effort expended by the many outside the Senate who have been doing battle on the Bolton nomination -- and undermines Leahy's Senate colleagues Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Barbara Boxer, and others.

I do not want to make gratuitous comments about Leahy now, but I do want to say that there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with a political party that keeps conceding defeat before the battle has begun -- or wants to forfeit the possibility of winning when in fact those OPPOSED to John Bolton have been the ones WINNING this effort.

The Republican leadership seems to have the opposite habit of issuing edicts about victory when in fact they are losing, or at least, have been stalled. We have punctured several rounds of myths spun by the White House about likely victories on Bolton throughout this process.

Leahy made comments that are unsupportable -- and in off-the-record conversations with some who work closely with the Senator -- they are as surprised and miffed as TWN is right now.

The battle we are waging is over JOHN BOLTON -- not Senator Patrick Leahy. But for those of you who feel so inclined, don't let me keep you from calling his office at 202-224-4242.

Other contact information for Leahy is here.

If you do contact him, be respectful. Senator Leahy is a good guy on most issues, and I hope he will retract his statement or recognize in an alternative statement that there are moderate Republicans in play, who might defect from the White House (or at least there were before Leahy's comments).

But Leahy forgets that if two disagreeable Republican judges are confirmed this week, moderate Republicans and nearly all Democrats will have to demonstrate independence on some front from the wannabe-monarchists at the White House -- and Bolton will be the best bet for them to oppose on SOMETHING.

But if SENIOR SENATE DEMOCRATS don't stop conceding these battles early, NO MODERATE REPUBLICANS will have the courage to join the effort against Bolton.

It's highly irritating. I do not feel that Leahy has undone our fundamental chances of continuing to block Bolton until the White House provides the requested NSA intercept information and the documentation on Syria policy, but he has harmed the momentum that was clearly on our side.

I hope he reconsiders. I have placed my own calls.

-- Steve Clemons

Senators Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- including Senator Lugar for that matter -- have winnowed down evidence requests from the administration several times.

On April 29, 2005 -- a full week before the agreed deadline of May 6 for evidence requests of the administration -- Senator Biden made 9 evidence requests. Senator Lugar intervened on Thursday, May 5, to inform the State Department that it need only focus on five of these. It is now believed that the White House asked Senator Lugar to focus on those five that he concurred with Biden on -- and to encourage the White House to ignore the other four, including very important material focusing on Bolton's role in the administration's Syria policy and the personal hand he played in generating a Heritage Foundation speech on the subject.

In any case, Senator Biden did winnow down the overall request to include all materials on Syria and the unedited NSA intercepts that Bolton had accessed during his tenure. Interest in Cuba, China, and other matters Bolton had meddled in was informally dropped by Biden -- though the Committee staff maintains still that ALL of this information should have been provided if this were a normal nomination process.

Now, Senator Dodd has narrowed his request on the NSA intercepts, attempting to strike some kind of a deal with Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte. The two have spoken by phone on at least two occasions trying to find an arrangement that would give Senators access to what they need to make an informed judgment on Bolton's use of this national security intelligence and satisfy Negroponte's "security" concerns about the information.

One compromise would be submitting a list of names to Negroponte to see whether or not these are among the 19 names of U.S. officials provided by the NSA to John Bolton.

Clearly, Dodd is trying to break the logjam on the Bolton evidence issues -- but at the time of this writing -- the White House continues to stonewall and impede the investigation of Bolton.

Here is the most recent letter from Senator Dodd to Negroponte, written on 2 June 2005.

-- Steve Clemons

Today, I will be on the Al Franken Show on Air America Radio at 1 p.m. discussing John Bolton and the state of play over his nomination at this point.

Then at 1:30 p.m., I will be discussing with Sam Donaldson and Chris Cuomo the general political scene now -- including the battle over judges, John Bolton, and the relative weight of the Senate as an institution vis-a-vis the White House on ABC News Now.

The Al Franken Show can be heard live by clicking here and listening over the internet.

ABC News Now can be watched live over the internet by clicking here.

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Frist isn't going to co-mingle judges and John Bolton again. This week he is pushing to judicial nominations: Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor.

There is little chance that the "motion to reconsider" the Bolton cloture vote can be considered until Thursday, and probably Thursday afternoon, depending on the post-cloture debate agreements on these two judges.

The good thing for Bolton opponents is that most moderate Republicans and nearly all Democrats will probably feel sleazy after the votes on the two judges and not in the mindset at all to give in to the White House on John Bolton.

Many are now trying to argue (on behalf of the White House) that to delay Bolton will paint those opposing cloture as "obstructionists."

But the fact is that the White House is the one obstructing the proper mechanics of government by withholding important information on the administration's Syria policy that Bolton may have been undermining, on NSA intercepts and the redacted identities of U.S. officials mentioned in them, and on the roster of "international clients" maintained by the well-paid, part-time management consultant in Bolton's office, Matthew C. Freedman.

The White House is spinning the line that some Dems may not hold in a replayed cloture vote -- and that is clearly NOT THE CASE from the inquiries of offices made today. There is no fundamental evidence of battle fatigue -- and Lieberman's office has not indicated that it has shifted position.

That aside, choking down two outrageous, ideological zealots as new Bush judicial appointments may be just what it takes to permanently kill the Bolton nomination.

The Dems and moderates may get run over twice this week on judges -- but Bolton will be the vote that they say NO to.

On another front, the NSA intercepts revelation on Libya and Asst. Secretary of State William Burns is turning out to be very important. Earlier testimony by various other State Department officials made it clear that Bolton was pushed to the periphery of a number of delicate policy initiatives -- one of which was Libya.

Bolton didn't like it, and Fred Fleitz -- his CIA detailee and acting Chief of Staff -- helped him spy on his State Department colleagues.

Watch for more on the Syria documentation. What is brewing in this mess is the strong possibility that Bolton committed perjury before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on his role in generating the controversial Heritage Foundation speech that is part of this morass.

John Bolton is now working on the 1st floor of the State Department, in transitional space, and is reportedly grumpy about his situation.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I only have a few moments as I have to meet an important source shortly on Capitol Hill. However, I want to make a couple of quick points.

First, the White House is attempting to get reporters to parrot the line that the stand against cloture on Bolton is weak. They have suggested to reporters that Senators Lieberman and Feinstein are weak links that don't want to be misperceived as indefinitely blocking Bolton. TWN has been in communication with both offices -- and as best we can tell -- this is another round of White House psychological warfare.

The fact is that Senator Feinstein and Lieberman BOTH understand that the argument on cloture is one in which vital documents have been blocked from review by key senators engaged in an investigation of Bolton. Many believe that Senators Pat Roberts and John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV saw the disputed information -- and that is incorrect. Neither saw the material that was requested by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In their Senate Select Intelligence Committee roles, these two Senators had a briefing and were shown "digests" of the NSA intercepts and not shown any of the redacted names.

In addition, no Senators have been shown any of the material on America's Syria policy at a time when Bolton and other wings of the government were warring with each other over disclosures Bolton planned to make on Syria's WMD programs.

There is no evidence WHATSOEVER that Lieberman and Feinstein have changed their positions on the VITAL IMPORTANCE of the White House in complying with official Senate evidence requests.

In addition, since the failed cloture vote on Bolton a week ago Thursday, Senators Mark Pryor and Mary Landrieu have come out strongly against Bolton -- and Susan Collins would not be able to hold her head up if demanding administration materials in base closing and then letting the administration off on Bolton materials.

So, journalists -- THINK!

It was reported to TWN today that "CNN's Congressional Correspondent Ed Henry and White House Correspondent Dana Bash were both talking about how the White House is hoping for a vote on Bolton by the end of this week. They both went on to say that it is unclear whether Frist will have the votes for cloture. However, Dana Bash highlighted Feinstein and Lieberman as two Senators the Republicans hope to pick off because they won't want to be seen to be "stalling" forever. Feinstein and Lieberman were also included in CQ's story today."

Let me just say that this is classic misinformation which we have BLOWN through before -- and will again.

In addition. . .and then I really have to run. . .the intelligence community is leaking material. Some elements of the intel community are irritated that John Bolton had such easy access to highly sensitive material -- and misused it. The information leaked to TWN today and to Doug Jehl of the New York Times more recently may be part of a drip-by-drip effort to show the public what is being missed in the Bolton debate.

The key is Fred Fleitz, Bolton's former Chief of Staff, who continued to operate in the machinery of government that provides intelligence -- as well as in the parts of government making policy.

This is the smoking gun.

The Senate needs to investigate further and shut Bolton down. He does not inspire confidence -- and no one beyond Dick Cheney's circle trusts him.

-- Steve Clemons

John Bolton so irritated British negotiators who were working on a resolution to Libya's WMD programs that they asked the American team on Libya to remove John Bolton from the case. Bolton was dropped.

TWN has now learned from a highly placed intelligence source, "with direct knowledge," that one of the 10 intercept requests made by John Bolton was about Libya. The identity of the U.S. official requested by Bolton was William Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

This shows a couple of things about Bolton that further underscore his vanity and irresponsibility when it comes to national security issues.

First, Bolton was NOT on a need-to-know basis in the Libya case. He had been removed from that portfolio.

Second, this shows that Bolton was in fact spying on his colleagues and their work. In this case, Bill Burns was his target.

The Bolton Battle is getting ready to rev up again -- and this news on Bolton, Burns and Libya may turn a number of other U.S. Senators against his nomination.

-- Steve Clemons

This weekend, Senator Joseph Biden was quoted as saying that the Dems probably did not have enough votes to block John Bolton's nomination -- but he also said that they were going to keep insisting that the White House turn over requested documents.

Much has been made of Biden's commentary; some have argued that he was conceding defeat.

This is absolutely false. Biden, through the entire failed cloture vote and since, has worked to communicate with both the Republican and Democratic leadership in the Senate that the current battle is not over blocking John Bolton. The issue is compelling the White House to hand over requested documentation that it should not be able to arbitrarily block.

Biden has been attempting to seem reasonable and flexible. While clearly the votes ARE BUILDING AGAINST Bolton -- given the conversions of John Thune, Mary Landrieu, and Mark Pryor, and perhaps even Joseph Lieberman -- Biden wanted to assure those engaged in this battle that an up-down vote on Bolton is possible if the White House provides the documents -- and they are investigated.

TWN has been offline for a day as we have been investigating a major scoop about the NSA intercepts. I will be posting what we know shortly.

Yes, I wish that Biden had articulated his views differently -- but the momentum is still clearly against Bolton. And I have been assured that there has been no weakness in resolve about demanding the requested docuyments. If there are no deals or arrangements made regarding document access, another cloture vote will fail again.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

John Bolton has now been displaced by the newly confirmed Under Secretary of State for International Security and Arms Control Robert Joseph -- himself a bit controversial for having worked hard to insert the "Niger Uranium claim" into the President's State of the Union Address.

Bolton has had to move his stuff into "transitional space" at the State Department. Reports to TWN are that he is not happy about it.

Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, John Bolton, and others pushing his candidacy counted on the American public's ignorance about a person whom they felt was a relatively obscure bureaucrat being appointed to a position that not many Americans cared about. Bolton is now a household name -- and the votes for or against him in the Senate have real weight and consequence now. The White House has badly underestimated the negative reactions to John Bolton serving as America's Ambassador to the United Nations.

The fight about Bolton has always been about high road vs. low road principles. Those opposed to Bolton have advocated a return to principled American engagement in global affairs and to restoring badly tattered alliances -- as President Bush suggested as well during his Europe trip early this year. Those advocating John Bolton seem to think that theatrical bouts of bullying somehow help America achieve the objectives it needs to reach at the United Nations. Whereas opponents of Bolton believe they need someone firm and effective and who has a vision of an institutionally revised and reformed United Nations -- and who will help recalcitrant nations go further in their agreement on reform than they might otherwise -- Bolton proponents think that their guy can kick and beat other nations to submit to American will.

Now the battle is beyond the issue of Bolton and focuses on the White House's resistance to legitimate evidence requests by the Senate. It is about the separation of powers in government. Again, the opponents of Bolton are those who are on the high road. They are defending the Senate's positive vis-a-vis the Executive Branch. The White House is trying to cripple the powers of the Senate and beat it into unqualified submission.

Karl Rove is reportedly quite angry that he is still dealing with the Bolton matter.

Last Monday, he was overheard making a statement that in itself would be passionately ambiguous to anyone who heard it -- if not coupled with his USA Today interview in which he emphatically insists that Bolton will be confirmed. On Monday evening, Rove reportedly stated that Bolton would be "encumbering his position by tomorrow."

Now when most people use the word "encumber", they mean the following:

en-cum-ber

( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-kmbr)

tr.v. en-cum-bered, en-cum-ber-ing, en-cum-bers

To put a heavy load on; burden: a hiker who was encumbered with a heavy pack; a life that has always been encumbered with responsibilities.

To hinder or impede the action or performance of: restrictions that encumber police work.

To burden with legal or financial obligations: an estate that is encumbered with debts.

Was Rove saying that from Tuesday last week, Bolton was now more trouble than he was worth for this position? Or was this an adopted twangish sort of way of saying that as far as he and the President were concerned -- JOHN BOLTON WAS NOW THE AMBASSADOR AND SHOULD ACT LIKE IT?

TWN has no idea what Mr. Rove meant by the comment -- or whether the person overhearing the conversation interpreted correctly what was being said. The White House did not return calls yesterday on this matter.

I don't believe that Rove has yet agreed to stop trying "to huff and huff and blow the house down" that Democrats and moderate Republicans have built opposing John Bolton.

Rove and Bush can't believe (I think) that they are losing the battle on Bolton -- so continue to engage in low-road assertions and continue to fail to mount a principled campaign in favor of Bolton's nomination, or to explain why the White House can in fact be arbitrary about the documents it sends to the Senate.

The White House is operating by edict, not principles -- and that is why Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and John Bolton will lose this battle in the end.

-- Steve Clemons

Let's work that Senate vote count again. . .

41 Senators (less Frist) voted against cloture on Bolton.

Mark Pryor and Mary Landrieu bring those opposed to Bolton to 43.

Inouye -- who was absent -- makes it 44.

George Voinovich and John Thune bring the Nays to 46.

Ben Nelson is up in the air. And three more votes are needed.

John McCain will have to vote with those opposed to cloture given the position he has staked out on the documents requests.

Arlen Specter is "uncomfortable" with Bolton and avoided the last vote. He's not in any way confirmed in favor of Bolton.

And the NSA intercept information or Syria material may be triggers that make Hagel reconsider. It's the only leadership tack he can make at this time.

My sense is that there are MORE than three Republican Senate offices now scrambling for reasons -- for phone calls -- to oppose Bolton.

TWN had a phone call from a Republican Senate office today asking for more on the "intelligence issues." And no one thinks that this Senator is in play.

I won't disclose who it is -- but I will say that the tectonics of this debate are shifting further than they recognize against the White House.

And whether she will vote against Bolton or not, can you imagine Senator Collins voting FOR cloture in a documents battle after her own quest noted below?

From the 2 June 2005 CQ Today:

A Senate committee on Thursday appeared likely to subpoena Pentagon materials explaining the basis for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's proposals to close or reorganize numerous military bases.

The chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., respectively, had threatened Rumsfeld in a May 27 letter with a subpoena if that proved necessary to get all the data undergirding the Pentagon's base-closing decisions. The letter came after the Defense Department missed a statutory deadline for providing the information to Congress, the Government Accountability Office and the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission.

On May 31, the Pentagon made available to members and staff classified records explaining its BRAC decisions. But Collins and Lieberman issued a statement on Wednesday saying the classified data was "insufficient."

"The documents made available last night, unfortunately, do not appear to come close to addressing the requests that we made last week," the senators said in a statement Thursday.

The BRAC law required the Pentagon to turn over within seven days of its May 13 announcement of the BRAC decisions "all information used by the secretary in making the recommendations." Collins and Lieberman had used that expansive language to request documents such as e-mails, memos and handwritten notes.

The Pentagon is putting together by June 4 a declassified version of the database it made available on May 31. Collins and Lieberman said they would wait until the declassified data is released to decide whether to subpoena all the records they are seeking.

But their Wednesday statement indicates that, even if all the data that is now classified were released, it does not contain the types of information the senators requested. That suggests a subpoena will come unless the Pentagon provides more information responsive to the senators' request.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Open thread time.

You commenters have been impressing me, and educating me. Many thanks.

Just as interesting side point, I really do like The Belgravia Dispatch. It's straightforward, pulls no punches -- and agrees with TWN about half the time -- which makes things interesting.

Gregory Djerejian states that TWN has been on a bit of a "monomaniacal crusade." I think I've just been focused and can't wait to get back into a much broader palette of commentary -- as soon as President Bush releases the Bolton documents or John Bolton applies for a teaching position at Johns Hopkins.

Cheers!

-- Steve Clemons

Well. . .we win then anyway.

There are many who go somewhat haywire with the thought that John Bolton might get a recess appointment rather than trudging through the Senate to get confirmation. I don't.

The President has a right to make recess appointments, and the Senate has the right to request evidence and documents about an Executive Branch political appointment, consider this information, and either confirm or deny the nominee. If Bush ends up making a recess appointment of John Bolton, he'll go there through the back door and will have little political latitude.

I mention this because National Review suggested that a "recess appointment" may be all that John Bolton can expect at this point.

The article practically concedes defeat to those who have stopped the process on Bolton from moving forward unless the White House subordinates itself to demands from Senators Biden, Voinovich, Dodd, Rockefeller, Boxer, and dozens of others who are sending G.W. Bush a reminder that he is not, in fact, a monarch.

The National Review editors are refreshingly pessimistic about Bolton's chances. Here is an excerpt from the piece:

All of this goes to show that Democrats are looking for any possible reason to put off Bolton's confirmation. The White House is standing firm against the latest Democratic document request, as it should. If it were to provide the intercepts to the Democrats, it might as well be handing them directly over to Doug Jehl. But in the absence of an agreement over the documents, it is unclear that the logjam will break over Bolton. The cloture vote last week failed 56-42. But Republicans have 58 votes, because Frist voted "no" for technical procedural reasons and Arlen Specter was not in attendance. The White House strategy seems to be to hope that the sour Senate Democratic mood will somehow brighten next week, dislodging a couple of Democrats to get to 60 on cloture.

Maybe the White House is right. But we are skeptical. In fact, the Democratic strategy seems more realistic -- delay, and hope for further erosion in Bolton's Republican support. The first to go was George Voinovich, and now John Thune has gone south. Who's next?

The problem is that recess appointments -- while not so rare in American history -- require some acceptable number of "recess days" to justify them.

According to a quite handy Congressional Research Service document by Henry Hogue on recess appointments, no such appointment has been made in the last 20 years during a Congressional recess period of less than ten days.

This excerpt is quite interesting:

How Long Must the Senate Be in Recess Before a President May Make a Recess Appointment?

The Constitution does not specify the length of time that the Senate must be in recess before the President may make a recess appointment. Over the last century, as shorter recesses have become more commonplace, Attorneys General and Offices of Legal Counsel have offered differing views on this issue. Most recently, in 1993, a Department of Justice brief implied that the President may make a recess appointment during a recess of more than three days.

Appointments made during short recesses (less than 30 days), however, have sometimes aroused controversy, and they may involve a political cost for the President. Controversy has been particularly acute in instances where Senators perceive that the President is using the recess appointment process to circumvent the confirmation process for a nominee who is opposed in the Senate. Although President Theodore Roosevelt once made recess appointments during an intersession recess of less than one day, the shortest length of a recess during which appointments have been made during the past 20 years was 10 days.

I wouldn't put it past the administration to push Bolton through on a recess appointment if they had 15 minutes to do it, not to say 10 whole days. This administration is comfortable with hardball tactics, with re-writing the rules of government, and with undermining the delicate framework of checks and balances that are the core of American democracy. So, even though 10 days is the shortest recess period in recent history that such an apppointment has been made, I would argue that the three-day benchmark is probably the one that the White House will use if it takes this route.

So, what are the options in the coming months? Here is a copy of the annual Congressional calendar.

According to this, the next possibility for a "3-day minimum" recess appointment would be between July 4th and July 8th of this year.

Then, there would be no other possibility of a recess appointment for John Bolton until August.

With serious conservatives -- like National Review editors -- advocating a recess appointment, Bolton's chances of confirmation are looking ever more bleak.

But sources close to the majority staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee report that it was not until the George Voinovich "Dear Colleague" letter that John Bolton, himself, began to consider a recess appointment. Until then, it was off the table -- and Bolton has remained doggedly committed to seeing the Senate confirmation process through to the end.

But after Voinovich's startling and important move, Bolton budged. . .allegedly.

TWN could not agree more with National Review's assessment. Just to remind:

But we are skeptical. In fact, the Democratic strategy seems more realistic -- delay, and hope for further erosion in Bolton's Republican support. The first to go was George Voinovich, and now John Thune has gone south. Who's next?

The ball is in Vice President Cheney's court. He's the one pushing Bolton so hard.

Release ALL documents -- NSA intercepts, U.S. officials' names, Matthew Freedman's client list, and ALL info on Bolton vs. the sane members of the Bush Administration on Syria policy -- and you can have an up-down vote on John Bolton.

But the way the White House is dragging its feet on the evidence, those who want to beat Bolton in an up-down vote have gained extraordinary ground.

-- Steve Clemons

The Bangor Daily News editors hit one out of the park today in their article, "The File on Bolton," outlining the compelling, overwhelming case against John Bolton's confirmation.

Here is a key exerpt:

Never mind that John R. Bolton insults his subordinates; so did Lyndon Johnson and a lot of other public servants going all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt and John Adams. Never mind that he belittles and denigrates the United Nations, where he seeks to take a seat. Those attributes might even make Mr. Bolton an interesting and useful addition to an organization that can be stuffy and indecisive.

No, the case that members of the Senate, including Maine's two moderate Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, should be considering is far more serious. And more is yet to come in the days before the vote, expected as soon as June 7.

The most damning evidence thus far is testimony by former colleagues that he pressured intelligence officials to change their official appraisals to conform to his views and tried to have some of them transferred when they disagreed with him.

Many of those who have worked with him in the State Department have come forward to warn that he would be a terrible American representative at the U.N. Although five former secretaries of state signed a letter backing the confirmation, Colin Powell, for whom Mr. Bolton worked, did not join that list. Mr. Powell is known to have advised several senators that Mr. Bolton is not the right person for the job.

Democrats stalled a scheduled vote last week on the ground that the White House had refused repeated requests for files bearing on Mr. Bolton's efforts to punish officials who disagreed with his views on perceived threats by Cuba and Syria. Those files have been available to Mr. Bolton and the White House. They should be made available to members of the Senate and to the general public.

The article should be read in full. It's tough to refute and must be causing some serious angst for Maine's two Republican Senators.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Yes, I know, Senator John Warner was supposed to introduce John Bolton at his first day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but was detained and later had his full introductory statement read into the record.

But rumor has it that Senator Warner, like John McCain, supports the battle between mostly Democratic Senators -- and some Republicans ones -- over the principle that the Senate has the right to request and receive documents from the administration other than those marked by "executive privilege."

Senator Warner does not want to go public with his concerns because he is already getting extraordinary heat from the White House over Warner's failure to support judicial ideological zealots that the White House has tried to shove down the gullet of the Senate.

Sources close to Senator Warner report that he is dismayed that during this time of conflict and engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, with American military personnel on the front lines, the White House is playing crude politics with the Defense Authorization bill.

That's right. Remember that debate about armor? Well, now, it's everything related to funding and managing the nation's military operations.

The White House, in the view of some senior Republican Congressional officials, is that the White House is HOLDING BACK the defense authorization bill -- that was supposed to be debated and voted on last week, before recess, but which is now languishing behind ongoing debates about controversial judges -- and now apparently the Energy Authorization as well as Homeland Security Authorization bills.

Defense authorization is now being pushed back for no other apparent reason than to punish Senator Warner for thinking independently and preserving the independence and traditional mechanisms of the United States Senate.

TWN would value Senator Warner taking his leadership another step forward by reconsidering some of the comments that he made in favor of John Bolton on the first day of his hearings. Now that more evidence is in, Mr. Warner might like to adjust his comments.

All that said, it is a gross dereliction of duty and obligation by the White House towards our military servicemen and women to be blocking the bill that authorizes expenditures as punishment against Senator Warner.

The White House continues to delay and block release of all Bolton-related document requests. All of them.

Not only is the White House responsible for the delayed judgment on John Bolton -- the White House is now arguing that cosmetic battles over John Bolton or a handful of judges matters MORE than funding our military in a time of conflict.

These battles over the judges, over Bolton, and now the defense authorization bill have gotten so out of hand and have been so mismanaged by White House personnel that the President better begin "removing from portfolio" some of those who are severely undermining his administration's interests.

-- Steve Clemons

The first "order of business" when the Senate comes back into session on Monday evening will be debate on the judicial nomination of Janice Rogers Brown. (For a refresher, click here.) Debate should continue through Tuesday, and we'll see if the "deal" on judges and judicial nomination filibusters holds or not.

The first chance that John Bolton's nomination could be reconsidered would be Wednesday, though Senator Frist has NOT indicated that he will push this yet. A second failure on Bolton on the Senate floor would no doubt prove fatal to the nomination -- and TWN would welcome such a maneuver but we won't be so lucky.

In the mean time, rumor has it that Senator Dodd is crafting a letter today and addressed to the White House which carefully articulates what the outlines of a "document deal" could look like. Dodd is emphasizing still the unedited NSA transcripts inclusive of names of U.S. officials and firms mentioned. He will offer flexibility about which members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee could be given access to these documents.

Dodd is also emphasizing in the letter requests for all information related to discussions, emails, and the back and forth tug of war over Bolton's views on what he believed was a WMD program in Syria. The White House is apparently considering this request more seriously, which means that Condoleeza Rice will have to relax her steadfast opposition to releasing this material.

There may be other items on the Dodd list as well -- including the roster of clients that Matthew C. Freedman -- a former registered lobbyist for the Marcos family and Nigeria -- maintained while a 'management consultant' making a six-figure salary in a part-time role in Bolton's operation.

The letter may be sent to the White House as early as tomorrow morning.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Richard Holbrooke took 7 months.

John Negroponte took 5 months.

John Bolton has only been up 2 months (and has the worst compiled dossier of concerns of any nominee to this position in memory)

Paula Dobriansky would take about 3 days flat.

-- Steve Clemons

The Toledo Blade editors suggested that Bolton step down on his own this morning:

Since Mr. Bush would clearly be reluctant to withdraw the nomination, thus acknowledging his own lapse of judgment in choosing an unsuitable candidate for this critical post, it is instead now up to John Bolton himself to withdraw from the field, putting an end to the snarl in the Senate and permitting the President to offer a more appropriate candidate.

This should occur now, rather than letting the Senate come back to find this mess still on its doorstep.

Mr. Bolton, why do you want this job?

Your statement during your hearings was unconvincing, and both sides of the debate -- those who want to obliterate the United Nations or at least have it expelled from America on one hand and those who think that a reformed international institution is in America's interests on the other -- believe that the John Bolton who appears here on this video is the REAL John Bolton.

There are other jobs in the administration for you, but not this one. Do the right thing.

-- Steve Clemons

I was impressed with last evening's first TWN Open Thread.

Enjoy your debates.

-- Steve Clemons

It was Tuesday, April 19th, when Senator George Voinovich stunned Washington and much of the nation by refusing to sign off on Bolton's confirmation in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee until more information was gathered on Bolton's performance record and views. That was six weeks ago.

At that meeting, Senators Biden and Dodd -- and other Senators on the Committee -- agreed to a Thursday, May 12th business meeting and vote as long as the administration complied with evidence requests made by Members of the Committee. Senator Dodd and Biden specifically mentioned the now-infamous NSA intercepts, which Dodd began requesting weeks before this April 19th meeting.

The deadline for Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to make "evidence requests" of the administation was set for close of business on Friday, the 6th of May. ALL evidence requests currently being debated between the White House and Senate now were filed before May 6th -- and while Senator Lugar did not join in all 9 evidence requests made in a letter to the White House by Senator Biden, Lugar did join Biden in 5 of those requests -- including the NSA intercepts.

It is now June 1.

President Bush has the gall to suggest that it is Senate Democrats who are stalling the Bolton vote.

With all due respect, Mr. President, it is time that you start reading again -- and read (occasionally) this blog. You will learn that not only have your staff not provided routine information and materials that the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is required to ask of the administration in fulfilling its oversight function, but some on your staff have allowed the Bolton fiasco to become enormously important to your stature and that of your administration.

How did that happen?

Had you recognized early on that Bolton just was not right for the job, that the push-back was going to be more serious than anticipated, that the calculation that Bolton's obscurity as a relatively unknown bureaucrat was blown apart when his behavior and views became subjects of kitchen-table discussion, then you could have just offered him the Ambassadorship to France or Germany (many apologies to my French and German friends) or a position in Dick Cheney's office -- maybe something akin to "Mini-Me" to Dick Cheney's Dr. . .well, you get it.

It is the White House that has stalled this process -- and rather than Senate moderates on both sides of the aisle being forced by intimidation-prone bullies in the White House to choke down a nomination that undermines American interests -- it is the White House that is now choking on John Bolton.

-- Steve Clemons

Douglas Jehl of the New York Times has done a superb job covering the hard to get at nooks and crannies of the debate over John Bolton. Demetri Sevastopulo of the Financial Times and through the first month and a half, Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post, have also worked this story hard. Another who has been accurate and working hard on the intel side of the Bolton mess is Mark Hosenball of Newsweek.

I mention them -- and there are others -- because they have been the few doing quite excellent digging, as opposed to either just reporting Dick Cheney's latest stirrings of "confidence in John Bolton" or playing along with the White House's psychological warfare game trying to convince weak-kneed liberal pundits that they have the Bolton game in the bag.

I have knocked the mainstream media several times because of the tendency to call nearly every twist and turn in the Bolton saga wrong -- which shows both their collective bias in reporting, and their laziness. These folks and some others are true exceptions.

Today, Douglas Jehl disclosed that the increasingly controversial NSA intercepts requested both by Republican and Democratic Senators include company names and deal in part with China. Others who have access to inside info on the intercepts suggest that there are "problems" with what Bolton and his then chief-of-staff Fred Fleitz were up to. It is important to note that Senator Rockefeller, while also expressing concerns about Bolton's use of the intelligence, did not see any immediate misuse of position in Bolton's requests for this intelligence.

Doug Jehl, however, confirms something TWN had previously reported -- that Senator Roberts and Rockefeller did not see the actual intercepts but rather reviewed digested accounts of them. They also received none of the 19 U.S. officials' names that Bolton had requested from the NSA and been granted access to.

Again, it is irresponsible of the White House to arbitrarily block Senate access to this information. There will be no Bolton vote without a review by those knowledgeable with Bolton's full record and dossier of these materials.

If there is nothing there, then there is NOTHING there. But that is not the manner in which John Negroponte or the White House are playing this hand.

TWN will report later on the other information that is also on the "list" expected by Biden and others before agreeing to any up-or-down vote on Bolton's confirmation.

But congratulations to those in the mainstream media who are actually doing their jobs.

-- Steve Clemons

A few thoughts laid out very quickly. . .as I'm chasing down a story.

First, thanks to all who have helped me see that an "open thread" does produce great debate and discussion among TWN readers. We'll keep that feature going. I also want to thank the many people who have chosen to support TWN through our new "Paypal" donation feature on the site. It is working, and resources are now building to broaden what TWN does. Your support is 'much' appreciated.

Secondly, I am so beyond "fed up" with progressive pundits who tend to concede defeat before the battle has been started that I do feel that some of us could tilt the other way in the fight over Bolton. Here is something I posted this morning at TPM Cafe, and I'll have more up here later on the subject of DNA analysis of Republican misplaced triumphalism and Democratic defeatism.

Lastly, as a nation we owe W. Mark Felt some serious thanks. Yes, he approved lots of bad things -- including spying on Americans, breaking into their homes, and various other bad "black bag" operations. The bad stuff needs to be noted, but doing what he did against Nixon's imperial presidency took some kind of stomach.

TWN has long supported the notion that those "in the know" should help leak some of the classified "foot thick" files in their offices and reveal some of the nefarious things that unfolded in our build-up to the Iraq War, in the contracting for the War, in the dealings with Chalabi, etc.

We depend on the heroism of those working in the shadows of government not easily seen by civil society. And we should definitely applaud W. Mark Felt -- no matter his fundamental motives at the time -- for saving American democracy.

-- Steve Clemons