By Steve Clemons

I have stated before that Senator Hagel would be one of the few U.S. Senators whom I could support in a race for the presidency.

I have linked this great piece of Boltonesque art previously — but I feel like doing it again this morning. I hope one of my regular readers in the White House will share this with Vice President Cheney this morning. Here is the link.

Vice President Cheney used his time on CNN’s Larry King Live this weekend to do some Bolton cheerleading, asserting that John Bolton would be confirmed. I have several comments on Vice President Cheney’s regular expressions of “confidence” in Mr. Bolton.

Well, it’s early in the day — and there is always the chance that trolls will distort the poll (at bottom of page) that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is running, but at this point — it is not distorted. The paper asks: Are nominations as U.N.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a thoughtful editorial today titled “United Nations: Divulge Bolton Dossier” that I agreed with until I got to the very end. Here is an excerpt with which TWN concurs: The Bush administration has been excessively secretive with Congress and the public.

There is a great stable of folks who have joined up as coffee house chatterers on Josh Marshall’s new venture, TPM Cafe. I’m one of the cuprits.

It’s been clear for a long time that Senator Russ Feingold was going to oppose John Bolton, but it was not so from the beginning.

Senator Lieberman voted correctly — against cloture — on Thursday and Senator Collins did not. She underestimated the slippery slope of undermining principle and the Senate’s position vis-a-vis the White House.

TWN is trying to assess how firm White House resolve is that it will not concede on the NSA documents and “other” evidence requests, particularly the material Senators Biden, Dodd, and Lugar requested on Syria policy.

Either the White House will have to concede on the principle that the Senate can ask for whatever documents it wants, other than those protected by Executive Privilege or John Bolton’s nomination will languish indefinitely. John McCain joined the chorus of those opposed to the White House position — though still expressing support for Bolton….