Several people in high places, both in the State Department and in the United Nations, have commented to me that John Bolton really surprised them when he embarked on his new duties after moving into the Ambassador’s apartment at the Waldorf-Astoria.

I’m literally rushing to the gate, but check back in a few hours for a sneak peak at a major new article assessing John Bolton’s tenure thus far as the unconfirmed, recess-appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. It’s not yet on the American Prospect website, but I’ve got it. More later. . .

I had one of those special, memorable-for-all-time mornings today, jumping from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to Jericho to Ramallah. The afternoon had me back in Jerusalem, and now I’m sorting out what happened today in Tel Aviv.

Matthew Waxman has fought at the Pentagon for the last two years — unsuccessfully but heroically — to get the Department to stop condoning any form of prisoner handling that approximated “torture or inhumane treatment.” Waxman has been arguing for the spirit and law of the Geneva Conventions.

I’ve had about a dozen appointments today, all over Tel Aviv. I think I’ve learned a lot about this place but also know that I haven’t yet really scratched the surface of the Israel-Palestine dance around an eventual, permanent two-state agreement. Tomorrow is Palestinian Day, and I’ll be in Ramallah.

After a three hour lunch with Abdul Barri Atwan, an iconoclastic and important journalist who heads the Arab newspaper, Al Quds, I went to Heathrow Airport which was a mob scene because dozens of flights cancelled due to fog problems.

I just got off the phone with a prominent Arabic journalist producing a program on the politics and practice of rendition. This journalist, Yosri Fouda, has interviewed at length Khaled El-Masri, the innocent victim of American kidnapping and rendition gone very wrong.

Condoleeza Rice is having a tough time in Europe selling the line that the Bush administration doesn’t believe in torturing detainees — and would not “render” terror suspects to other countries for legal processing unless we were sure that they would not be tortured there either.

My schedule in London has been packed today. I haven’t had the time to post I had hoped. Tomorrow may be better. That said, I am surprised about something.

Just a short note on this interesting article a loyal TWN reader sent me. It focuses on Castro, Guantanamo Bay, and America’s “prisoners in paradise.” One thing that must be said. Fidel Castro has been uncharacteristically quiet about our use of the facilities at Guantanamo to detain “enemy combatants.