According to a new CBS poll, President Bush now has only a 35% approval rating, and a whopping 57% disapproval rating. Richard Nixon in November 1973, at roughly the same point in the second term where Bush finds himself, had a 27% approval rating.

Tonight, President and Mrs. Bush will be hosting a very upper crust, ritzy dinner for the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. I am not going, but I am impressed that Mary Cheney is taking her partner, Heather Poe, to the dinner. TWN applauds this.

I reported earlier that Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Chief of Staff at the State Department the last four years, will be on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer in a fascinating interview with Ray Suarez. However, I have just heard from the foreign policy producers, and the segment will run TOMORROW, not tonight….

The Brent Scowcroft profile and interview, “Breaking Ranks: What Turned Brent Scowcroft Against the Bush Administration?” by Jeffrey Goldberg has just been posted in full on the New Yorker website. If you haven’t read it, you can read it here. — Steve Clemons Ed. note: Thanks to NG at Oxford for the tip.

I just posted this entry over at TPM Cafe. I found President Bush’s positive commentary about the IMF and the Argentina bail-out surprising and out of character given the intensity of the 1997-98 debate about IMF replenishment.

American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar Norm Ornstein hits the Alito ball out of the park with a powerful, incisive op-ed today in Roll Call. Essentially, Ornstein makes the key point that Alito is hostile to Congress and its role in our system of government.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld just “tried” to slide a knife into Col. Lawrence Wilkerson during a press conference yesterday, but with a smile and “aw, shucks” grin on his face.

The tension is building. The more Frist fulminates and fumes at Harry Reid, the greater the Democratic leader becomes in the eyes of Americans, on both sides of the aisle. Finally, many are saying, the Democrats are doing something of consequence. And amidst this chaos, Republican cohesiveness is eroding.

Senator Harry Reid, in a motion seconded by Senator Richard Durbin, just called for a very rare closed door executive session of the Senate. This motion is called “Rule 21” so that Senators can discuss “secret matters.” I’m impressed.

I found this short article interesting. My friend and former colleague Gordon Silverstein has noted that Samuel Alito would be the 11th Roman Catholic ever appointed to the Supreme Court — and the 5th on this court. Catholicism used to be considered a political liability, but those tensions have appropriately subsided.