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.

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.

This is experimental and being provided at the request of those who actively support TWN. Stay on the high road. Impress me.

President Bush knocked around Democrats today for delaying a vote on John Bolton — but in fact, it is his own team who has caused the delay.

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.