Most who have been watching the battle over John Bolton’s nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations have been surprised at the ferocity exhibited by Dick Cheney and others supporting him as well as by the many opposed.

Just when everything was looking so clear. There are rumors swirling now that Frist may push the Bolton nomination on Wednesday this week.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar must be steaming about the fact that the administration stiffed him on the Bolton-related NSA intercepts as well as that John Negroponte has reported to the Ranking Member of the SFRC that if the Committee wants anything more on the NSA intercepts, it will have to go through…

Scott Malcomson has given Michael Lind’s new book, What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America’s Greatest President a terrific review. Whereas Malcomson picks up on the important point in Lind’s book that in the time of Lincoln, democracy as model of government was disappearing from rather than proliferating through the world.

Most people consider John Negroponte to be an astute inside the beltway player, but he may be harming his record by holding up NSA intercepts and other information from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as “payback” for the tough time some of the senators gave his nomination.

We know little about the controversial NSA intercept materials (and roster of redacted names of U.S. officials mentioned in the transcripts) which were requested and reviewed by John Bolton. What we do know through sources is that the bulk of the material dealt with incidents in 2003 and 2004.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar and Ranking Member Joseph Biden both sought from the administration the names, contextual information, and, if possible, the unedited actual intercept material that John Bolton reviewed during his tenure as Under Secretary of State for International Security and Arms Control.

The Battle over Bolton lurks just behind the showdown between Republicans and Democrats on the slate of contested judicial appointments. The major similarity in both cases is that there are some Republicans who oppose changing Senate filibuster rules — and there are Republican Senators who find the Bolton nomination disagreeable and offensive.

TWN has received a copy of the minority views in the Bolton Nomination Report filed by the Foreign Relations Committee with the U.S. Senate. Here is one excerpt of a report very well worth reading in full: VI.

In the most recent May 23rd edition of Newsweek, Howard Fineman writes in his article, “Ready to Blow”: Still this is the Moderates’ Moment, and for a paradoxical reason. With the rest of the Washington machinery in GOP hands, conservative activists understandably expect results.