According to this post from DKos poster Rimjob, Boxer placed a hold on the Bolton nomination.

right on Matt. Lets vote on the creep and see if any of the GOP'ers have the guts to go against Bush. I'd put my money on a fairly straight party line vote...with Lieberman voting for Bolton and Voinovich retracting his pledge of yesterday and voting to confirm also. Save the fireworks for something meaningful.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Liberal Oasis has just the opposite opinion, but I tend to think that if the Dems. try to pull out the filibuster on this one, their blade will start to dull a bit here. The filibuster issue needs to remain concentrated on preventing these judicial extremists. Taking it a step further, I think, could give the GOP more ammo to the "obstructionist" label.

And, of course, the media wouldn't be too far behind in taking that label up and running with it.....

From the site of Steven C. Clemons, reports that Barbara Boxer placed a “hold” on Bolton nominations until she get the documents from Condi. It takes 60 votes to overturn a hold. There is still hope. Condi has rejected to release them. what could be the chilling effect on debates within the administration?
Steven C. Clemons

The filibuster should be used freely with Supreme Court nominees, and the worst of the worst appeals court nominees because they are lifetime appointees.

Beyond that, I have a hard time seeing the justification for using it for presidential appointees, when in fact the president is ultimately responsible for the a**holes he appoints and the damage they do.

But that's just me.

Condi's witholding the NSA intercepts, she wants Bolton out of her hair at State. Perhaps it would be best to let Bolton go- afterall now the entire planet knows he is a jerk and hopefully won't overeact to his theatrics, but will just hate him and despise him. Let the repubs embarass themselves by putting another jerk toady in place. We'll all know who to blame when he does a terrible job.

I completely agree. I think use of the filibuster in this situation is a bad idea.

Hey kids, the BRAC list is out!

Take a look and see which Guard units are moving lock, stock and barrel to Iraq, and how your state takes it in the shorts so we have "magic" troop increases in Iraq.

The best that can come out of this nomination is for Bolton to make the media, which he has, and the Democrats go on the record as voting nay. The Republicans will have to show they take complete resonsibility with a vote.
A Filibuster will only cloud the issue and the results will be the same.

Senator Boxer's hold gives me a warm fuzzy feeling -- that was the tool the GOP used to kill many of the Clinton judicial nominees, so it will be great to see kitty killer Frist and his wing nut cohorts choke and sputter about majority prerogatives.

heh . . .

Dear Matt and all . . .

I agree with emeldir and wrote of this earlier. From all that I have read, gathered, and shared in my own post, it seems clear that Condie may be the catalyst for the Bolton nomination.

I share an excerpt from my own writing, . . .
PUBLICLY, RICE SUPPORTS BOLTON, PRIVATELY? ©
When the President first nominated Bolton to serve as United Nations Ambassador, Republicans and Democrats alike wondered whether Rice influenced the choice. It is well known that that Rice wanted Bolton in a position where his contribution to policy would be limited. She felt certain that Bolton needed to be controlled; he needed to be given instructions and be forced to follow these. She also believed that Bolton was a loose cannon. Is it possible that Secretary of State Rice persuaded the President to appoint John R. Bolton to the United Nations to avoid having him in the State Department?

It is; after all, she could easily make the case. “Bolton’s critical stance toward the United Nations dovetailed perfectly with the administration's own thinking.” If she pressed her points well, she would be free; Condie would not be burdened with a closer confluence.

I wish I could dump my incompitent colleagues, but I can't; I still have to work with them. Condi should be no different.

And as to the pres. just getting his way . . . correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like this one gets his way more than any other. Why is he so special?

Funny thing I heard today -- I should have posted it on another topic, but I heard the mayor concerned about closing the Portsmouth Shipyard saying something to the effect that W couldn't really close it -- because he's from around there. Just hoping that someone heard that and remembers -- the bushies are not from Texas.

I have offered to move the whole bush outfit out of state at my expense many times. (I can't do anything about moving the hammar though)

Back to Bolton (sorry) the reason w put him forward is so obvious, and then to have to go through all this is nonsense. But it is our system. How I wish someone could stop the insanity.

I know there are some who think -- let him go to the UN -- but I for one fear that prospect. If he goes, he will tear the UN apart. It is the reason he was nominated.

Michelle is right. Bolton will be there, even if Bush has to do a "recess" appointment. He'll have a great deal of power to break the UN. Even if he just sits there with his ugly white mustache curling up in evil glee and vetoes every proposition before the Security Council. His behavior will be mortifying for us and poisonous to the rest of the world. Congress will withhold funding until the UN "gets is house in order" and accomplishes something. Eventually, the anti_Un forces will kick it out of New York with triumphal sneers.

But mainly, he has to be there to prevent any cohesive response to our allged plans, according to Scott Ritter and Sy Hersh, to bomb the nukes out of Iran by June. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8130.htm

Perhaps Johnny Mustache is the key to the theonazi/neoclown END game. Once they whap the hornet's nest with a few dozen cruise misslies and bunker busters, (hopefully on nookyaler) it's truly time for Jihad. The Dear Leader will dash into a storage closet, rip off his clothes to reveal, with a chestful of combat medals flapping, "Wartime President"! The draft will be YOUR "patriotic duty" and any naysayers must Hate America.

There will be no investigations of Administration malfeasance. Hell, no reporting, just like today. The Internets will be discovered to be riddled with terr'rists and dealt with apropriately. We probably will have elections again, they just won't mean much. Butch is just a front man and he probably isn't enjoying himself as much as he used to. Besides, the brush is piling up at the "ranch".

If Jebbie is actually annointed, maybe for the next, declining century, the mercenary legions (contractors) will enrich themselves by arranging for violent coups when a pretender wants to become the next Bush.

We were always at war SouthAsia.

The Dear Leader will dash into a storage closet, rip off his clothes to reveal, with a chestful of combat medals flapping, "Wartime President"! The draft will be YOUR "patriotic duty" and any naysayers must Hate America.

Look, these guys got to this point by appealing only to Americans' baser instincts; they simply can't switch now. An appeal for a draft would lead to a Dem congress and impeachment.

Full agreement with the choice of the hold instead of the fillibuster, at least for the time being. That is, I don't think the fillubuster is a smart tool on Bolton. Someone likened it to spring training for the judicial nominees, and I tend to agree--the more it gets used, the less strong the principle espoused each time. We're following a natural arc from Abu Gonzo to Rice to Bolton to the judges, in terms of the amount of fuss put up against them. Boxer's hold is a calculated escalation that should segue nicely into the nuclear process. There's a discrete reason for it that makes easy PR logic: "We're holding it until we get the information from State that they promised." Going a step further now seems like too big a jump.