Bolton not a slam dunk? Part 4

The State Department and Administration are so confident that John Bolton will be approved by the Senate that The Washington Note reports they already have a replacement lined up.

TWN has just learned that State Department officials are worried that Bolton's nomination will not go through.

The combination of stone-walling, withholding of key documents, shenanigans related to the long-awaited NSA intercepts and names of U.S. officials requested by John Bolton, dysfunctional behavior questions, and recent relevations about the extent that Colin Powell and Richard Armitage felt they needed to go to guard themselves and U.S. diplomatic efforts from the potential damage that John Bolton might do has seriously undermined the administration's confidence in the nomination.

There is a crack in the facade of the pro-Bolton forces.

The Office of the Vice President and the Secretary of State refuse to acknowledge that the Bolton nomination is limping -- and there has been a tremendous game of psychological warfare underway to convince Bolton opponents that a party line vote is on its way.

This is not the case -- at least not by my read of circumstances.

The apparent front runner is Paula Dobriansky, currently Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs. She is tough but not a psychotic nut case like Bolton and could probably get easy approval. Senator Lugar and the Administration will do some vote counting tomorrow and then I would expect to see Bolton, probably with a gun to his head, withdraw his nomination. His withdrawal will be a loss for the Administration, especially Cheney but not as bad as a Senate rejection.