Without getting too deeply into the weeds, Bolton's recess appointment runs out when the Senate adjourns in November or December. To keep his job, he has to be confirmed by the Senate before then.
A senior Senate staffer told me that it is likely Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Dick Lugar, intends to get a committee vote on the Bolton nomination on September 7. It appears the nomination will be brought to the floor as soon as possible after that.
Bolton has gotten very high marks from his UN colleagues
Here is the dilemma, upon the horns of which, Senate Democrats now find themselves:
If they attempt to filibuster the nomination, Republicans will appropriately claim they are playing politics with the very institution - the United Nations - Democrats so adore; that they are willing to put America's interests at risk for sordid political gain.
If, on the other hand, Senate Dems allow Bolton's nomination to come to a vote, he will be confirmed and they will hand the President a major foreign policy victory in the first days of the fall campaign season.I may have told you this before, and I will probably remind you of it again, but here is what I believe will happen on November 7th: People will go to the polls being disappointed, disgusted, disenchanted, and/or disaffected with the way Republicans have run the House and Senate.
But when they actually vote, they will decide that they might not like the people who are running things on Capitol Hill now, but the world is too dangerous a place to hand it over to a bunch of rookies whom they don't know, don't trust and, so, won't elect.
National security is a political issue. And it is not a plus for the Democrats.
On the Secret Decoder Ring Page today: The "rush" transcript of my appearance on CNN last night; a Mullfoto why neither you nor I can live on Central Park South; and a Catchy Caption of the Day.