AlterNet: The Bolton Endgame: Regardless of the outcome, the Bolton nomination has changed the political battlefield in Washington. While Bush stands to lose big if Bolton's nomination is not approved by the Senate Foreign Relations committee Thursday, Democrats have already made considerable gains. Observers say Bolton opponents scored a public and important victory in achieving such a penetrating and public investigation so far, one that revealed a startling glimpse not only into Bolton's appalling and at times almost cartoonish operating style, but a detailed look at the larger context of a Bush administration so divided on the most pressing national security matters that it was often consumed with working against itself.

'It showed the Democrats there was a constituency out there for resisting inappropriate or controversial nominees,' said Chris Nelson of Samuels International, a longtime acute observer of the Washington foreign policy scene in his Nelson Report. 'Democrats have helped themselves by managing to sound uncharacteristically reasonable, while the Republicans have managed to sound so extreme, victims of this kind of Caligula force. It reminds the Republicans that there is a price for this kind of stuff.'"

(Via AlterNet.)