The Washington Note Blogs Bolton

Steve Clemmons does some heavy lifting on the Bolton story:

John Bolton not only tried to get intelligence agent Christian Westermann "removed" from Bolton's portfolio (read, "fired") at the State Department, he also seems to have recruited help outside the State Department bureaucracy -- from a U.S. Senator in fact -- in trying to get Ambassador Charles "Jack" Pritchard fired from his position as America's Lead Envoy in negotiating with North Korea.

I have spent much of yesterday, last night, and this morning contacting and interviewing a number of senior national security officials and senior foreign policy offiers -- some out of government and some still in government service -- regarding the issue that Senator Lincoln Chafee opened yesterday during the first round of hearings regarding President Bush's nomination of John Bolton to serve as Ambassador to the United States.
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Clearly, Bolton has demonstrated a frequent competency in going "around the system" to punish or intimidate those with whom he is at odds.

This is a clear, unambiguous case where John Bolton was at odds with the stated intent of American foreign policy which was attempting to bring under some management control North Korea's increasing nuclear capabilities and pretensions. John Bolton worked hard to blow apart this effort -- and essentially forced out the key envoy responsible.

The whole thing is worth a read.