Here we go again. Senate debate on the nomination of John Bolton for the U.N. ambassador’s post is scheduled to begin tonight at 5pm EST. RedState reminds you that there’s still time to contact some of the swing/squish votes.

It’s not clear whether President Bush would give Bolton a recess appointment in the (likely) event of a GOP defeat on the cloture vote. See here, here, here, and here.

Meanwhile, Robert Novak reports on the Dodd charade.

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Stay tuned…

552pm Roll is being called. Biden and Dodd huffed about the NSA intercepts. See Belgravia Dispatch for background.

718pm Via Bloomberg News:

– Republicans in the U.S. Senate failed again to gain a vote on President George W. Bush’s nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations.

The Senate voted 54-38 on a motion to end debate on Bolton. Republicans needed 60 votes to override the Democrats’ filibuster. Republicans hold a 55-44-1 majority in the 100-member chamber.

Via CNN:

Democrats said they will continue to block Bolton’s nomination until the White House produces records of communications intercepts he sought from the National Security Agency.

And a leading Democrat suggested that Bolton spied on administration rivals above and below him.

The White House has refused, citing executive privilege, and Bush demanded Monday that senators give Bolton a vote on the floor.

Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the records could clear up allegations that Bolton used them to spy on “rivals in the bureaucracy, both inferior and superior to him.”

“While I doubt this, as I’ve said publicly before, we have a duty to be sure that he did not misuse this data,” he said.

Here’s the roll call vote.