Uncertain future: Karl Rove, another Republican on the endangered list, with George Bush at the White House earlier this year. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Having dumped Donald Rumsfeld as his disastrous defence secretary, George Bush may be forced to jettison America's man at the UN, John Bolton.
The president still wants the lame-duck Senate to confirm Mr Bolton, who was installed as ambassador to the UN during a recess, a procedural move that got round Democratic opposition.
But the Senate foreign relations committee has already turned down the White House's resubmission of Mr Bolton as US ambassador. Should his nomination ever reach the floor of the Senate for debate, the Democrats have threatened to stretch out the debate to kill it.
If Mr Bush is calling for a new spirit of bipartisanship, why is he pushing for the nomination of a self-avowed UN-basher, wonders Steven Clemons at the Washington Note.
Mr Bolton is not the only one on the endangered list.
Karl Rove, the Republican party's much diminished "brain", must be wondering about his future.
Asked what role Mr Rove would now play, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, yesterday could only reply.
"That's a good process question for which I don't have an answer."
Apart from personnel changes, Mr Bush may have to drop some pet projects, including his controversial surveillance bill.
The administration wants the power to conduct wiretaps without obtaining warrants as required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Now that control of the House has passed to the Democrats, chances of the bill getting through are pretty slim.
