The tenth vote yieled 110 votes for Guatemala, and 77 for Venezuela, with four abstaining. It is not clear what happened to the 192nd vote. The General Assembly's president suspended proceedings until tomorrow.

So, as a quick post-mortem I observe the following three lessons from today's vote counts.

1. There is a hard core of states in the UN who want a counterweight to the United States and Ambassador Bolton on the UN Security Council.  Venezuela's supporters even at their skinniest numberd 70.  Don't expect that number to change easily.
2. Latin America is highly polarized into pro- and anti-US parties.  With a rightward-leaning Mexico and an ever-left Cuba being the only states to come forward as alternatives throughout today's proceedings, no one in the region is perceived as an honest third party to break the logjam.  One group knows it is going to have to make a major concession to the other side in order to produce an alternative, and neither really likes it.  While we've been wrapped up in our Middle Eastern misadventures and our Global War on Terrorism, this is the change that has been underway in the region closer to home.
3. Bolton's ability to swing votes at the last minute was minimal.  Despite the best efforts of the State Department to shop around a document for months pointing out the dangers of having Venezuela on the Security Council, at least twenty-three states had a flexible enough view to change their vote despite the presence of the man with the white mustache in the room to walk from desk to desk and get them on board.  It's turning out that the UN is a much tougher room than the vote-counting office Bolton stormed in Florida, and he's not up to the test.

Ultimately, I think we can say that if Venezuela loses, it's going to be the result of some states to move on, and not because they were persuaded by America's so-called "highly effective" "straight-talking" ambassador.