Two days ago, Hugh Hewitt mentioned on the air that his sources have it that Bill Frist will schedule a vote for one of Bush's embargoed judicial nominees, which will allow Frist to push for the rule change on filibusters. So far, however, I have yet to see this confirmed in any news report. In fact, Frist has remained silent so far on any upcoming move; the only statement he made was yesterday's reiteration of his general opposition to filibusters:

"It is unfortunate that Democrats continue to block up-or-down votes on President Bush's judicial nominees, thereby keeping the Senate from doing its constitutional duty," Majority Leader Bill Frist said Tuesday in a written statement.

Now we have Frist losing another nomination battle with the Democrats when the Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee failed to do any timely research on the one witness to come forward to claim that John Bolton was mean to her in public. That allegation caused George Voinovich to lose his nerve, even though a small bit of research would have made clear that Melody Townsel has a big axe to grind against the GOP:

The latest accusations of abuse aimed at the president's nominee to be America's ambassador to the United Nations come from a self-described "liberal Democrat" who in 2004 helped organize the Dallas chapter of "Mothers Opposing Bush."

The woman, Melody Townsel, alleged that John Bolton chased her through the halls of a Moscow hotel throwing objects and screaming threats at her in August 1994, according to a letter circulated Saturday by the spokesman for the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden of Delaware.

The New York Sun published this on April 18th, the day before Voinovich lost his nerve. Why didn't the GOP leadership distribute this information to FRC members? Frist and the Republicans instead allowed Voinovich to back away from Bolton and postpone for several weeks any reconsideration of his nomination, once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

This fits a pattern of failed leadership in the Senate GOP, one which needs immediate addressing by the Republican caucus. My good friends in the GOP disagree with my form of protest and motivation to get some immediate improvement. They point out, correctly, that the Not. One. Dime. campaign will hurt all 55 Republicans in the Senate when 45 or more may well be in solid agreement with me -- and that's very true. However, 45 members is an overwhelming majority in the caucus, and if they truly felt like change was needed, that kind of number would make it happen. Obviously, they have not received the right kind of motivation yet to address the fact that Harry Reid has outfoxed them for the first 90 days of this session.

In all fairness, I want to hear from Senator Frist directly on this issue of leadership. I left a message with his press office yesterday asking for one of his staff to call me or e-mail me for an interview, in order to allow them to respond to my criticisms on this blog. If they have a good reason for abandoning the filibustered judicial nominees for the first three months of their session, I'd be pleased to post the explanation and rescind my call to stop donations to the RNC and NRSC until the filibuster rule change gets its vote.

When I hear from them, I will let you know. Until then, and until the Republican leadership in the Senate starts showing some effectiveness, I plan on continuing to withhold any funding for their efforts in 2005. Not. One. Dime.

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