Thus the confirmed story so far. However, TPM Muckraker has a piece today fingering (by process of elimination) another senator with a hold on the bill: none other than the reigning Dem King of Pork, Archduke Robert of Too-Many-To-Mention!

How did that happen, I wonder?

I sense skullduggery. What was the sequence of events? Did Stevens go to Byrd and say, We have to put a hold on this bill, but I'm not taking the flak alone: let's jump together. (Or vice versa.)

(I can't think that one of them put the hold on off his own bat, and the other felt his reputation as a porker required a joint effort!)

Or was a wider conspiracy at play? What if a whole bunch of porksters got together to agree a strategy to kill the bill, and Stevens and Byrd were elected to do the deed?

What if the whole thing is a bipartisan election-year charade (like the House ethics bills of earlier in the year), designed to let the parties make a show of doing good government without actually changing anything?

A good deal more to come out of this, I fancy!

Ain't Democracy grand?

Update [2006-8-31 18:22:48 by skeptic06]:

Hey - breaking news!

Muckraker now reports that Byrd did have a hold on S 2590, but has now lifted it!

The reason for the hold? According to Byrd's mouthpiece, on August 2, the last sitting day before the recess,

there was an effort to rush the legislation through the Senate without any Senator having the chance to ask questions.

Is that true? Why were Byrd and Coburn the only solons to feel this affront to the legislative process so acutely as to enter a hold against the bill?

When did Byrd put the hold on?

I'm disinclined to duplicate the work of others, so I'll let the Muckraker delve further.