The normally staunch, mainline conservatives at Powerline take a decidedly nuanced (daresay, Muniz-esque) approach to understanding the GOP breakup over judges, Bolton, Schiavo.

[P]utting it kindly, Senators are an independent breed. To take an extreme example, if the North Vietnamese couldn't effectively coerce John McCain, why should we expect Bill Frist be able to do so? Voinovich is no McCain, but he was the mayor of Cleveland and the governor of Ohio, and he's his own man.

Second, the Republican majority represents a coalition of conservatives and moderates. It's not realistic to expect that all Republican moderates in the Senate will support every conservative position. John Bolton is a radically conservative nominee for the U.N job. That's precisely why conservatives like his nomination so much -- we feel that the U.N. is broken and needs a radical fix. But we shouldn't be surprised if some moderates see the matter differently and resist Bolton. More generally, with significantly less than half of the American voters being politically conservative, we shouldn't be surprised if conservatives fail to win every battle in Congress.

Man, 2006 is going to be sooooo interesting.