Just got back.

Miss 7 hours, you miss a lot, as they say.

I heard that Voinovich was going to be on Hannity on the way to a 3:45 commitment and had a chance to tip a couple of folks to its imminence. I only was able to listen to the first five minutes or so of the interview. I had to stop listening right at the point where it was obvious that George didn’t know the status of Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s amendment. I told myself “d***, this is going to go downhill in a big hurry.”

Did it ever.

Hot Air has the full audio of the interview (memo to Allah — Please, please, don’t EVER take it down). Don’t miss Allah’s thoughts and the choice reader comments.

Great SOB Alliance coverage of our not-soon-enough former senator is here:

• Thespis Journal (with soothing musical accompaniment) — “Voinovich Embarrasses Ohio Again.”
• Nasty Brutish & Short liveblogged.
• Keeler Report weighs in.
• NixGuy, among other things, makes the point that Sherrod Brown doesn’t deserve a pass on this either, and has an evening update.
• One Oar is calling for a Senate hearing — the OHIO Senate, with Voinovich and Brown subpoenaed to defend themselves. This type of out-of-touch conduct and voting is a direct result of the 17th Amendment’s direct election of senators. The past few days have effectively been Exhibit A as to why the 17th should be repealed, and the selection of Senators should be returned to state legislatures.
• Mark at Weapons of Mass Discussion is ready to kick something.
• Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion has a great roundup of his own (sorry guy, missed it in the first pass after Mark’s great post). And yeah, Zach from Outer Space is more grounded on immigration than the man Matt calls RINOovich.
• Porkopolis has updated his post from yesterday.
• Interested-Participant — “Senator George Voinovich is laying the groundwork for his defeat in the next election.”
• Pain Dealer — “We may have just heard the beginning of the end of Voinovich’s career on live radio.”
• Joe C at RAB has a late entry — “GV has now become an iconic figure in the illegal immigration debate, representing the arrogance of the pro-amnesty supporters from the President on down. His “interview” was so embarassing, his ignorance so profound, his demeanor so childish, that his performance may have actually killed the amnesty bill by virtue of other senators rushing to dissociate themselves from him.”

Other coverage:

• WorldNetDaily (HT FreeRepublic, with over 100 comments) — “Voinovich self-destructs on Hannity” — “The normally low-profile Republican hung up on the No. 2 talk host in the country.”
• Blogmeister — “The man didn’t even seem to have a full handle on what he’ll be voting on!”
• PrestoPundit — “We already know that the White House has its information all wrong about the amnesty bill. Now we’re learning that most of the various Senators have very little knowledge of what they are voting on. Pathetic.”
• Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings — “Voinovich was, plain and simple, arrogant, uninformed, and angry about being questioned by the American people. It’s quite embarrassing to me as a Republican that he is a representative of my party.”
• The as-usual indefatigable Michelle Malkin (see 6:36 PM update) — “Speaking of lack of confidence in our lawmakers, get a load of blubbering, clueless George Voinovich on Hannity. Good gawd. Keep talking, George. You’re the best help we have in killing the bill out there.”

I’d like to do more justice to this post, but there’s no time, so I’ll just have to come out with it.

On Monday, George Voinovich’s folks at his various offices, surely at his behest, sent a clear message to all who had an interest in how he would vote on immigration-bill cloture on Tuesday that he had not committed to how he would vote and that he was open to taking comments from constituents.

I am told that the lines at one of his offices were very jammed and that he may have received as many as 1,000 phone calls at just one of those offices.

I am here to tell you, based on what is second-hand but I believe to be reliable information from a very trusted source, that George Voinovich knew on Monday, and at least several days earlier, exactly how he was going to vote on cloture.

My source tells me that Mr. Voinovich addressed a group of prominent Ohio Republicans on what I believe was a teleconference call either over this previous weekend or just before that.

Here is what I am being told:

• Voinovich spent some time attempting to sell the audience on the merits of the immigration bill (I’m told those involved were mostly not buying).
• Voinovich said (quoting my source, not directly quoting Voinovich) that “if the people knew what the ‘real’ bill says rather than listening to talk radio then they would support it,” and that talk radio was on (a) “hatchet campaign.” My source reasonably asks why George hasn’t been trying to tell his constituents what a great bill this is.
• It gets worse, if that’s possible. Voinovich told those assembled that he has accumulated a big campaign war chest and that he was not going to let what happened to Mike DeWine happen to him. He also intends to use this war chest to help other candidates.

Here is where I boil. On Monday, George Voinovich was so dismissive of his constituents’ time, talents and energies that he was perfectly willing to have thousands of people waste their time, talents, and energies making their feelings known to him when he had NO intention of changing his vote. As important (but not more important), he wasted the time, talents, and energies of dozens of bloggers, Sean Hannity and surely other talk-show hosts, National Review and surely other leading conservative outfits.

It’s one thing to disagree politically, and it’s quite another to be insufferably inconsiderate. George Voinovich doesn’t give a rip about how how rude he was to everyone on Monday.

I’m a never-say-never type of person, but I can tell you that I have no current plans to waste any more of my time on George Voinovich, except to defeat him. All the money in the world wouldn’t have saved Mike DeWine. George is a very slow learner.

Carnival of Ohio Politics 71, ably compiled by Jill of Write Likes She Talks, is here.

Also, a delayed recognition to Boring Made Dull’s 38th compilation on Econ and Social Policy, which is here.

Lightning’s pretty amazing stuff — and sometimes destructive. It took out a modem, a router, and a hub, but luckily not the computer. That was 18 hours or so ago, but we’re back, with new posts coming.

The new server page-loading problem occurred because somehow one of the scripts created archive selections in the drop-down at the top for every month going back to 0 (zero). Web guy Charles solved that yesterday, and deep gratitude is due him.

A post that was planned for Mr. Voinovich and his shamnesty vote is coming.

From Eau Claire, Wisconsin:

From mid-June, 2007

One month ago, an Eau Claire man nearly drowned in Lake Altoona. But three fishermen came to his rescue, just in time.

On Saturday, Tyler Fransway had the chance to meet his very own heroes.

For years, the first Saturday in May has traditionally marked the day anglers in Western Wisconsin eagerly await: the fishing opener.

This year was no different for 18-year-old Tyler Fransway.

“I’m a big crappy fisher, and the crappies were spawning, so I figured I’d go out to Lake Altoona,” said Tyler Fransway, a seasoned fisherman
from Eau Claire. “I was out there and it just started to get bad.”

Bad enough that the choppy water started pouring onboard, and made Fransway’s boat start sinking.

“I got in and at first was doing alright, then started to get cold,” Fransway said. “I got tense and you almost have to tell yourself to move, stroke, stroke.
Finally, I’d had enough and just started yelling.”

Andy Mulheron, Mike Sanders and Jason Nunke were headed back to shore after casting their lines, when Fransway caught their attention.

“We happened to see Tyler out on the middle of the lake, not capsized yet, but on the verge,” said Andy Mulheron, a fisherman who helped rescue Tyler from Lake Altoona.

Mulheron says the group knew what it had to do.

Go here for the rest of the story, with video.