Be sure to read the transcript of my interview with Senator McConnell from today.  Though very measured, McConnell's message is also very clear --and exactly what most Republicans and conservatives want to hear.  Key excerpt:

HH: Senator McConnell, what I would love to hear you or the minority whip, Lott, or someone in leadership say over and over again is that if obstruction is the rule of Senator Leahy's Judiciary Committee, especially as to Supreme Court justices, the next Democratic president, may it be decades away, but when the next Democratic president comes along, there will be payback.

MM: Well, sure. I mean, these precedents that are started in the Senate are almost never stopped. We were able to get the filibuster genie back in the bottle. As you know, Summer a year ago, we were able to get Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor and Priscilla Owen, who had become kind of poster children for the left, we got them all confirmed, not to mention two solid Supreme Court nominees. So I think we've pushed them back on the filibuster. Now the filibuster is considered something that would be done only on rare circumstances. It had become routine. So we'll see whether they honor the most recent precedent. If they don't, they're going to have a lot of problems moving anything on the floor.

Read it all.

I have to agree with Paul Mirengoff at Powerline about some reactions to the election of Trent Lott as Senate Minority Whip and Mel Martinez as RNC Chair.  Both have the potential to be huge wins for the GOP, especially given Lott's command of Senate procedure.