Paul Blumenthal at the Sunlight Foundation points out a great piece of information about that anonymous hold on the nomination of Neil Barofsky as bailout Special IG:

The first thing of note is that secret holds were, for the most part, abolished during the 110th Congress. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act mandated the disclosure of the identity of a senator secretly blocking a "measure or matter" "not later than 6 session days" after the initiation of the hold.

The Barofsky nomination provides a good example of the loopholes in this mandate of disclosure. If a bill or, in this case, a nomination comes up prior to a long recess, the disclosure of the offending senator’s identity will have to wait until the Senate reconvenes for at least 6 session days, not calendar days. So far, since the nomination was blocked, the Senate convened for two session days. While they are expected to convene tomorrow for a pro forma session, it is unknown whether the Senate will convene for four more days by the end of the year.

I actually count three session days since Chairman Dodd's November 21st statement noting the hold -- pro forma sessions on the 24th, 26th and 29th. The calendar at Majority Leader Reid's site lists a pro forma session for yesterday, December 2nd, with another scheduled for Friday, plus a working session on Monday. That'd take us to six session days since Dodd's acknowledgment of the hold, which may or may not have been in place for a few days prior to the Dodd statement.

So in all likelihood, next week will see us pass the necessary sixth session day required under the new rule, and we'll know who the chowderhead behind this delay is.

Everybody already suspects Jim Bunning, of course. And why not? Who else is saying things like this about the bailout oversight?

"I wonder why taxpayers should pay $50 million to a watchdog who has nothing to watch."

Well, OK, what other Senator, I mean. I've surely said something like that, but I don't count.

UPDATE: Kudos to Max Baucus (D-MT) for speaking out about this. Baucus, you may recall, was outspoken during the bailout debate in committing himself personally to the creation of the Special IG job, and presumably to its actually being filled and performed. Now Baucus has expressed his displeasure with the delays created by the hold. Hopefully he'll now be on top of insisting that the requirements of the new rules be honored, and with at least six session days having passed by next week, will follow up by demanding the name of the Senator responsible.