Apparently, Democrats do. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the committee, cited Olson's contradictory testimony about his involvement in the Arkansas Project, a mid-1990s anti-Clinton scandal hunt effort run by the American Spectator magazine that was also the subject of a federal investigation, as a reason he could not vote for the nomination.

But Leahy didn't try to block the vote, and the resulting tie would've killed Olson's bid in a normal year. But with the power-sharing agreement that party leaders worked out in the evenly split Senate, Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., can break committee deadlocks, and Hatch assured everyone that Lott would cooperate. That means -- unless the Democrats pursue the unlikely, but dramatic task of a filibuster -- the nomination will most assuredly go to the floor for a full vote.

But even among Democratic Senate staffers, the next step seemed uncertain. One, who works for a senator on the committee, believed that a vote could be split and that Democrats could decide to filibuster, if they reach the number required necessary -- 41 members. But another staffer with a high-ranking Democratic senator said that if it's clear that the Democrats reach that magic number, party leaders might agree to subject the nomination to a public hearing.

If that happens, it will follow Leahy and the other committee Democrats' failed attempt to launch a bipartisan probe of Olson, whose inconsistent answers in written and oral testimony about the role he played in the Arkansas Project before and after he joined the board of the American Spectator have prompted much criticism. His story was thrown into even greater confusion with the recent accounts of former star Spectator reporter David Brock, who has alleged a far greater, and earlier, role by Olson in the project than the nominee has admitted to.

Democrats have also criticized Olson's representation of discredited Whitewater witness David Hale, who was suspected of taking a payoff from the Arkansas Project in exchange for anti-Clinton testimony.

After at first publicly considering supporting an investigation of Olson's role in the project last week, Hatch has been adamant that there was no basis for a probe, and repeated on Thursday that he would not call for one. Olson's responses, Hatch insisted, "show no inconsistencies or evidence that Mr. Olson misled or was less than truthful to the committee in any way." He further claimed that all the key players in the Arkansas Project had affirmed Olson's account in letters that they had sent to the committee over the past week.

Then Hatch took on Brock. Though he was careful not to call Brock a liar, and went so far as to describe his personal relationship with the writer as "friendly and decent," Hatch portrayed him as a shaky source, claiming that he had "backpedaled" from his remarks to the Post in a subsequent interview with the New York Times.

But Brock has done everything but back off his assertions, reiterating his challenges to Olson's veracity in a Wednesday interview with Salon. He also blasted Hatch for relying on the word of R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of the Spectator, who insisted that Brock himself wasn't part of the Arkansas Project. "Tyrrell's assertion is false," Brock said in a May 16 letter to Hatch, declaring that expenses for anti-Clinton stories he worked on during 1994 and 1995 were paid out of Arkansas Project funds.

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