The time has come to drink Jennifer Rubin’s tears, as Chuck Hagel’s confirmation vote has cleared the cloture vote in the Senate and the stupid filibuster is finally broken. In the end, Hagel received 71 votes, which is more than he will get when it comes time for the actual vote on confirmation. It’s interesting to look at the roll call because it reveals a bit about how Republicans view the Senate and it’s role in advising and consenting to the president about his cabinet. For example, some relatively moderate Republicans, like Ohio’s Rob Portman and Illinois’ Mark Kirk, voted to uphold the filibuster, while Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby of Alabama, and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma did not. It seems that the newer members (Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona excepted) were more likely to be obstinate.
The same thing could be seen when the Democrats attempted to amend the filibuster rule. It was long-serving members like Carl Levin, Max Baucus, and Barbara Boxer who were the most skittish about changing the traditional way of doing business, while almost all of the Democrats elected since 2006 were in favor of reform.
Another interesting feature of this cloture vote is that the neo-cons mostly voted for it. That includes John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and their new sidekick Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. For all their bitching about Hagel, they didn’t want to create the precedent that Defense nominees could not be afforded an up or down vote.
Anyway, J-Rube’s tears taste like honey nectar.
