Continuing its tradition of journalistic excellence, the Washington Post sends its best and brightest to bash the blogs:Elected Democrats and their liberal base are in one of their periodic splits between pragmatism and symbolism. Under pressure from blogs and liberal groups, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday attempted an obviously doomed filibuster against the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito — and Kerry got only 25 of the 60 needed votes.

Don’t

One of my favorite websites on all the internets is Vinyl Mine, where Jim H. has his trademark “Coffee and Cigarettes” MP3 mixes. He’s got a Burt Bacharach fetish going on at the moment and one one of the mixes includes “Alfie,” “The Look of Love” and “Raindrops.” Another has a very good Mice Parade track that I’m fond of, but somehow the Bacharach seems quite right tonight.

I can’t say it often enough, it was a great effort these past few days. Time to relax and revel in the fact that your labors sucked much of the joy out of wingnuttia tonight, and that the “weak liberal” meme is dissolving even as the dittoheads piddle themselves silly over our bad language and righteous indignation.

And on that note, I highly recommend:

1.

The Judiciary Committee hearings on Alito were a real eye opener for me and I think for many others as well. Not so much because the members of the committee were in such disarray — that’s been going on for a long time — but because as we sat here together and watched them collectively I got a sense in reading the comments that some seismic shift was happening, that people

Here’s the list:

Akaka, Daniel K. (D-HI) Yes
Alexander, Lamar (R-TN) Yes
Allard, Wayne (R-CO) Yes
Allen, George (R-VA) Yes
Baucus, Max (D-MT) Yes
Bayh, Evan (D-IN) No
Bennett, Robert F. (R-UT) Yes
Biden, Joseph R., Jr.

On Alito for cloture:
Aye 72
Nay 25

Okay, so it’s obvious there is cloture today. It sucks. But it happens in the big leagues that sometimes you lose an inning. That doesn’t mean you stop playing, it just means you take a deep breath and go back to the dugout for some fresh plays.

All this Faxing and phone calling and e-mailing…has scared the bejeebers out of the Washington establishment over the last couple

The cloture vote begins.

From Shakespeare’s great Henry V, 1599:

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of

The announcement this morning that Lincoln Chaffee would vote “no” on Alito but “yes” on cloture was a hollow gesture to NARAL and the pro-choice community he pretends to cultivate. A vote for cloture is a vote for Alito. It’s that simple.

I write this post with great regret because I am a long time supporter of NARAL, an unabashed feminist and pro-choice advocate who understood why they backed Chaffee

Harry Reid currently speaking on C-Span2 regarding the Alito nomination and Republican corruption in Washington and the upcoming State of the Union. You might want to take a peek at this one…or listen in online via this C-Span link.

And if you are having difficulty getting through on the phone to your Senators, check out Jane’s handy fax list post here.

Armando is reporting at DKos that the Gang of 14 (according to Ed Henry at CNN) will be voting as a block to prevent a filibuster due to their decision that extraordinary circumstances do not exist on this nomination. More information in Armando’s DKos diary here. Am currently trying to chase down more information on this for everyone here.