In a cloture vote, the Senate today voted by a 67-28 margin to cut off debate on the new START nuclear arms reduction treaty, displaying enough bipartisan support to ratify the treaty with a 2/3 majority tomorrow.

With new START and the continuing resolution out of the way, the only other big item left that the Senate would like to pass is the 9-11 health care bill. It appears that Tom Coburn will drag out passage of that bill, potentially killing it in the lame duck.

Jim DeMint decided against forcing a reading of the new START treaty on the floor of the Senate. He’s hilariously trying to spin this as a victory because Harry Reid delayed the opening of the debate one day.

Senator Richard Lugar wants the Senate to call his own party’s bluff on the new START arms reduction treaty, bringing it up for a vote in the lame duck session. He stood with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton yesterday, rebuking Senate Republicans for their stall tactics.

What planet is Lugar on? Currently, Republicans would rather lose Russian nuclear base inspections than ratify this treaty, and they’re using it to gain leverage for pork-barrel spending on nuclear weapons “modernization,” which has basically nothing to do with this treaty. If it wasn’t that, they’d hold it hostage for maintaining Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, or more sanctions on Iran, or giving the “state of Jesus” statehood, or any of a thousand other ideas.

Somewhere, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Karl Rove are probably gnashing their teeth that Valerie Wilson is continuing to work against their dream of a more militarized and antagonistic world.

I’ve always maintained that the Obama Administration deserves praise for their goal of eliminating nuclear weapons from the planet. Now we’re getting some tangible action on that front.