"Filibluster" Fails

The Swiss Miss "filibluster" has failed. Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the left being in earnest:

The Republican-led Senate on Monday defeated a Democratic bid to block Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito -- clearing the way for confirmation of the 55-year-old conservative who could move the high court to the right.

The needed 60 votes were mustered in the 100-member Senate to approve a motion to end debate on President Bush's nominee. A confirmation vote is set for Tuesday. Alito has a commitment from a required simple majority to be approved. (The vote was 72-25 -HC, and included Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid voting for cloture, before voting against it.)

Actually, the weeping and gnashing had started even before the vote today. Just look at these emails received by James Taranto from Democrats.com:

If we lose the cloture vote on Monday at 4:30 p.m., the Senate will vote at 11 a.m. on Tuesday to put Sam Alito on the Supreme Court with Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts--where they will vote in lockstep to ensure that the extremist agenda of the radical right is never blocked by any Court.

And what is that agenda? It is no longer a mystery: allowing a President to start illegal wars, murder civilians and journalists, destroy cities, torture prisoners, lock away citizens at home, and wiretap every email and call in the world. Having the Supreme Court choose Presidents, not the voters. Letting corporations crush their workers and poison the planet. And, of course, outlawing all abortions, even at the cost of women's lives.

A follow-up came early Saturday morning:

Naturally, the White House freaked out and told Senator Bill Frist to schedule a cloture vote as quickly as possible--Monday at 4:30 p.m.--to prevent Democrats from uniting behind Kerry.

Then the White House called its media whores at the NY Times (David Kirkpatrick), AP (Jesse Holland), Pentagon Post (Charles Babington), CNN (Miles O'Brien), and MSNBC (Chris Matthews) and told them to trash John Kerry for daring to challenge the will of Emperor Bush, and to repeat over and over that Democrats did not have enough votes to stop Alito.

The Friday e-mail also urged wavering Dems to use wounded soldiers as political props:

Three Democrats--Ben Nelson (NE), Tim Johnson (SD), and Robert Byrd (WV)--plan to vote for Alito.

Three Democrats have said publicly they oppose Alito, but also oppose a filibuster--Mary Landrieu (LA), Ken Salazar (CO), and Dianne Feinstein (CA).

We must give these six Democrats two choices: (1) change their position to support a Democratic filibuster, or (2) spend Monday away from the Senate--preferably at Walter Reed Hospital talking to soldiers who have been maimed for life by the criminal actions of George Bush.

In other words, the left, which has no use for our soldiers in combat, thinks it perfectly okay to use our wounded heros for props in the Supreme Court battle.

For more entertaining lefty reaction, you can look here (but be forewarned, they're a pretty uncivilized bunch). The vote is scheduled for 11am EST Tuesday, swearing in will probably be soon after, and new Associate Justice Alito should be sitting in the front row for tomorrow night's State of the Union.