EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE PURGATORY

Since the Democrats voted against cloture on the Bolton nomination, the MSM has had to come up with some entertaining euphemisms for that move.

Among my favorites:

"Procedural delay"

"Forced postponement"

"Failed Republican effort to cut off debate"

Reid and the MSM can spin for eternity and that won't change the fact that the Dems voted to FILIBUSTER the Bolton nomination yesterday.

The Gang of Fourteen look like utter fools. Make that the Republican Gang of Seven. They were duped.

On Monday night, Lindsey Graham was basking in the afterglow of being one of the moderates that saved the country.

An excerpt from the statement he released:

"With better communication and a spirit of putting the country ahead of ourselves, I believe we can avoid future filibusters.

"We are a nation at war which desperately needs a functioning Senate. Our men and women in harms way deserve Senators with personal courage and respect fo the institution. They are risking their lives to defend our freedom and those of us in the Senate should have the courage to put the welfare of the country ahead of our own personal political interests. That's the least we should do."

Either Graham must believe the future doesn't go beyond 72 hours or he was dead wrong.

John McCain was all over TV, acting like he had been coronated the King of the
Senate, after putting together that "memorandum of understanding."

This was to be the dawn of a new era, a spirit of agreement. The fourteen moderates had pulled the Senate back from the precipice. They were the heroes.

All of their self-congratulatory crowing looks even more ridiculous in retrospect.

The reality is the Gang of Fourteen hijacked power from the Republican majority.

Of the seven moderate Democrats, only two voted to invoke cloture on the Bolton nomination, Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor.

Robert Byrd, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Ken Salazar all voted to filibuster. Daniel Inouye didn't vote at all.

If not for the seven Republican defectors, Dems would not be holding the Senate hostage right now.

When asked whether the Dems' vote to filibuster Bolton had undermined the new spirit of agreement, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas remarked with anger, "Well, John Bolton is in extraordinary-circumstance purgatory right now."

Thanks to John McCain, Lincoln Chafee, Susan Collins, Mike DeWine, Lindsey Graham, John Warner, and Olympia Snowe there was a power grab in the Senate, by the minority party.

The Republicans find themselves in EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE PURGATORY.