the Brennan vote
Yes, Republican opponents to John Brennan’s nomination have nothing to crow about, given their Bush era legacy. Â And Democratic voters have nothing to crow about, given… their supposed opposition to things Brennan. Â Amuse yourself with the comments section at the dailykos.
And now to do what I like to do with these votes… delve into the roll call.
The only two Democrats to buck their President are Merkley of Oregon and Leahy of Vermont. Â Insanely enough, Wyden (fellow Rand Paul filibusterer) of Oregon voted yes. Â Wyden says he got the documents. Â Decide for yourself if this solves all Brennan problems.
If (quasi-Socialist) Sanders of Vermont had voted yes, I would have lost my mind… there aren’t party ties that bind him to Obama, are there? Â Luckily, he cast a no.
The challenging thing is to figure out the Republican nos and yehs and break-down. Â Because you have to stare and look into the vote blocs. Â It looks like Rand Paul led fellow Tea figures like Lee of Utah into the no camp —
, but after that…
Ayotte of New Hampshire is a surprise no vote, only because she has hewed to the hawkish group team of Graham and McCain (replacing Lieberman). But I suppose she falls in with half of the nay voters as “Democrat put him up, so no” as opposed to formulating civil libertarian reasoning.
Mr. McConnell was also careful to note that his own opposition to Mr. Brennan was due to concern that Mr. Brennan had been “a loyal, dogged defender of the administration’s policies—policies with which I seriously disagree.”
For filibuster purposes… Standing with Rand Paul are Rush Limbaugh and Code Pink.  No, the former makes no sense to me… there is a “If this were Bush” quality on him that doesn’t jibe.  And it is the “defending procedural prerogatives” for further implications to other Obama things that energizes him — ie:  It’s Partisan. And the challenge in looking over the Republican no voters are to differentiate policy and partisanship — McConnell will slide into one end, Paul the other.