Noted in passing

I gave up following AmericaBlog a while back. It started two years ago when chief wanker John Aravosis slashed John Kerry for saying he would filibuster the nomination of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. JohnA, as I commented at the time,

says [he] wants Alito to "go down in flames" but refuses to use the one tool now available to try to light the fire, instead melting into a fetid puddle of trembling goo at the first breath of the word "obstructionist."

In his post, he demanded to know how the attempt to filibuster Alito would benefit the Democrats. Besides regarding that consideration as "amoral," I said it would do so

[b]y showing they stand for something, dammit! By showing some backbone. By showing there are some things they will go to the mat for instead of walking away from the fight, muttering yet again "wait until next time."

Despite initial appearances, this excursion into what might seem ancient history actually is relevant. Y'see, I do still check out AmericaBlog from time to time and in doing so today, I discovered that this very model of an inside-the-Beltway blogger had just had a serious Aha! moment. Responding to Bush's assertion that he was going to ignore the Congressional prohibition against establishing permanent bases in Iraq, JohnA said:

Why don't we all just go home now. ... So seriously, why are we here? If you guys aren't going to defend yourselves, how can we count on you to defend the country? ...

And they wonder why they keep getting screwed. Oh yeah, it's because we don't have 60 votes in the Senate. Uh huh. Does anyone really believe that once we get 60 Democratic Senators in the Senate suddenly the Dems will grow a spine? Please. Come back next year when the Republicans still filibuster, still offer horrendous legislation taking away our most basic and most sacred rights, and the Dems still join them. Then they'll tell us if we just had 70 Democratic Senators...

Well, welcome to the real world, JohnA, the one where some of us have been complaining about spinelessness for some time. I don't expect you to stay long since it's a place where $75,000 a year ain't chump change, but you're welcome back any time.