The DEMs will pull every unethical stunt in the book to stall the inevitable. The committee vote will be party line. I think the committee rules are such that given unanimous opposition from one party, one DEM in the opposition can demand (and get) a one week delay in committee vote on the nomination. But if one DEM agrees to vote on the nomination, then the committee vote is held.
Either way, once out of committee, the debate on the floor of the Senate will be fully partisan by the usual suspects (Kennedy, Boxer, Reid, Durbin, Kerry, et al).
I haven't given any thought into whether any (or which) of the DEM committee members might be swayed to approve of the nominee, or agree to the chair's timing on taking the vote.
Boxer is more than likely at Kinkos already getting her posters ready for the floor 'fight'.
I just don't get it.
Does he think there's some sort of incipient backlash brewing back home?
That if he's forthright about his opinion-as Rush Limbaugh suggested-and goes out and declares that he refuses to vote for anyone but an avowed socialist, that it'll redound to his detriment?
That the GOP will nominate a sacrificial lamb that might get 20% of the vote next time, instead of merely 18%?
Is there some sort of arrangement with C-SPAN whereby he receives more air-time if he invents a posture of fairness, rather than being up front, and displaying the raging partisan lunatic that almost all of us know him to be?
Or is lying just such a compulsion for him that he can't avoid doing it, even when it's completely unnecessary?
Fox & Friends called every single democrat on the committee to invite them on this mornings show.....every single one of them refused the opportunity.
It kills me that I'm missing this! (Maybe I should take some time off...)