It has that mysterious power to cloud your mind sometimes. And today's debate was entirely miss-able. (Entirely) Even John Kerry was bored with it and didn't really want to speak, but did so out of obligation. (Heck, he filed the rest of his speech at the desk and said, "Screw this. If you folks don't know the arguments by now, you're just not paying attention and I can't help you."
Cloture means cutting off debate, eventually. (Well, if you cut off debate then you might get 30 more hours, you might not. I think there's this big wheel in the back cloakroom somewhere and they spin it and whatever number it lands on is how many more hours you get to talk after cloture is invoked.) Unless you don't. (Cuz sometimes cloture means debate stops and we vote.) Now pay attention, this gets weird.
Sen. Frist is extremely upset that cloture wasn't invoked and the scintillating Senate debate about John Bolton gets to go on. (Does Amnesty International know about this? I secretly think they tape Senate debates with Lamar and Allen in them and play them for prisoners. Torture indeed.) Sen. Frist is pissed that the Dems are filibustering the Bolton nomination. (He's so pissed that he voted FOR cloture. Ahm, because he could? I don't know why. He was tired? He forgot he was a Rethug? He decided to show some spine to the White House? You got me.)
The Dems claim they are not filibustering the Bolton nom, because they are waaaay too sweet to do that just 2 days after the whole judicial nuclear option thing happened. So they are technically, technically filibustering, but they are deriving no joy from it and promise to stop it as soon as the White House stops being pissy and comes across with the NSA intercepts.
Sen. Frist has decided that he has had enough of this filibuster stuff and has decided to bring up the Rethug Judges from Hell for early June and is filing cloture motions on them as a pre-emptive measure. (You have to file a notice of a vote for cloture 24 hours in advance of the vote. Cuz it's the Senate and if it was easy anyone could do it.) So, when the Dems get back they can look forward to angry Rethugs accusing them of filibustering Bolton and the actual threat of having to confirm Rethug horrors as Judges and going through cloture votes on them. (And the Mod Squad promised that they wouldn't filibuster because it messes up the furniture and stuff.) And they are filibustering Bolton (shhhhh!) only they don't actually mean it. Clear? And Sen. Frist voted AGAINST cloture today, then had a big hissy fit cause cloture failed. They need a vacation.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00129