Sen. Lincoln Chafee announced this morning that he has become irrelevant. He said that he will vote for Judge Alito and then he will vote against him.
In other words, Chafee promised to vote for Alito if there is a filibuster, essentially ensuring that Alito gets confirmed, and then on the floor vote, where everyone and their mom knows that Alito has the votes, Chafee will vote against Alito. There is no other way to make yourself irrelevant than to play both sides. And this wasn't the first time. Don't you remember when Chafee voted to end debate on the Energy bill and ensured its passage and then, oh so ceremoniously voted against it?
For the record, Democratic Senator Jack Reed has said that he will vote to filibuster Alito and vote against Alito. Can we please have 2 Senators who share this view?
Chafee's gutless performance leaves no doubt that he is fine with letting the conservative Republican majority run Congress and America into the ground and taking a few ceremonial stands of opposition to throw a few crumbs to the average Rhode Islander.
I firmly believe that George W. Bush won the US elections of 2004 because he projected confidence, strength and vision. He said, "The War on Terror? You know where I stand." And people in fact did know where he stood. People don't like wafflers or flip-flops and the Rove camp was able to dump this labe onto John Kerry - perhaps deservably so. And now Linc Chafee - the supposedly principled independent - has just become a pawn of politics and hasn't taken a principled stand since he voted for George W. Bush's father in defiance of the President. That was awhile ago, Linc.