Kerry Urges Alito Filibuster, but His Reception Is Cool

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts could not attend the Senate debate on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Thursday. He was in Davos, Switzerland, hobnobbing with international business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum.

But late Thursday afternoon, Mr. Kerry began calling fellow Democratic senators in a quixotic, last-minute effort for a filibuster to stop the nomination.

Democrats cringed and Republicans jeered at the awkwardness of his gesture, which almost no one in the Senate expects to succeed.

David D. Kirkpatrick

An unofficial tally of votes posted on Free Republic shows about 70 yes votes for cloture on any filibuster of Alito. At Democratic Underground, there was dancing in the cyber-streets until Democrat after Democrat came forward to announce they would not support Senator F'ing Kerry in his windmill tilting. The mood there suddenly took a very glum turn. One FReeper has dubbed Kerry a "gutless turd" for calling for the filibuster from a ski resort in Switzerland. Kerry's only vocal supporter on this is Teddy "Splash" Kennedy. Could there be any more eloquent example of just how far "Turd" Kerry and "Splash" Kennedy are from reality in the rest of America?