As the Senate voted on invoking cloture on "don't ask, don't tell," where, pray, was Blanche Lincoln? At the dentist's! Some time after the vote was completed and the result announced, she showed up on the Senate floor saying she’d like to be recorded as a yes, but by then, it was too late. This comes on the heels of her apparent success at getting the estate tax lowered so that Sam Walton’s kids (aggregate worth, the last time I looked, $36 billion) could save some dough. A fitting end to a despicable career. -- Harold Meyerson
