That 56-43 vote on Tuesday’s Defense Authorization Bill troubled me. Four votes down, the senate Democrats must have known this motion for cloture would not succeed. And if so, they would have essentially intended it to fail, by loading it with all its perverse, non-defense provisions: adding taxpayer funded abortion on military bases to its nightmarish DREAM proposal, to repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” So odd, to go through this exercise, of inflaming the country yet again, so close to the General Election, just to cause a bill necessary for funding the American military to fail.