Cantwell votes Yea on political expediency

As I was watching the news tonight, I was not surprised to hear that our two United States senators split on whether to confirm John Roberts as the next SCOTUS Chief Justice. However, I was quite surprised to see the roles of level-headed, fair-minded liberal and unmoving, shrill-partisan liberal reversed on this vote. Generally, on the somewhat rare circumstance when Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray split, you can count on Cantwell to be the one who busts the party line for the sake of common sense. However, today was one of those even rarer circumstances when it was Murray who did what's right over many in her party's objections. Democrats were split roughly 50/50 on voting for and against Roberts, with the Nay votes mostly coming from the left wing of the caucus. That's Murray's territory, not the supposed DLC-loving mainstream Cantwell, but today Murray voted to confirm Roberts and Cantwell voted to reject. It isn't difficult to tell which one of them is up for reelection next year, is it? Sadly, I also saw that my favourite Senate Democrat also was voting for political expediency on this as well. I know Evan Bayh needs to drift left to win the 2008 Democratic nomination, but it's still disappointing. Considering the type of judge President Bush has the potential of appointing, i'm happy to say John Roberts provides a huge sigh of relief. Let's just hope he'll go a similar route for Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement.