The hawkish Senators’ lack of success is noticeable as the three men are seen as as some of the most influential Senators on foreign policy and national security. But their efforts to roll out a piece of bipartisan legislation pressuring the White House’s hand on diplomacy with Iran has found few allies across the aisle. Sens. Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA) reportedly signed onto the legislation and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is rumored to be on board. But Senate Democrats are concerned that the resolution “would be seen as creeping toward an authorization of military force against Iran,” reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton.

A Senate aid denied that characterization of the legislation and emphasized that it is not an authorization of military action and leaves the option of further negotiations.

However a statement last month from Graham and Lieberman stated, in no uncertain terms, that they would support a bipartisan resolution explicitly opposing containment. The statement read:

When it comes to addressing the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, all options must be on the table — except for one, and that is containment. [...] Containment is failure, and failure cannot be an option.

Neither U.S. intelligence officials nor the IAEA have concluded that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon.

Indeed the IAEA has stated concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program but senior U.S. intelligence officials have expressed support for ongoing sanctions and diplomacy.

Efforts to press Obama to employ the “military option” continue to be discussed in Washington but the partisan divide between those urging action — be it in Congress or outside pressure groups — and those pursuing diplomacy and sanctions is becoming increasingly distinct as Republicans seek to portray the President as weak on national defense and foreign policy.

Though this is a higher pollution kind of fuel that comes from this area of Canada, the question is, are we going to get to use it in America or is it going to be sold to China? I want it to come to America but I want it to come in way where the pipeline is built so it doesn’t have bad environmental consequences throughout this country. I support what the president did because there is a little more time necessary for the environmental reviews to be done. But I hope it doesn’t take long, because we need fuel from wherever we can get it here in the United States in a way that doesn’t destroy our environment, and this is probably one way.

Watch it:

Expansion of tar sands development in Canada in line with the 50-year lifespan of the Keystone XL pipeline would guarantee environment-destroying global warming. The purpose of the pipeline is to ship Canadian tar sands crude to Gulf Coast refineries for tax-free export to foreign markets. The Keystone XL pipeline means higher pollution for America and higher profits for foreign oil companies.

Gen. Martin Dempsey

Perhaps taking their cues from Congress or neocon websites, GOP presidential candidates long ago settled on a battle cry against President Obama’s national security record: the almost universal theme that the President should do to what the generals tell him. Texas governor Rick Perry said it about Afghanistan and Iraq. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said it about reinstating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (many generals were for the repeal). Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said he would do what the generals want on Afghanistan, before backing down. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich went the other way, reversing his support for civilian control in favor of wondering why Obama “overrule(d) all his generals.”

But during a press availability while traveling in Saudia Arabia, the top U.S. military officer sang a different tune, using harsh language to describe the talking point about deferring national security and war decisions to the generals. Asked about the line, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said:

I’ll probably make news with this but I find some of those articles about divergence or control of the generals to be kind of offensive to me.

And here’s why. One of the things that makes us as a military profession in a democracy is civilian rule. Our civilian leaders are under no obligation to accept our advice; and that’s what it is. Its advice. It’s military judgments, it’s alternatives, it’s options. And at the end of the day, our system is built on the fact that it will be our civilian leaders who make that decision and I don’t find that in any way to challenge my manhood, nor my position. In fact, if it were the opposite, I think we should all be concerned.

Dempsey isn’t the first top military officer to tell politicians about the chain-of-command recently. This summer, the last two Joint Chiefs chairmen, Gen. David Petraeus, since retired and leading the CIA, and the now-retired Admiral Michael Mullen, explained the concept in hearings on Capitol Hill.

“I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration,” Obama said. “We don’t compromise when it comes to Israel’s security … and that will continue.”

It should come as no surprise that the right-wing pro-Israel types who believe Obama hates Israel immediately began to hyperventilate. “[N]o one, not [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu nor most American Jews, is fooled by Obama’s boasting,” Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin wrote today.

While Netanyahu has refused to weigh in publicly on this issue, his defense chief has. “I can hardly remember a better period” of American support for Israel, Israeli Defense Minster Ehud Barak said in August. Just last month, Barak said of Obama, “I don’t think that anyone can raise any question mark about the devotion of this president to the security of Israel.” Another Israeli official has said that U.S.-Israeli cooperation on Iran intelligence is “even better than under President Bush.” Even Bush administration hawk Eliott Abrams agreed that “it’s the best military-to-military relationship ever.”

And when asked on Fox News this morning about Obama’s comment, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said “it is true”:

LIEBERMAN: I will say first that Israel has been fortunate that presidents and members of Congress of both parties, by and large have been very strong supporters of the security of the state of Israel because of our alliance and our shared values in democracy and all the rest. It is true, and you’ll hear this from a lot of Israeli leaders, that President Obama has been very good on supporting Israel’s military and its security.

Watch it:

“Clearly the Obama administration remains deeply committed to the U.S.-Israel alliance,” AIPAC spokesman Josh Block said last year, “and supporting aid to Israel and deepening our military cooperation is just one aspect of that.”

“The truth is that this administration was committed to the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and they made it happen,” McCain said, not hiding his displeasure. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta then had to remind McCain that Iraq is a democracy, it’s their country, and ultimately the decision wasn’t entirely the president’s and that the administration would not accept a deal in which U.S. troops staying past 2011 were not given legal immunity:

PANETTA: Senator McCain, that’s just simply not true. I guess you can believe that and I respect your beliefs…but that’s not how it happened. This is about negotiating with a sovereign country. An independent country, this was about their needs. This is not about us telling them what we’re going to do for them or what they’re going to have to do. … This is about their country making a decision as to what is necessary here. [...]

This is a country where you could very well be engaging in combat operations. If you’re going to engage in those kind of operations, you’re going to engage in CT operations, you absolutely have to have immunities and those immunities have to be granted by a SOFA agreement. I was not about to have our troops go there in place without those immunities.

Panetta also had to remind Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who expressed hope that the Iraqis would grant U.S. troops immunity before the withdrawal deadline. “Again I would stress to you Senator Lieberman,” Panetta said, “It’s got to be a two way street.” Later in the hearing, committee chair Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) tried to clear up all the confusion:

LEVIN: Did Iraq ever request U.S. trainers or other troops remain in Iraq after December 31 and if so in what number did they request and were they willing to grant legal protection, immunity to our troops?

PANETTA: There was no such request. …

Watch the clips:

According to a leaked August 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks recounting the Senators’ junket, the neoconservative Connecticut Senator captured the dynamic of aligning with a brutal dictator:

Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.

Qaddafi’s history as a top enemy of the U.S. stretched back decades, but his change of heart came quickly after the U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretense of Saddam Hussein’s development of weapons of mass destruction. Hawks seized on Libya’s détente with the West as a sign that Bush’s tough actions in Iraq were having a ripple effect, though patently not, as Iraq War boosters had predicted, with regard to democratic reforms. “We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qaddafi,” said Lieberman, according to the leaked cable.

The three Senate hawks discussed in detail the Qaddafi regime’s security needs with Libyas National Security Adviser, Qaddafi’s son Muatassim. According to the cable:

5.(C) Senator McCain assured Muatassim that the United States wanted to provide Libya with the equipment it needs for its [a Libyan security program]. He stated that he understood Libya’s requests regarding the rehabilitation of its eight C130s [a transport plane] and pledged to see what he could do to move things forward in Congress. He encouraged Muatassim to keep in mind the long-term perspective of bilateral security engagement and to remember that small obstacles will emerge from time to time that can be overcome.

At another point, McCain and Graham reiterated pledges to push to fulfill the Qaddafi regime requests at the Pentagon and on the Hill:

Senators McCain and Graham conveyed the U.S. interest in continuing the progress of the bilateral relationship and pledged to try to resolve the C130 issue with Congress and Defense Secretary Gates.

But 18 months later, Qaddafi reacted to mass protests by mobilizing his military, bringing down international condemnation and, in just a few short weeks, a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force. The U.S. and it’s allies in NATO and elsewhere rained down bombs to hold Qaddafi’s forces at bay as rebels organized a coherent opposition council. As the rebels went on the offensive, Western and allied bombers lent them air support with surveillance and tactical bombings.

When suddenly — as if Qaddafi’s repression had emerged from out of the blue — McCain and his clique returned to their perches as the staunchest advocates of U.S. military action in Liyba, taking to the airwaves to lament the U.S.’s mere three-week delay to build international consensus and calling for arming the Libyan rebels.

Just as the political winds around Qaddafi seemed to determine the senators’ stand — for him when it was convenient as a win for the Bush administration, and against him when the uprising began and in the month it took to rally the Security Council — McCain and Graham took a curious political shot at Obama just as Qaddafi’s regime crumbled. In a statement, they thanked everyone but the U.S. Starting with the Libyans themselves, they went on to

also commend our British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE, for their leadership in this conflict. Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.

One wonders if August 2009 was too soon to press Qaddafi on the well-being of his people: there’s no hint of democratic reforms, or indeed the Libyan people, in the WikiLeaks cable.

HANNITY: I worry about the President. I didn’t feel he treated the prime minister [of Israel] correctly, when he came to town the first time. I didn’t like when he sprung on him, they got to go back to ’67 borders. I wanted to get your thoughts.

LIEBERMAN: I agree with you. I think the President is not anti-Israel. I think he’s pro-Israel but I think he’s handled the relationship with Israel in a way that has encouraged Israel’s enemies and really unsettled the Israelis. Because the Israelis have one really good friend in the world, it’s us, it’s natural and of course, they are very loyal to us too.

But when the President of the United States acts in a way that makes the Israelis wonder whether we are for them. Really what it does is to discourage them from taking the risk that they would ever have to take to have a peace agreement with the Palestinians or anybody else.

Watch the video:

It’s unclear why Lieberman didn’t like Obama’s 1967 borders statement. Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t see any problem with it. And Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said recently that the President’s critics had misrepresented what he said. “I should tell you honestly that the President didn’t say that Israel should go back to the borders of ’67,” Barak said.

But Lieberman is no stranger to attacking Obama using right-wing inspired baseless charges that the President is anti-Israel. Perhaps that’s why he said yesterday that he’s considering voting Republican in 2012.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) also opposed sending Ford to Syria. “I felt that dispatching an ambassador to Damascus would be a mistake given [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad’s failure to alter any of his outrageous policies,” Lieberman writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today. But now, Lieberman has changed his mind and is calling on the Senate to finally confirm Ford. He explains why:

Rather than being an envoy to Assad, Mr. Ford is now first and foremost our ambassador to the Syrian people and a bridge to the democratic transition they demand. This is a role for which Mr. Ford—an innovative and tough diplomat with extensive experience in the Middle East—is uniquely well-suited.

The ambassador’s important and powerful visit last month to the city of Hama — where peaceful protesters had seized control, but where Syrian forces now are engaged in a gruesome campaign of violence — was an example of the kind of forward-leaning, gutsy diplomacy that our Syria policy now needs. It was also a powerful reminder that, while we cannot dictate the outcome of the struggle in Syria, U.S. leadership is pivotal –and Amb. Ford provided it.

Indeed, Ford told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that he needs to be in Syria for exactly the reason that Lieberman laid out. “It’s really important now to give Syrians an ear and to amplify their voices especially when the international media is barred from Syria,” he said, adding, “I think we owe it to them to remain supportive and it try to build that support wisely.” U.S. officials said Ford’s contacts there are “the most important sources of information in assessing the Syrian scene.”

Ford has drawn wide praise from analysts here in the U.S., and even from the Syrian pro-democracy activists themselves, for his dramatic visit to Hama last month. And like Lieberman, it has caused some to rethink their view that the United States should not have an ambassador in Syria. Yet the neocons remain unconvinced. Last month, the Foreign Policy Initiative called on Obama to recall Ford from Damascus.

Lieberman told Fox News Sunday:

We’re [in Afghanistan] because we were attacked from here on 9/11. If we don’t succeed here and the Taliban comes back into power we’ll be attacked again. And there could be no greater threat to our security and our freedom, the freedom we celebrate on July 4th.

Watch the video:

Lieberman’s conflation of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and his dire warnings about a resurgent terrorist threat from within Afghanistan’s borders are in direct contradiction with the White House’s position that Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is no longer a threat to the U.S. A senior administration official told Business Insider:

There is no indication at all that there is any effort within Afghanistan to use Afghanistan as a launching pad to carry out attacks outside of Afghan borders.

And CIA Director Leon Panetta told ABC News:

I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaeda [in Afghanistan] is actually relatively small. At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. It’s in that vicinity. There’s no question that the main location of Al Qaeda is in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

While Lieberman is quick to throw around the threat of a terrorist attack as grounds for criticizing the president’s troop drawdown timetable, consistent reports about the diminishing presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan undermine his sensationalist warnings.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who has advocated for “retir(ing) our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table” for Iran and made sure then-Defense Secretary nominee Leon Panetta has a plan for attacking, warned the Islamic Republic that a “day of reckoning” was ahead:

I would say that a day of reckoning is coming for this extremist regime in Iran, when a majority of Iranians who really yearn for freedom can see this dream come true. And I hope we do everything we can to make this happen as soon as possible.

The platitudes about helping freedom-seeking Iranians would mean a lot more if actual Iranian human rights and democracy advocates agreed with Lieberman. Instead, they say that an attack would be disastrous for them and that, indeed, the U.S.’s shifting away from belligerent rhetoric helped open up a political space in Iran.

Lieberman’s close ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also didn’t seem to get some regional dynamics in the Iran-Iraq relationship. When asked about Iran’s alleged support for the Taliban, Graham said:

I think people need to understand why Iran is doing this. The biggest nightmare for the Ayaltollahs in Iran is democracies on their borders in Iraq and Afghanistan. …Their biggest nightmare is that the Arab spring is successful. I hope the president will condemn this and put Iran on warning that you’re not going to get away with this.

Watch the video of Graham and Lieberman on Fox News Sunday:

Graham’s characterization of Iran’s involvement in Iraq only captures a small bit of the picture: There may be involvement with Shia militas, but most of Iran’s political clout in Iraq comes from its contacts with the Shia majority that was empowered with the fall of Saddam Hussein. Take, for example, Ahmad Chalabi, the exiled politician who, after cozying up to Washington hawks like Lieberman and Graham, was paid millions of dollars by the State Department and the C.I.A. to provide the faulty intelligence that was used to sell the war in America. Chalabi was later accused by U.S. forces of spying for Iran.

Again in Graham’s case, turning to actual Iranian human rights advocates is instructive. Late last year, Iranian human rights lawyer and now-exiled dissident Shirin Ebadi told CAP’s Matt Duss that the Iraq War was a great example of why not to attack Iran. Noting that Iran’s “Green movement is the Iranian peoples’ movement” and that change “must come from inside Iran,” Ebadi added:

You paid money, Iraqis died, and Iran has benefited. Saddam was Iran’s enemy that was removed by the U.S., (and Iran’s power and influence has been increased as a result).

Are Chalabi-backers like Lieberman and people with shaky understandings of regional dynamics like Graham really the ones whose advice the president ought to take on what to do about Iran?

LIEBERMAN: Iraq which we thought we had lost not so long ago, now looks like to me like a success. I’d say, I’d use the word victory because I’m, you know, I’m old fashioned. But victory there means that most of the Iraqis are living free self-sufficient lives. The economy is thriving. They have a cultural life, recreational life.

And they’re defending themselves. But as we see in the paper, extremists, Islamic extremists will continue to blow themselves and other people in Iraq up, and so the victory is not going to be as satisfying as it’s been in other conflicts we’ve been involved in but it is a victory over what could’ve been there and what could’ve been and was actually in Afghanistan not so long ago.

Watch it:

Aside from the fact that using the word “victory” or “winning” is something even Gen. David Petraeus is “loathed” to do when referring to Iraq or Afghanistan, it’s odd that Lieberman would say the U.S. has won, given the grim news that this month has marked the deadliest 30 days for U.S. troops there in three years.

And while the Iraqi economy is growing, that hasn’t translated to rising employment. The unemployment rate there is anywhere from 18-23 percent, with underemployment upwards of 43 percent. But if Iraqis aren’t worrying about jobs, they’re worrying about security too. The Iraqi government reported today that 271 Iraqis were killed this month in hostilities, the highest in months.

But to Lieberman, all this looks like “victory,” which is perhaps why he couched his terminology, saying, “The victory is not going to be as satisfying as it’s been in other conflicts.”

The most striking provision is No. 4, and it’s part of the the reason why House and Senate Democratic leadership have already dismissed the plan as “a bad idea” and “unacceptable.” And for good reason. As the Incidental Economist’s Aaron Carroll explains, life expectancy is a fairly complicated measurement that varies drastically across geographical and economic lines. Any proposal that increases the program’s eligibility age would disproportionately affect people in both the poorest states and lowest income brackets:

But the other obvious problem is the cost shift to seniors: increasing monthly premiums would force beneficiaries to pay more at a time when they’re just scraping by. According to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute, half of seniors “had income lower than $22,000 in 2010; 25 percent had income lower than $13,000. Only five percent had incomes above $85,000.” Their savings aren’t any better: “half of seniors have savings less than $50,000; a quarter have less than $8,400 money set aside. Ten percent had more than half a million dollars, half of those people had a million dollars or more.”

The problem is that even if you ask seniors to pay more, health care spending would still continue to rise unsustainably — it’s just that individual beneficiaries rather than the federal government would be footing more of the bill.

This is not guesswork on our part; there’s clear evidence in the literature. In several papers, Michael McWilliams and colleagues found that utilization, spending, and outcomes for age-eligible Medicare beneficiaries differed for those who had been uninsured prior to turning 65 vs. those who had been insured. Their work was based on survey data, sometimes merged with Medicare claims. This is a relatively strong analytic approach since it exploits a discontinuity in coverage that potentially applies to nearly all individuals: the vast majority of the population enrolls in Medicare at age 65.

The authors found that, relative to those with insurance before age 65, those without insurance prior to Medicare eligibility spent much more money on health care after they became Medicare eligible. In other words, people wait to get care until their Medicare kicks in. This is bad both for health and for the federal government’s bottom line.

Delaying Medicare even longer would likely make this worse. People would forego care longer, health would suffer, and Medicare would pay for the consequences later.

Look:

As Frakt and Carroll point out, “If you know you need care, and it’s expensive, then you will likely try and wait until the Medicare kicks in to get it. People do this all the time; the evidence above confirms it.”

As you’ll recall, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) supported lowering the Medicare eligibility age before he opposed the Medicare buy-in, but now he’s now proposing raising that age to stabilize the program:

First, I will propose raising the Medicare eligibility age every year starting in 2014 by two months until it reaches 67 in 2025. [...]

Second, I will propose reforming the complex Medicare benefit structure, which is wasteful, misunderstood by nearly all Medicare enrollees and prone to over-utilization and fraud. [...].

Third, it is time to reform the premium structure. When Medicare was designed, the premiums paid by beneficiaries supported 50 percent of the program. Today they pay only 25 percent of total costs. [...] I will propose that we raise the premiums for all new enrollees in Part B (doctor’s services) and Part D (prescriptions) starting in 2014 to 35 percent of program costs.

Fourth, we need to reform the way Medigap policies work. Many studies have found that Medicare enrollees who have supplemental coverage use as much as 25 percent more services than those with only traditional Medicare coverage. [...]

Fifth, we cannot keep Medicare working for seniors by only reducing benefits or making adjustments to the premium structure. We also need to raise more revenue. I will propose that higher-income Americans pay an additional 1 percent of every dollar they earn over $250,000 to help save the program.

Lieberman argues that he doesn’t support privatizing the Medicare program like Paul Ryan proposes, but it’s worth pointing out that raising the Medicaire eligibility age would effectively force Americans between 64 and 65 years of age to purchase coverage from private insurers in the state-based exchanges (after 2014). As a recent study from the Kaiser Family Foundation points out, this would “result in an estimated net increase of $5.6 billion in out-of-pocket costs for 65- and 66-year-olds, and $4.5 billion in employer retiree health-care costs.” The influx of older people into the exchanges would increase premiums by 3 percent in the exchanges and Medicare Part B, the study concluded.

And the savings themselves are slim. According to the Congressional Budget Office, “this option would have little effect on the trajectory of Medicare’s long-term spending…because younger beneficiaries are healthier and thus less costly than the program’s average beneficiary.” Even if policy makers increase the age to 70 in 2043, “outlays for Medicare would rise to 7.7 percent of GDP by 2050.”

The other big problem with Lieberman’s plan — even among potentially good ideas like changing the benefit structure — is that it doesn’t try to improve the efficiency of Medicare by expanding the delivery reforms in the Affordable Care Act or reducing some of the other cost overruns in the program. That’s where some of the big savings could eventually come from and they provide a far more sustainable solution to stabilizing the program than asking beneficiaries to pay more.

LIEBERMAN: As President Obama has said, all options have to remain on the table. I wanted to ask you whether, as secretary of defense, you will consider it one of your responsibilities to have credible military plans to strike and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities if the President as commander-in-chief decides it is necessary to use that option?

As if to humor the Senator from Connecticut, Panetta noted that President Obama has said that all options are on the table, and “that would obviously require appropriate planning.” Watch it:

In September, Lieberman delivered a major foreign policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations where he re-hashed the same arguments he used to push for the Iraq war and then glossed over the negative impact of the invasion and occupation. Lieberman’s argument at the time was to get over talking about “options” and do some real threatening. “It’s time to send a message,” Lieberman said. “We will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability — by peaceful means if we possibly can, but with military force if we absolutely must.”

Lieberman also teamed up with group of senators last winter to send a letter to Obama urging him against making any deal with Iran that would allow continued nuclear enrichment on Iranian soil. The position renders negotiations with Iran moot, since domestic enrichment is considered a right by Iran, an overwhelmingly popular stance even across sharply-divided political factions.

Aside from all the negative consequences of attacking Iran, IPS reported yesterday that former CentCom commander Retired Adm. William Fallon criticized the kind of rhetoric Lieberman is espousing, saying it serves as an obstacle to engagement with Iran. “The problem was and still is…this incessant focus on conflict, conflict, conflict,” he said, adding, “We ought to be working pretty hard to focus on other things that would put us in a different place.”

The vote on the National Defense Authorization Act failed after days of negotiations between Collins and Reid on the number of amendments that would be offered under a “reasonable” framework of debate. Talks appeared to break down this afternoon as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the floor without first notifying Collins. Reid addressed the negotiations of the last several days, claiming that Republicans kept changing the goal posts. He had offered Collins 15 amendments — 10 from Republicans and 5 from Democrats — with an hour of debate for each, but she insisted on more time.

Following Reid’s remarks, Collins took to the floor and explained that she felt “perplexed” by Reid’s motion. She claimed that the two had been close to a deal and that he was now reneging on that agreement by filling up the tree, a technique that takes-up all the available slots for amendments on legislation in order to block competing amendments. Her main complaint appeared to be that Republicans would not be able to choose their own “relevant amendments” to the bill, while Reid insisted that both parties had to reach an agreement on “what some of the amendments would be.” During the roll-call, Collins initially voted against cloture but then suddenly changed her vote after talking to Sens. Lieberman and Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Unfortunately, she was unable to bring along Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) or other moderate Republicans who had signaled that they would proceed to the measure. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was the only Democrat to vote “no,” while Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) missed the vote but announced that she would have voted to proceed to the measure.

Watch a compilation of today’s floor activity:

It’s unclear when the Senate will bring up the stand-alone measure, but Lieberman told reporters that the legislation will mirror the language in the Defense Authorization Bill and could be brought up as soon as today.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) also took to the Senate floor to condemn the Senate’s failure and reiterated his pledge to work through the holidays to pass the bill before the end of the year. “I’m willing to stay through the holidays to debate it as a stand-alone measure,” he said. “The vote that we just had means that we won’t have a debate on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”