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On the day of the vote I want to see you in the front row. Keep your eye on the doorkeeper. If I don’t need your vote, Fishbait Miller will give you the sign and you’ll be free to vote your district.”…

…when Leo took his seat in the front row, he looked around and saw thirteen other guys that Sam had in his pocket in case he needed them. It wasn’t just Leo. The entire front row was sitting there and waiting for the nod from Fishbait Miller.

Tip O’Neill Man of the House 1988

Today is the day that Amy Coney Barrett will likely become Justice Barrett and the surest sign of this is the announcement that Susan Collins will be a “no” vote on the nomination:

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, took a veiled shot at her party’s leadership in the Senate on Sunday when she announced that she would be voting against the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

“Prior to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, I stated that, should a vacancy on the Supreme Court arise, the Senate should follow the precedent set four years ago and not vote on a nominee prior to the presidential election.,” Collins said in a statement.

She added: “Because this vote is occurring prior to the election, I will vote against the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.”

Collins you will remember was the key vote that put Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the court to the great outrage of the left and as the last national Republican left in New England has a huge target on her back.

So it’s quite Natural that Mitch McConnell having Mitt Romney as the 51st vote and knowing that her election may decide control of the Senate and wanting to give her whatever edge she can get gave her the high sign that her vote was not needed.

One of the reasons it’s not needed is that Lisa Murkowski while voting NO on the motion to end debate and bring Judge Barrett’s nomination to the floor announced that she will be a “Yes” on her confirmation once it gets there.

Today, Murkowski stated on the Senate floor that she will vote to confirm Barrett. She reiterated that, in her view, Republicans should not be holding a vote on Barrett before the presidential election. For this reason, she explained, she will oppose ending debate on the nomination — i.e., oppose having a vote on confirmation.

But once the vote occurs, Murkowski will vote in favor of confirming Barrett because the nominee is well qualified, and it’s not her fault that the process (in Murkowski’s view) is flawed.

This is a reversal from what she has said before and even acknowledes such:

Murkowski had initially said that she opposed voting on a nominee before the November election. Her vote in favor of Barrett all but ends any long shot hopes Democrats had of convincing some moderate and vulnerable Republicans to side against Barrett’s confirmation.

“I believe that the only way to put us back on the path of appropriate consideration of judicial nominees is to evaluate Judge Barrett as we would want to be judged: on the merits of her qualifications,” Murkowski said on the Senate floor Saturday afternoon.

One might wonder why Murkowski who voted against Kavanaugh would suddenly decide to vote for Barrett when her vote is not needed? The answer in two words: Sarah Palin:

“Walk back what you have already committed yourself to. You better backtrack. You know, you have already put yourself in this box saying no matter who it is, you’re not going to support the person, not until you have a chance to appoint a judicial nominee under another president instead of this one,” Palin said. “You’re hoping, what, that this president doesn’t win? Otherwise, you’d be cooperating with the president. Really, what it is is cooperating with the majority of Americans who know that it’s now or never for America.”

“So much hinges on the Supreme Court. You know the reason, you know why it’s so important, and that’s why you’re thinking you’re going to go rogue. You know, there’s a time and a place to go rogue. This isn’t the time, this isn’t the place. We sure hope you have it within you to do the right thing this time. So you should walk back,” Palin says, adding in a reference to her 2009 book “Going Rogue.”

“We’ll forgive you. Wait … we’ve done this how many times before, though? And we kept saying we’d forgive this? If you can’t do that, remember my house. I can see a lot of things from my house. … Lisa, I can see 2022 from my house,” Palin concluded, referring to the year Murkowski is up for reelection.

Palin suggested she didn’t want to run for the Senate but would do so if Murkowski voted against Barrett. As Sean Davis put it:

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1320103539465748481

The names and faces may change but the Fishbait Miller rules of Politics remain the same.

In 301 A.D., a stonemason and Christian named Marinus from a small Adriatic island fled the rantings of a woman gone mad claiming him as her husband, and founded a chapel and monastery on an Apennine mountain to live out his life as a hermit. Marinus became Saint Marinus, and the mountain grew into San Marino, the oldest extant independent sovereign state in the world.

Somehow, through centuries of Duchies and Popes, Borgias and Mussolinis, San Marino has retained its independence, with periods of brief occupation in 1503 and 1739. Even Napoleon never conquered the place. Wholly surrounded by Italy, the Sammarinese number less than 35,000 speak Romagnol and Italian, and are almost all Roman Catholic. And though never even a regional powerhouse, it must have done some things right for its flag to wave over Monte Titano through the centuries.

In fact, San Marino’s diplomatic maneuverings with the French tyrant Napoleon illustrate the wisdom that modern statesmen too often lack. In 1797, with Napoleon’s armies awash over Europe, advancing through northern Italy toward the San Marino’s longtime ally the Papal States, San Marino felt the growing pressure of both the rock and the hard place. The French demanded the arrest of the anti-French Bishop of Rimini. Showing the smiling duplicity essential to successful diplomats, Antonio Onofri, one of the two Captains Regent of San Marino – the offices vested with ruling authority over San Marino since 1243 – promised General Berthier San Marino would do all they could to help the French, even as the bishop fled across the border to safety.

But it was San Marino’s next decision that offers the real lesson. Napoleon was so impressed by Onofri and by San Marino, he sent his personal friend and emissary, the scientist Gasparre Monge, to San Marino with a letter that not only guaranteed its independence, but offered to extend San Marino’s borders – at the expense of San Marino’s neighboring Italian provinces.

San Marino, having befriended the great French conqueror, now had the chance to grow, to gain new land, new people, new riches. This is how the great grow ever greater, isn’t it?

The Captains Regent of the Most Serene Republic of San Marino turned Napoleon down. They would gain no new territory for their friendship. They wisely saw that Napoleon’s conquests might prove short-lived, and those he defeated might yet regain the advantage – and take their revenge on not only Napoleon, but Napoleon’s friends. By accepting Napoleon’s offer, the Captains Regent rightly saw it, perhaps as only the rulers of a state founded by a Catholic saint could, as a devil’s bargain: what might appear as San Marino’s triumph could by the very thing to risk its independence.

San Marino stayed content with its mountaintop, and today, after two more centuries of Italian revolutions, fascist takeovers, Nazi occupation, and communist infiltration, its borders remain unchanged since 1463, and San Marino remains independent.

Would any of our leaders today show such wisdom? To decline conquest, when tempted with it? Come Election Day, will any of the victors show the wisdom to know that, as the Eastern sage put it, “this too shall pass.”