Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal is on a glide path to passage. With Olympia Snowe joining Scott Brown and Lisa Murkowski as fully supportive of the standalone bill, at least 61 votes are in hand, and Harry Reid filled the amendment tree to minimize any possibility of amendments. It will clear cloture tomorrow.

This is why [Senator Bob] Corker is turning to a separate measure to try and derail the bill. The segregationists did this with civil rights bills all the time. They would just threaten to take down something more cherished and pit the two bills against one another. You can see the seeds of this strategy in the fact that Republicans have offered no amendments in two days of debate on new START on the floor of the Senate. They're clearly slow-walking the bill so they can make this threat to kill it credible.