The Democrats finally did it. They acted to defeat Republican obstructionism by filibuster, changing the rules to allow simple majority votes to advance judicial and executive branch nominations.

Many Democrats had been very hesitant to act, fearing that the move would boomerang when Republicans won back control of the Senate and the White House. But they say the level of obstruction had gone too far, including the unsuccessful filibuster of the nomination of Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, as defense secretary.

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Democrats say Republicans have been so successful in slowing the Senate that there is little more they can do to paralyze the institution, part of the reason that Democrats were finally willing to make the change.

Senator Roger Vicker (R-Mississippi) gets my vote for Best Use of Selective Memory. He claimed that the Democrats’ rule change reminded him of the votes on the Affordable Care Act, conveniently forgetting that that law was discussed for more than a year in various committees and on the floor of the Senate, a year in which he and his Republican colleagues refused to vote for it even after many of their ideas to improve the law were discussed and some incorporated into it.