Senate Votes 71-27 to Invoke Hagel Cloture

The United States Senate, after a successful Republican filibuster two weeks ago and the week-long holiday, voted to end debate and invoke cloture on Chuck Hagel's nomination for Defense Secretary. All that if left is for the Senate to hold a simple up or down vote on his nomination, and he will be confirmed.

With the first vote to invoke cloture failing by just one vote, I expected the second to be approved by at least  one or two extra votes, but I didn't expect it to receive the support of over one-third of Senate Republicans after their initial stand.

As I've written on before, I think the internal fight between tradition and conviction got to a lot of old guard GOP Senators, and with the trade-winds shifting towards confirmation, they erred on the side of tradition... Too bad the result will be one the least qualified and unprepared Defense Secretary's in the past 4 decades.

What say you?