Last night in the Senate, after Norm Coleman tried to kill the Fairness Doctrine, Mitch McConnell got the Gitmo vote in. From a Senate aide’s chronology:

GITMO At 7:22 p.m., The Senate, by a vote of 94-3, passed a McConnell amendment expressing the sense of the Senate that terrorists detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, shall not be transferred anywhere in the United States. In other words, except for Sens. Byrd, Sanders and Leahy, it is the Sense of the Senate that terrorists held at Gitmo NOT be sent to the U.S. for further detention. That’s good news for a community near you. PARDONS At 8:47 p.m., Sen. Salazar offered an amendment, #2356, a sense of the Senate that the President should not pardon Scooter Libby. Speaking on the floor, he said: “It is regrettable…that we are having to have these votes on these politically motivated amendments that are coming forward from the other side. It would be in the best interests of this institution and the American people to stop this and not to go forward with these kinds of amendments. But regrettably, if you’re going to shoot this way, we’ve got to shoot that way. And so I would ask my colleagues to send the Sense of the Senate to the United States President that he should not pardon Scooter Libby.” The Salazar amendment failed on a vote of 47-49 At 9:16 p.m., Sen. McConnell offered an amendment, #2357, “deploring the actions of former President William Jefferson Clinton regarding his granting of clemency to terrorists, to family members, donors and individuals represented by family members, to public officials of his own political party and to officials who violated laws protecting United States intelligence, and concluding that such actions by former President Clinton were inappropriate.” And at 9:30, before any vote could be taken, Sen. Reid asked that the vote on the Salazar amendment be vitiated (first time I’ve seen that happen) and stricken from the Record, and further that we not vote on the McConnell amendment. Both sides agreed. From another:

They’d done a vote condemning Bush for pardoning Libby. Total nonsense from Reid and Salazar. McConnell retaliated by proposing the Clinton condemnation vote, but before it couuld happen, Reid asked for the Salazar vote to be vitiated and stricken from the record, and McConnell agreed because he’d made his point. Reid looks like a complete idiot for allowing the Salazar/Libby vote at all. This man has no business running the US Senate.