A week ago the Senate Republican caucus sent a letter to Harry Reid telling him that they would not support acting on any legislation until the Congress vital business had been taken care of:

For that reason, we write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers. With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate’s attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike.

Well, that didn’t last long. Today Susan Collins continued her career long practice of duplicity by reneging on her agreement with her caucus and voting for cloture on the pressing subject of legalizing buggery in the Armed Forces. A vote that failed.

As DrewM notes over at Ace of Spades:

For some reason, Reid decided he’d cut off the negotiations and call up the bill. Collins showed up on the floor to ask Reid what was going on considering she seemed to think they were close to a deal. Reid basically told her to stuff it and moved to the vote.

[…]

Wow, Collins votes Aye. Reid tells her to go to hell and she says, “Thank you for that informative suggestion, I will do just that!”

The problem with our moderates is not only that they don’t believe in anything not even in the sanctity of their own pledge to their caucus.