If you look at the description of yesterday afternoon's U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote Number 278 ("A bill to amend title 28, United States Code, to clarify and improve certain provisions relating to the removal of litigation against Federal officers or agencies to Federal courts, and for other purposes."), you'd never know it had anything to do with illegal immigration.

But it did. It was a cloture vote (60 needed to get the measure to the Senate floor) about about the so-called "DREAM Act," granting de facto amnesty to a vast number of illegal immigrants for entering college or joining the military. It has been a Democratic Party-"inspired" initiative with heavy Republican opposition from the get-go. It could easily have passed if the Democrats had been able to hold their membership together while picking off a couple of squishy Republicans.

They got their squishes: Republicans Murkowski (AK), Lugar (IN), and Bennett (UT) voted yes. That should have given the measure 61 votes. But Democrats Baucus (MT), Hagan (NC), Nelson (NE), Pryor AR), and Tester (MT) voted no, while Manchin (WV) did not vote. The measure's 55-41 support was not enough to move it to the next step.

So whose fault was it that the DREAM Act failed? A bitter, unbylined Associated Press report give us the wire service's "objective" take:

Such is the peril borne by the serial flatterer -- the flattery just might clang.

That's what happened when Lawrence O'Donnell appeared on MSNBC colleague Rachel Maddow's show on Nov. 18 to discuss possible repeal of the don't ask, don't tell policy regarding gays in the military.

At the end of their discussion, Maddow thanked O'Donnell and said this (video after page break) --

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Thursday's Today show, invited on Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski to applaud her presumptive write-in ballot win over Republican candidate Joe Miller and asked if she would now "stand up against" Republicans "who may feel that the only way for them to succeed" is for Barack Obama to fail. After Lauer went through the perfunctory congratulations, he asked the candidate who failed to win her party's own primary, if she would, essentially, become a thorn in the side of Republicans as seen in the following question:

MATT LAUER: You, you talk about governance based on anger or fear. You're a moderate Republican. You've said that you do not pass the purity test that the Tea Party has set out. You said something else. You said, said "I will tell you I'm not one of those who wants Obama to fail." Will you stand up against other Republicans who may feel that the only way for them to succeed is for the President not to succeed?

Lauer also made sure to note that since Sarah Palin endorsed Joe Miller, Murkowski's victory could also be seen as a diminishment of the former Alaskan Governor's "prestige" and "power," as queried: "There are a lot of other people who are saying you defeated Sarah Palin. She backed Mr. Miller in her home state, put the prestige of her power behind that, that endorsement. How much does this say about her power and impact going forward, in your opinion?"

(video after the break)

The media seems to take an exceptional interest in Senator Lisa Murkowski when she’s uttering liberal talking points on ‘compromise’ or when she’s blasting Sarah Palin as being ‘not worldly enough’ for the office of the Presidency. 

Case in point, as NewsBuster Brad Wilmouth pointed out, CBS recently highlighted Murkowski’s claim that she believes Palin lacks the ‘intellectual curiosity’ to run in 2012.  And the rest of the main stream media ran with it, as reports on the ‘intellectual curiosity’ slap began cropping up at MSNBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC News, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, etc.

Then of course, there is the Anchorage Daily News (ADN), who’s seemingly made a living in coming to Murkowski’s aid.  In fact, it wasn’t long ago that they were reporting on a Republican letter urging Tea Party candidate, Joe Miller, to start answering questions about his background, and offered their own editorial suggesting that personal matters are indeed fair game in an election.

 On Tuesday's Today show, a couple of correspondents laid down the potential story line of a big defeat for Sarah Palin if the Republican Tea Party candidate she endorsed, Joe Miller, doesn't win his bid for the Senate seat in Alaska as NBC's Chuck Todd proclaimed: "Sarah Palin's political future is a little bit on the line" and added "this would be a big embarrassment," while NBC's Kristen Welker declared: "the race is also a referendum on Sarah Palin."  Welker also featured a sound bite from a political analyst noting a Miller defeat would mean a "black eye" for the former Alaska Governor. Of course the question has to be asked, if Miller defeats write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski, will Todd and Welker go the other way and admit it was a huge win for Palin and the Tea Party?

During a preview of the key races on Election Day, Today co-anchor Matt Lauer asked political director Chuck Todd for his take on the Alaska Senate race, as seen in the following exchange: