AVOIDING ACCOUNTABILITY: Senate clerks didn’t announce names during debt-ceiling vote so that Republicans could secretly switch. “Why did McConnell need other Republicans to switch their vote to yes if he, Cornyn, Collins, Murkowski, and Corker were willing to provide the five votes Reid needed to get to 60? Simple: He didn’t need them. He wanted them to switch so that no one could be accused of having provided the decisive 60th vote for cloture. The bigger the Republican crowd voting yes was, in theory the easier it would be for each of them to hide in it. In practice, Politico not only picked up on the clerks’ conspicuous silence, they found out the names of the Republicans who switched under pressure. Now, instead of being guilty of voting for a measure that’s unpopular with the base, they’re guilty and they look sneaky.”