Divided U.S. Senate Confirms Ashcroft 58-42. At least he didn’t quite get the 60 confirmation votes that gloating Republican leaders predicted. But it wasn’t quite the united front of opposition the Democrats are preening over either. The cave-in started in the judiciary committee with Sen. Russ Feingold (D.-Wisc.) who said it would be important for the Democrats’ political future not to take a purely ideological position against a nomination and said he felt the president should have the prerogative to choose like-minded people for his cabinet. Well, hello, the Senate Democrats are the only thing that can stand between a rabid unelected President without a popular mandate and the more than 50% of the electorate whose ideological positions won’t otherwise get a hearing for the next four years. The fallback position will have to be a hard line against the explosion of conservative judicial appointments that’s surely coming. Can you spell f-i-l-i-b-u-s-t-e-r?