Yesterday in the Senate, the GOP and some conservative Democrats fell just a few votes short of 60 in an effort to invoke cloture on the nomination of John Bolton to be the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

Several Democrats, including Harry Reid, John Kerry, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd were quick to claim that what was going on was not a filibuster. They were just delaying the vote so they can get more information.

By this construction, the claims by Democrats that Abe Fortas (an LBJ nominee), Richard Paez and one other Clinton nominee whose name I cannot recall, were filibustered turns out to be a lie.

What is and what is not a filibuster appears to depend solely on what seems best for the Democrat Party at any particular moment in time.