In the end, it is impossible to understate the importance of what went on in the Senate today. The fanfare, the rumors, and all the nonsensical puffery came down to this: the Dems are clinically depressed that Patrick Fitzgerald didn’t deliver for them an indictment — not only of Karl Rove — but of the Iraq war itself.

If you watched Jay Rockefeller — he being one of the three under criminal investigation for leaking details of a top-secret satellite program — huffing and puffing about what the Senate Intelligence Committee wasn’t doing but should, you heard every whine the liberals have about the war. Not only should they be investigating former DoD Undersecretary for Policy Doug Feith, but they should also be investigating: detainee abuse, interrogation methods, rendition of terrorist prisoners to other nations and — yes — the whole issue of whether intelligence was manipulated by the Bush administration to lie America into war.

The problem that Rockefeller, Reid, and the rest have is that Pat Roberts’s committee is working hard on precisely what the Senate agreed to in February of 2004. And they were about to get the next stage next week when Reid, Rockefeller, and Durbin blew it all up today.

Now, after all that kerfuffle, all today’s intense scrutiny on Senate process — and all the intensely personal insults traded behind closed doors — all the Dems managed to get was agreement that a group of six senators would look at what the Intelligence Committee is doing and report back on its schedule.

The best thing that comes out of today — and it has everything to do with personalities and nothing to do with substance — is that by this personal attack on Roberts and others today, the Dems have made it more difficult for RINOs to maneuver. McCain and his Gang of 14 will also find it a lot harder to stay together if, as seems almost certain, the Dems try to filibuster Judge Alito. Heavy-handedness by Reid helps Alito.