After an entire day of bloviating from both sides of the aisle, the U.S. Senate has voted to begin debating Leader Reid’s proposed health care reform bill 60-39.

The Republicans were their usual cranky, fear-mongering selves throughout the day — bringing up socialism, death panels, and continually referring to David Broder’s article from this morning’s Washington Post. Senator McCain even managed to remind the senior citizens of Arizona to rip up their AARP cards.

Now we can look forward to the teabaggers’ antics at town hall meetings over the Thanksgiving recess.

UPDATE:

All Democrats and Independents voted affirmative and all Republicans voted negative, except for Voinovich who thought the whole thing was a waste of time.

Voinovich says he sees no reason to approve procedural matters that will start moving the Senate bill forward if the bill itself is flawed. Why waste time on preliminary debates — starting with a first vote by this weekend to cut off debate on a motion to proceed, followed by 30 hours of debate on the motion to proceed itself, all before an eventual vote on the actual bill — when there is other unfinished business to deal with, including spending bills that are months behind schedule?