Is there any myth more stubbornly ingrained in the minds of the horse-race obsessed media? I doubt it.

My Google News search of "filibuster proof" and "Chambliss" shows 1,261 stories. Anyone wanna bet on how many of them actually say that there's really very little point (or reality) in counting a 60 seat majority as "filibuster proof"?

Not these, that's for sure:

Chambliss Win Prevents Filibuster-Proof Senate
Georgia run-off denies Obama total control of Senate
GOP Senate win in Georgia means Dems can't halt filibusters

Those are just a couple of the headlines that state with certainty that every single cloture vote coming down the pike in the 111th Congress is doomed to failure. Of course, that's not pretty unfair to tar the entire media with that, given that the first headline comes from Church Solutions magazine, the second comes from a UK paper, and the third comes from... uh... the Most Trusted Name in News.

Oh well.

Drilling down doesn't help much either:

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Chambliss’s double-digit victory dashed Democrats’ dreams of securing a filibuster-proof, 60-vote "super majority"

AP:

a victory that denied Democrats a filibuster-proof majority

MSNBC:

Chambliss won by 14 points, 57%-43%, preventing Democrats from obtaining a filibuster-proof 60 seats.

NY Daily News:

Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss coasted to an easy victory, denying the Senate Democrats a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority.

CQ:

The victory, which clinched a second term for Chambliss, also ended Democrats’ hope of gaining a so-called filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats in the upcoming 111th Congress.

Denver Post:

Chambliss' runoff election — which he won — was crucial to the GOP's effort to prevent Democrats from reaching a filibuster-proof majority.

Washington Post:

Senate Democrats' dreams of a 60-seat filibuster proof majority were dashed down in Georgia yesterday as Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) won a convincing runoff victory over former state Rep. Jim Martin (D).

You get the idea.

It's hard to bash them too much about it, though, since having 60 seats in Democratic hands would surely make it easier to gather the votes necessary to invoke cloture, all things considered. But the point here is that cloture voting in the 110th Congress was very rarely a pure party-line affair, which makes it a little less than accurate to refer to a 60 seat majority as "filibuster proof."

Race tracker wiki: GA-SEN