A Democrat did this? Well, slap me nekkid and hide my clothes.

Posted November 1, 2005 3:52 PM by Keith Kisser

Yes, and according to MSNBC.com, the Democrats have "hijacked" the Senate.
So much for a "liberal media."

Posted November 1, 2005 3:57 PM by Will Entrekin

Give 'em hell, Harry! Woo-hoo.

Posted November 1, 2005 3:58 PM by Larry Brennan

MSNBC is just slightly more liberal than Faux, IMHO. Funny, if the utility-room TV is on at work, it's probably one of those. CNN is an also-ran for whoever-it-is that punches the on-button (not me, I need an arm-extension just to turn it off).

Posted November 1, 2005 4:01 PM by P J Evans

Oh, this is pretty sweet....totally made my day. Senator Reid has just gone up notches in my opinion.

Posted November 1, 2005 4:01 PM by PiscusFiche

I'm trying to decide whether I'm more excited by this or more infuriated about DeLay getting a new judge on such insane grounds...Right now, the simultaneity is making my stomache roil.

Posted November 1, 2005 4:05 PM by Skwid

Democrats force Senate into unusual closed session

Majority leader decries move as a publicity stunt

CNN

You want to talk about publicity stunts, Frist? How about diagnosing Terri Schiavo by television? That was a publicity stunt.

Posted November 1, 2005 4:34 PM by James D. Macdonald

How long can Reid keep the Senate in closed session?

Posted November 1, 2005 4:42 PM by Serge

Heard in the Senate men's room, shortly before the closed session:

"Oh, look, there's testicles inside this thing!"

Posted November 1, 2005 4:55 PM by Stefan Jones

I tried to call and leave a message but his mailbox is full! My message was: "Thank God for someone who is finally willing to speak truth to power," as we Quakers like to say.

Jane Yolen Stemple

Posted November 1, 2005 4:55 PM by jane

How long can Reid keep the Senate in closed session?

That's what I want to know as well. The rules are available online, but #21 only says you can call a closed session, nothing about how it has to end.

Posted November 1, 2005 5:01 PM by sennoma

Not long, apparently, they're back out now. No word yet as to what, if anything, was resolved behind the doors.

Posted November 1, 2005 5:08 PM by Skwid

Over already? Hmm... I understand that Reid can do this every day even if the bad guys had a majority vote the day before to call things off.

Posted November 1, 2005 5:16 PM by Serge

The end-of-closed-session press conference ended, according to the NY Times, with Frist saying "I need to go figure out what to do."

He could start with classes in ethics and logic, but that's probably too much to ask.

Posted November 1, 2005 5:19 PM by P J Evans

I guess, like most things, you can end a closed session with a majority vote -- which, of course, the Fristlings did immediately. But Reid, if I understand the stunt, plans to pull this same shit every day until Roberts' committee does what it was convened to do.

Mmmmm-mmmm. This is getting to be fun.

Posted November 1, 2005 5:27 PM by sennoma

Riddick's has the answer: "When in closed session, a motion to return to open session is in order and not debatable".

Posted November 1, 2005 5:35 PM by sennoma

Hmm, isn't Frist in the Stinky Zone for non-blind trust stock shenanigans? Seems to me Frist yelling foul is a case of the person whose been wallowing around the topless bar sleazy district trying to claim other people are lacking in couth....

Posted November 1, 2005 7:01 PM by Paula Lieberman

The Rethuglicans have hijacked the Senate for their own purposes plenty of times (the Schiavo vote was even worse, from a political point-of-view, than Frist's "diagnosis"). Didn't they force a vote extension less than a week ago (to shield gun manufacturers, IIRC)?

Hypocrites!

Posted November 1, 2005 7:32 PM by jhlipton

Yes, and according to MSNBC.com, the Democrats have "hijacked" the Senate.
So much for a "liberal media."

At least they led with it.

ABC News has has led with the flu all day and still is as of my check of a few seconds ago, with the closed session under "more top headlines." The NY Times put the flu above the closed session.

The Washington Post leads with "Senate GOP Angered by Rare Closed Session"

Posted November 1, 2005 7:41 PM by Constance

Beautiful. If the members of the press don't have the wherewithal to connect the dots -- and clearly, they don't -- it's about time that the Democrats start doing it for them.

Posted November 1, 2005 7:41 PM by Maud

For once, Reid does the right thing. What this was. This was Joe 1.

The message is simple, clear, and to the point, and like all truly effective messages, not one word about the real threat was uttered.

The rest of this is noise. The real point, however, is the first sign of hope I've seen in seven years. I just pray that Libermann and the other DLC fuckwads don't ruin things -- and that Durbin keeps a spine -- last thing we need is another cyring apology.

Posted November 1, 2005 8:08 PM by Erik V. Olson

Senator Frist whines: This was a publicity stunt!

Why yes, Senator— it was. Good to see you're paying some attention.

Posted November 1, 2005 8:12 PM by j h woodyatt

And in today's paper WashPost, an article on Reid and Alito's grip&grin yesterday:

"Harry Reid and Judge Samuel Alito Jr. were posing for photos late yesterday in the lobby of Reid's Senate office. They looked like they'd rather be stripping wallpaper."

Posted November 1, 2005 8:22 PM by Marilee

What this was, was notice being served. No more horsetrading, no more tit-for-(no)-tat, no more being the only ones to observe rules and to stay civil. A resounding "enough".

Let's hope, as Erik observes, that they keep this spine they found lying around somewhere. I like it; it suits them.

Posted November 1, 2005 8:45 PM by sennoma

I don't know what finally got into them -- the Senate Dems -- but I hope it stays there!

Then again, I think I do know.

A psychiatrist once told me I was "passive aggressive." I didn't know the term and had to look it up. (Fortunately our library's copy of DSM wasn't missing at the time. It does that.) Basically it means you're willing to put up with stuff you don't like until you get so fed up you explode.

So I think this explains it.

Sen. John Rockefeller (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia, top Intelligence Committee Democrat, said, "My colleagues and I have tried for two years to do our oversight work, and for two years we have been undermined, avoided, put off, and vilified by the other side."

That's our Junior Senator. Seems like our Senior Senator has been saying much the same thing for three or more years.

Posted November 1, 2005 8:57 PM by Lois Fundis

It's about damn time!

Strategically, I think Reid and the Democratic leadership believe they can win this one with the public; that they can make the Bushies look like the dishonorable fools they are. I hope they can pull it off. It is also, of course, the first shot in the 2006 congressional campaigns, which promise, I suppose, to be yet dirtier than the 2004 campaigns.

Posted November 1, 2005 11:49 PM by Randolph Fritz

j h woodyatt: As someone else pointed out (I forget where), a publicity stunt is diagnosing a patient from fifteen minutes of heavily edited video. This was a reminder that there's a job that was assigned and not being performed, and a demand as to why not.

Posted November 2, 2005 12:29 AM by Bruce Adelsohn

And, naturally, J Macdonald had it right up top. (But it wasn't him I was thinking of. It was a commenter over at Hullaballoo.)

Posted November 2, 2005 12:31 AM by Bruce Adelsohn

I just tried to call Senator Reid's office to leave a comment (Yo -- go dude!) and heard "The mailbox is full." Good. Well, damn my socks, the Democrats are awake. They may have grown balls, a spine and perhaps even a conscience, or at least, borrowed them from somewhere.

Posted November 2, 2005 1:26 AM by Lizzy L

Bruce Adelsohn writes: This was a reminder that there's a job that was assigned and not being performed, and a demand as to why not.

Invoking rule twenty-one just to deliver a reminder is overkill. While "stunt" may not carry the positive connotation we would all like, it's true that Harry Reid's parliamentary stinkbomb today was an effort to get some publicity to shine on the GOP footdragging on investigating the White House.

Threatening to introduce this motion every day until they were satisfied with the Republican response was a direct message that they can only put the minority off for so long before they get a taste of what real partisan warfare looks like in a parliamentary body. It caused a big media spectacle, and threatened to create an even bigger one if the Republicans refused to capitulate. Being forced to troop all one hundred members into the Senate chambers every morning just to open the session back up— that would have really pissed off the GOP elite.

The amusing thing is that the Democrats have a whole array of tactics like this they can play if Republicans don't come correct. This one was one of the items on the list of things Democrats could do if the Republicans invoked the so-called "nuclear" option in a judicial nomination cloture fight. There are at least a half-dozen others.

Posted November 2, 2005 1:45 AM by j h woodyatt

"This one was one of the items on the list of things Democrats could do..."

Yup. There were at least two things accomplished here: 1) getting Roberts' attention and putting him on notice about "Phase 2" of the Intelligence Committee's work, and 2) firing a shot across the Republicans' bow in case they really want to try the "nuclear option."

Posted November 2, 2005 2:52 AM by Linkmeister

A closed session seems an entirely sensible way to deal with an issue involving intelligence matters. You shouldn't debate in public matters involving the names of CIA agents and the front companies they work for. You shouldn't confirm these things, even if "everyone knows" them. By calling a closed session, Senator Reid showed a proper regard for National Security.

You could, I think, properly call a closed session to debate the military situation in Iraq, rather than have senior military officers prosituting themselves for the President in an open hearing.

But the secrecy is meaningless if the people who hear the evidence and vote on it are not honest and are not "reality-based". Congress is meaningless if the evidence presented is a lie.

Perhaps the Republicans don't care about secrecy, because they know the evidence they present is untrue, and the intelligence presented about the intent and capability of the latest Enemy of the USA can thus reveal nothing that endangers Intelligence Sources.

(Oh dear, I'm being earwormed by a filk I haven't written yet...)

Posted November 2, 2005 5:32 AM by Dave Bell

The Dems grow a pair. That's great. Let's hope they don't chop them off themselves the way they did last time.

I'm sure the Republican outrage is genuine. "But you can't do that! Dirty tricks are our prerogative!"

Posted November 2, 2005 11:49 AM by Xopher (Christopher Hatton)

Can't get through the phone lines? Here's another small thing to do as you wait You can freep online polls at CNN, CSPAN, and Lou Dobbs website, questioning whether the Dems are on the right track.

btw what's the deal w/ amazon.com deleting all the negative reviews of Michelle Malkin's new 'book' (I use the term loosely) when they didn't for Al Franken? How can we get to the management and tell them to cut it out?

Posted November 2, 2005 1:41 PM by hrc

Another place you can leave a message for Harry Reid is here:
http://www.giveemhellharry.com/blog

Looks like it's the beginning of a campaign...

Posted November 2, 2005 2:43 PM by lou

btw what's the deal w/ amazon.com deleting all the negative reviews of Michelle Malkin's new 'book' (I use the term loosely) when they didn't for Al Franken? How can we get to the management and tell them to cut it out?

That's someone gaming the system. If you get enough folks to click the "not appropriate" button on a review it goes away, no human intervention at Amazon required.

I believe the magic number is quite low; on the order of seven.

Posted November 2, 2005 2:53 PM by James D. Macdonald

I'd be cheering louder if Reid had done this a couple of years ago. At least he could apologize for being wrong then.

Iraq War: Congressional Vote, Debates, Statements
The voting record on this.

Posted November 2, 2005 2:55 PM by P J Evans

I believe the magic number is quite low; on the order of seven.

I bet there are seven people who would do that for the positive reviews of Malkin's book -- if any.

Posted November 2, 2005 3:52 PM by Xopher (Christopher Hatton)

Yo, Xopher -- why not you and eight or ten close friends test it out on one of the more egregious reviews?

Posted November 2, 2005 4:13 PM by James D. Macdonald

Off topic... Tonight's new episode of MythBusters is about the health benefits of vodka. And also about what happens when a compact car gets crushed between two trucks. Sounds like Buster the Dummy is going to get it again.

Posted November 2, 2005 4:53 PM by Serge

PJ Evans At least he [Reid] could apologize for being wrong then.

PJ, I disagree. Recently I've seen the press try to 'backfoot' anyone who 'turns against' the Iraq war with the old "If you knew this back then would you have changed your vote?".

IMHO Harry's reply is perfect. "If *they* knew this back then, they would never have asked us to vote on it" keeps the focus in the right place.

Posted November 3, 2005 5:15 AM by shane

IMHO Harry's reply is perfect. "If *they* knew this back then, they would never have asked us to vote on it" keeps the focus in the right place.

IMHO - the Senate and the House should have asked some of these questions then, and every time since that they've been asked to throw more money at this war. It wasn't exactly a secret that this whole thing (with the possible exception of 9/11) was orchestrated.

Posted November 3, 2005 11:49 AM by P J Evans

Oh I've got no disagreement there. This whole Iraq thing stinks like a stinky thing on a hot weekend and always has. You're very right to keep an eye on the history and when it comes to assessing Harry Reid I'll be very interested in getting him to explain his 'missing time'.

But if we want to be represented by morally consistent politicians, we may have to wait too long. I think the present priority is stopping this train wreck, we can do the Truth and Reconciliation thing later.

Posted November 3, 2005 4:00 PM by shane

'Morally consistent' is probably impossible (not many saints go into politics). I would like to see admission of responsibility (at least in part) for the current mess, by all those who are now wanting to get out after voting to go in.

Posted November 3, 2005 4:58 PM by P J Evans

This weekend prompted this very late reflection on this subject: there's a case for reform here and I hope we undertake it.

The Democrats still aren't my party, even though I'm delighted that Reid took this position, even though I'm a registered Democrat, even though am likely to support many Democratic candidates in the future, and even though I find the current Republican leadership repugnant. My problem is Harry Reid, Howard Dean, all the Democrats: they have waited this long to take a stance because they were waiting for the wind--not just the wind, the storm. How can I support them whole-heartedly?

And yet this is not the fault of either party; the US system has a place for only one minority party: neither major party can afford to take a position until the wind blows hard. I don't mean to criticize any person involved; Dean, at least, seems a decent man, and I suspect Reid might be. The political groups in the US system which most of us can join whole-heartedly, which can return loyalty for loyalty have only indirect power. These are the independent interest groups: the corporations, business assocations, unions, union federations, moveon.org, the churches, and so on. And except for some of the unions and the churches, these are no more democratic than the major parties. Now, again, make no mistake about it: I support a number of these interest groups. But I trust very few of them, and they are weak.

I would like to see the USA become a place where we could, if we chose, join political parties which we could be loyal to, and which could return loyalty for loyalty. Surely this is possible?

Posted November 7, 2005 10:16 PM by Randolph Fritz

Randolph -- what you're asking for sounds to me like a parliamentary democracy, such as most of the rest of the ]democratic[ world has; Patrick has argued that the two-party system is the natural result of the founding fathers' separated-powers design, where a PD allows many splinters to grab seats at the table. But I suspect that you'd be just as uncomfortable in a PD; the parties in such seem to me to have even narrower focuses, making it harder to find one that will have any give on the points on which you disagree with it.

Does anyone with long experience with PD have any comments? Any Commonwealthers who can comment on why/how the Commonwealth model seems to have mostly collapsed into variants of the two-party system? (Yes, I know the UK has a centrist party; when has it ever been needed to make a government?)

Posted November 8, 2005 11:52 PM by CHip

I've never been happier to say I grew up in Nevada. And yes, when I still lived there, I did vote for Harry.

Posted November 9, 2005 8:21 AM by Erin

According to Parkinson, it's because of the British tradition of team sports. One team is obviously in the right; the other, facing them, is as obviously in the wrong. Continental democracies, however, are generally seated in a semicircle, and form a multitude of teams facing in all directions; there is thus no way of telling who, if anyone, is right, except actually listening to them.

The UK has been two-party for a long time, but not all the time. It was Whigs and Tories (later Liberals and Conservatives) from the start until roughly 1890. There then followed the period (roughly 1900-1945) of splits, Home Rule, people Speaking for England, National Governments, Kier Hardie, the ILP, the LRC, James Maxton, Lloyd George knowing people's fathers, landslides, suffragettes, pacifism, gathering storms, Depressions, Free Trade, Ramsey MacDonald and so on that makes modern British political history such a pain to learn. After that the Liberals settled down to be a third party and we had the Labour/Conservative split that still persists. So of the last century, I would say that the two-party system has really only been entrenched for half of it. We've had several governments - between the wars- which involved the third party, either because no one had a majority or because the majority party was so rebellious that it couldn't be relied on to get legislation through.

What Randolph wants, probably, is a proportional representation system, allowing him a) parties he agrees more with at the cost of b) unstable coalition governments. The problem with first-past-the-post as in the Congress and the House of Commons is that you either have to have a very localised support base (which does happen, rarely) or be generally pretty strong to get a single MP. If the putative Randolph Party, which matches everything Randolph agrees with, had 10% of the vote in every state, it would have about 15 million supporters, but not a single congressman - immense frustration for Randolph and the other Randolphists.
Under PR, however, it would have about fifty, and could hold the balance of power between the other two (assuming they had not disassembled into the God Party, the Business Party, the Imperial Party, the Black Party, the Libertarian Party, the Labor Union Party and so on).

Posted November 9, 2005 8:31 AM by ajay

Ajay, your description of a party with 15 million supporters and no congressmen is a fair approximation of the situation of black voters. See Lani Guinier, passim.

CHip, I do recognize the need for compromise, but I would like a party that would compromise with me. And I think we'd have a lot less extremism if people simply felt they were being heard; most of our radical voters are not hard-core extremists--they're just people who feel shut out. There might be alternatives in between a parliamentary model and the US model: the instant runoff could be one, or perhaps Guinier's cumulative ballot.

Posted November 9, 2005 10:05 AM by Randolph Fritz

I take the point about proportional representation, which is unlikely to be meaningful in a non-parliamentary system but is not automatically included in a parliamentary system. (I should have remembered that; now I'll try to remember not to argue politics late at night.)

However, I see plenty of right-wing extremism right now \despite/ the fact that it is well-represented in the Republican Party; does representation mute extremism or stoke it?

I have my doubts about proportional representation. As I've seen the system reported, each party presents an ordered slate; if it wins N seats, the top N candidates are seated. I have some dislike for a system in which faceless oligarchs select the people who are supposed to represent my support of the party's professed ideas. I would be interested to see instant-runoff, which would be a put-up-or-shut-up for the populace that doesn't currently vote; would they be satisfied if other-party candidates didn't even place (let alone win) in such a system, or would there simply be more complaints?

Posted November 9, 2005 5:59 PM by CHip

Call this one "this is not my party, part 2"

"The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured 'enemy combatants' at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts. [...] The five Democrats voting for the bill were Senators Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon."

Is there anything Harry Reid could do that would make this more palatable? I voted for Ron Wyden, damnit. I might again, if there is no primary challenger.

More for you, CHip, when I'm in a better mood.

Posted November 11, 2005 3:19 AM by Randolph Fritz