First, there’s this story, essentially a delaying rear-guard action against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.
Democrats push to delay Alito hearings
Senate Democrats pushed on Tuesday for a 2006 date for hearings on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, challenging President Bush’s call for confirmation by year’s end.
“There’s no way you can do an honest hearing by the end of December, or a fair hearing,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a jab at the White House and the Senate Republican leadership, Leahy said he and the panel’s chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter could likely agree on a date for confirmation hearings if left to themselves.
Specter, R-Pa., was noncommittal on timing for hearings for Alito, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “This is a swing vote on the Supreme Court…. I don’t know enough yet to say whether it’s realistic by the end of the year,” he said.
[…]
Conservatives in and out of the Senate have greeted Alito’s nomination warmly, many saying they hoped he would move the court to the right if confirmed for O’Connor’s seat.
Liberals, pointing to rulings on abortion, gun control, the death penalty and other issues, have already raised the threat of a filibuster, an attempt to deny Alito a yes-or-no vote by the Senate. Republicans hold 55 seats in the Senate, and while confirmation requires a simple majority, it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Republicans have responded to the threat by saying they would seek a vote to abolish the filibuster in cases of Supreme Court and federal appeals court nominations.
A showdown over that issue was narrowly averted last spring when seven lawmakers from each party brokered a compromise. But already, two of the seven Republicans involved in that compromise – Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – have indicated they would side with their leadership this time. That suggests Democrats would lose a showdown if it went that far.
Actually, compared to their other major Senate maneuver of the day, I find this development fairly mild, just a postponing of what currently seems a strong likelihood. I would actually welcome an opportunity for the over-threatened judicial filibuster to be broken, but I don’t think the Dem leadership wants to sacrifice that hole card on a losing hand. Rather, I suspect they would settle for drawing out the confirmation, hoping for an unforeseen development while denying the president and his nominee as easy a process as Chief Justice John Roberts experienced. It’s not an action for the betterment of the republic, but instead one to prevent the leader of that republic’s executive branch from scoring any easy political points.
Now, on to the despicable.
Democrats force Senate into rare closed session
Democrats forced the Senate into a rare secret session Tuesday to demand that the Republican majority further investigate the Bush administration’s handling of intelligence related to the war in Iraq.
The surprise maneuver, exploiting last week’s indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff in the CIA leak case, caught Republicans flatfooted and shifted attention back to the increasingly unpopular war and away from President Bush’s day-old Supreme Court nomination.
After a testy showdown that lasted more than two hours behind closed doors, Senate Republicans agreed to restart an inquiry into the administration’s use of intelligence.
Still, furious Republicans called the move a “stunt” and a “scare tactic” designed to score partisan political points.
At issue was a long-standing promise by intelligence committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to broaden the panel’s investigation into how intelligence was used to go to war. The committee concluded last year that the intelligence was erroneous, but Democrats wanted the inquiry to determine whether it had been intentionally misused to justify the war.
Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada renewed his call Tuesday for that portion of the investigation, invoking Friday’s indictment of Cheney’s aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on charges that he lied to a grand jury about his role in leaking classified information about a war critic’s wife.
“The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared challenge its actions,” Reid said, moments before springing the secret session.
I’d like to point out at this time that Friday’s indictments [covered here] in absolutely no way whatso-freakin’-ever supported any stance that the administration massaged data. The indictments point not toward any criminal behaviour preceding or during the time of the supposed leak, but rather possible crimes during the investigation. That the Dems are trying to expand this into a dark cloud over our entire pre-war process is almost as disgusting as the media’s willingness to not question their spew.
A visibly angry Bill Frist, the Senate’s normally unflappable Republican leader, immediately lashed back, noting that most previous closed sessions have been called by joint agreement of both party leaders. What especially annoyed Frist was that Reid acted without consulting him.
“This is an affront to me personally,” said Frist, of Tennessee. “It’s an affront to our leadership. It’s an affront to the United States of America. And it is wrong.”
Under Senate rules, the Senate can go into closed session at the request of one senator, provided another senator seconds the motion. Since 1929, when the Senate first allowed treaties and nominations to be discussed in public, the Senate has held 53 secret sessions, most involving discussion of classified materials. Six of the most recent closed sessions occurred during the impeachment trial of President Clinton.
The Democrats’ move had clear political motivations. The war in Iraq is driving down President Bush’s approval ratings and putting Republicans on the defensive. Democrats tried Friday and throughout the weekend to link the Libby indictment to Bush’s overall war policy.
But Bush changed the subject Monday by nominating Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. The nomination thrilled conservatives, angered liberals and turned public attention away from Iraq. Senate Democrats pulled it back Tuesday.
Frist has every right to be angry, not only at his Democrat colleagues but also at himself. How many times must he be caught off-guard, expecting today’s Dems to play by established decorum instead of seeking newer lows to which they can stoop for political gain over national good?
Ace at Ace of Spades shares the anger and is ready for an equal response.
It’s time for a political advertisement knitting together Clinton’s, Gore’s, Hillary!’s, Rockefeller’s, Kerry’s, etc.’s various statements over the years warning against Saddam’s bio, chem, and nuclear programs.
And f***ing blitz it. I’m sick of this. And I’m angry at the stupid fucking GOP for not doing its f***ing job and ridiculing these people the way they should be ridiculed.
Unsurprisingly, Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters looks at the matter a little more calmly.
This shows the emptiness of Democrats, both in head and heart. As Bill Frist said afterwards, the minority party proves it has nothing to contribute except cheap political stunts. They know that the Fitzgerald investigation came up with next to nothing on the Plame leak — because it didn’t constitute a crime under US statute. Despite having a prosecutor independent of the Bush administration run wild for almost two years and exceed the original boundaries of his mandate, the only indictment he could muster was one in which a very stupid and probably criminal act by a single person could be verified — and that just had to do with the investigation and grand jury itself, not with the Plame leak.
Reid says that the Wilson/Plame brouhaha proves that the Bush administration lied about the war. This was practically the entire Democratic Party platform last year — and it lost them the White House and four seats in the Senate. One would think that going back to the well a year later would be stupid beyond belief, but apparently Reid forgot about that big poll taken last November. He also forgot about this bipartisan report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which outlines exactly how Wilson’s report in fact bolstered the case that Iraq still wanted to get material for nuclear weapons — and that Wilson had lied about it in leaks to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and then in his own editorial and book.
Please see the Captain’s post for the supporting links to which he referred.
What are my thoughts? The Dems are using mere illusion and misdirection, smoke and mirrors, to make political hay of something that isn’t really there. They have cast aside precedent of senatorial behaviour in favor of undermining the president, cheaply used revisionism to cast a pall upon our arguments for opening the Iraqi theater, and made common use of exaggeration and outright falsehood to politically cripple our international efforts for possible cheap domestic gain. Should they succeed, score an assist to the mainstream media, who have seemingly been quite content to carry the water and Dem talking points, when unbiased reporting would have presented the American people with the truth behind the Dem stunts, gotchas and lies.
All this while we have troops on the ground in Iraq. Facing what should be our true enemies.
No amount of Pepto could deal with this torrent of bile.