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Democrats close Senate (Frist: 'From now on … I can't trust Senator Reid')
WorldNetDaily ^ | 11/1/05 | WorldNetDaily

Posted on 11/01/2005 4:59:00 PM PST by wagglebee

Accusing Republicans of ignoring questions about pre-war intelligence, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session today, igniting anger from GOP leaders.

Before calling for the rare motion, which was seconded by his assistant minority leader, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Reid said his colleagues across the aisle "have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened and why."

Speaking to reporters in the hall outside the Senate chamber, Majority Leader Bill Frist shot back, charging the Senate "has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership."

"They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas," he said.

Frist said the Democratic Party leadership did not warn him in advance of the move, which Republicans called a "political stunt."

"It means from now on, for the next year and half, I can't trust Senator Reid," the Tennessee lawmaker said.

Durbin told reporters the Democratic Senate staff notified Republican staff as the session began.

Frist explained that the closed session meant all electronic devices had to be removed and staff and media were barred from the room.

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a former majority leader, said Reid's move violated the Senate's tradition of courtesy and consent.

But the rules, he said, provided no way for Republicans to stop Reid.

In his speech before issuing the motion, Reid said that in the wake of the indictment Friday of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the American people and U.S. troops deserved to know details of how the U.S. got into the Iraq war.

Reid said Libby was the highest level official to be indicted in some 130 years, then asked: "Is it any wonder, Mr. President, I am worried about my grandchildren?"

Reid previously spoke of concern about his family's future welfare as he ticked off a list of familiar Democratic complaints about the performance of the Bush administration on issues ranging from the war to the economy.

The minority leader said 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 to challenge its actions."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters the reason for the closed door session was to ask the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., why, "despite repeated promises," the panel has not complied with Democrats requests to conduct an investigation into problems with pre-war intelligence.

About two hours after the closing, the Senate returned to an open session in which Roberts defiantly insisted his panel is addressing the issue, on schedule, and called the Democrats' move a "political stunt," noting he had a stronger term for it, but "would leave it at that."

Prior to the open session, the senators agreed to appoint a six-member task force with three members from each party, to review the Intelligence Committee's progress on "Phase 2" of its work and report back to their respective caucuses by Nov. 14.

The first phase resulted in a 511-page report submitted last summer that addressed flaws of an Iraq intelligence estimate assembled by the country's top analysts in October 2002.

Roberts said the panel had started the second phase of the review but not completed it. He had intended all along, he said, to continue the work next week.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 109th; billfrist; democrats; harryreid; iraq; scooterlibby; senate
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To: wagglebee

Is there a GOP rule that one has to be this clueless to run for Senate?


21 posted on 11/01/2005 5:09:00 PM PST by kittymyrib
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To: wagglebee

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 to challenge its actions"

What a@@hole!!!Fitzgerald HIMSELF said the indictment had NOTHING to do with the Iraq war! Let's just hope that they overreach as they usually do! I say Republican Senators better start taking to the floor NOW and counter these absolutely FALSE assertions by Reid, et al. Frist's anger better be more than words here...start retaliating Reid's lies with TRUTH!


22 posted on 11/01/2005 5:10:13 PM PST by t2buckeye
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To: wagglebee

23 posted on 11/01/2005 5:10:23 PM PST by wardaddy (It's Manana Again in America!)
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To: wagglebee

Totally agree...I think the repubs got the senate confused between the country club and the senate dems.


24 posted on 11/01/2005 5:10:30 PM PST by Psycho_Runner (Did the US give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?)
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To: madprof98
Does this idiot not realize that impeachment is essentially the same as an indictment.

And for that matter, Spiro Agnew was indicted in 1973, as well as several other Watergate figures who held positions at least as high as Libby.

High level Clintonistas usually got caught up in the Arkancide epidemic just before indictments were handed down.

25 posted on 11/01/2005 5:11:21 PM PST by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: wagglebee
Why did Frist and the GOP ever trust the 'Rats in the first place?!

Well, of course. Trusting 'Rats, or any politician, is pretty stupid.

Also stupid is for a White House staffer to commit perjury before a grand jury, thus giving the 'Rats an issue to flog.

26 posted on 11/01/2005 5:11:49 PM PST by Hank Rearden (Never allow anyone who could only get a government job attempt to tell you how to run your life.)
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To: wagglebee

Memo to Frist. There's a reason we call em dirty, sneaky, RATS!!!


27 posted on 11/01/2005 5:12:26 PM PST by Bush gal in LA
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To: theDentist
Worse, he is also saying that in 1-1/2 years, he will revert to trusting Reid again.

Kind of the same as the Michigan Affirmative Discrimination opinion by O'Connor? You know, the one who was ok for 25 years?

28 posted on 11/01/2005 5:13:08 PM PST by JRios1968 ("Cogito, ergo FReep": I think, therefore I FReep.)
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To: wagglebee
The Senate needs an overhaul to bring it into the 21st century or at least a post 9/11 world. A world in which events move quickly, not ponderously.

The politicians act as entertainers in front of microphones and cameras - on and off the Senate floor. They talk about the dignity of the Senate and its history, yet do nothing to bring clarity or dignity to the proceedings. Everything is done for the sound bite, the next TV appearance and personal or political gain.

It's time to tell them to cut back on the tediousness and redundancy of their committee work, their archaic rules and regulations. Private businesses who encumber themselves with micro managers soon have no business.

It's time they behaved as the people do. We have a problem we fix it.

To Senator Frist, hate to break it to you, but they are the opposition, the enemy, the ones who want you out of a job.
29 posted on 11/01/2005 5:14:46 PM PST by BlessedByLiberty (Respectfully submitted,)
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To: wagglebee

Frist, after grabbing his ankles yet again, is surprised to learn that Harry then uses him like Lucky Pierre.

Pathetic.


30 posted on 11/01/2005 5:15:51 PM PST by surely_you_jest
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To: JRios1968

While that certainly explains why Frist is not to be trusted with a leadership role.


31 posted on 11/01/2005 5:15:54 PM PST by Paladin2 (If the political indictment's from Fitz, the jury always acquits.)
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To: wagglebee
Reid said Libby was the highest level official to be indicted in some 130 years, then asked: "Is it any wonder, Mr. President, I am worried about my grandchildren?"

Oh Puhleeeeeeeeeeeze! *rolls eyes* Reid has got to be the biggest drama queen I've ever seen.... Well... besides little Tommy D...

32 posted on 11/01/2005 5:16:27 PM PST by LaineyDee (Don't mess with Texas wimmen!)
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To: MarcusTulliusCicero
Attention President Bush. The New Tone hasn't worked. Time to take them to the mat once and for all.

Oh, I guess that's why Repubs are STILL in power, gaining seats every term, The MSM/dems are losing viewers, the absolute irrelevence increase with virtually eavery breath because the NEW TONE "hasn't worked?!"

Take an idea that's proven to work and go opposite from what the reality has been, more seat for REPUBLICANS.

The New Tone hasn't worked is the epidemy of idiocy, and kneejerk stupidity!

33 posted on 11/01/2005 5:16:34 PM PST by sirchtruth (Words Mean Things...)
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To: wagglebee

I wonder if this extreme maneuver by the Dems makes it easier now for the Republicans to use the "nuclear option" if the need arises.


34 posted on 11/01/2005 5:17:12 PM PST by Yardstick
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To: wagglebee

The gentlefolk who spent an amazing amount of their lives telling us about the Senate being the "saucer that cools" (blah blah blah) during the Clinton impeachment hearings threw a temper tantrum today because the two-year, politically driven investigation into what really happened when their churl, Valerie Plame's boy-toy, lied about his CIA employment didn't result in a witch hunt against Carl Rove or the "neocon conspiracy." When the little brats didn't get their way, they dragged the Senate out of the conservatory, right past the playpen, and into the pigpen. Reid and Schumer are petulant two year olds, and their true colors are finally showing through.

If they pull this stunt again, here's what I want to see: Republican Senators demanding closed door sessions to demand investigations into: Hillary Clinton's fundraising, Chuckie Schemer's DSCC's theft of Mike Steele's financial records, Kerry & Kennedy outing a REAL undercover CIA agent on the floor of a Senate hearing room, Chappaquidick, New Jersey governors and senators, and Barbara Boxer's existence. One a day between now and Christmas ought to do it.


35 posted on 11/01/2005 5:17:14 PM PST by No Longer Free State (No event has just one cause, no person has just one motive, no action has just the intended effect.)
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To: wagglebee
"It means from now on, for the next year and half, I can't trust Senator Reid," the Tennessee lawmaker said.

The problem was/is he trusted him in the first place.....

36 posted on 11/01/2005 5:18:55 PM PST by Osage Orange (Hillary's heart is blacker than the devil's riding boots......................)
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To: wagglebee
I would love to see one of our sissy boy GOP senators come out firing. Why not put the RATS in the dog house with a simple statement about the RATS having all the same intelligence and voting for the war twice. Make it clear that they voted for the war twice with the same intel so there is no way to lie their way out of it.
37 posted on 11/01/2005 5:19:13 PM PST by satchmodog9 (Free choice is not what it seems)
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To: t2buckeye

Fitzmas turned out to be Fitzadan and the 'Rats were faced with more power fasting. Then came Alitoween and they became crazed with hunger for power.


38 posted on 11/01/2005 5:19:38 PM PST by Paladin2 (If the political indictment's from Fitz, the jury always acquits.)
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To: Paladin2

While --> Well. How did that happen? LOL


39 posted on 11/01/2005 5:22:10 PM PST by Paladin2 (If the political indictment's from Fitz, the jury always acquits.)
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To: wagglebee

"Reid said Libby was the highest level official to be indicted in some 130 years,..."

BULL!

Try the scum from the Clinton administration, including Web Hubbell. Try Spiro Agnew, try Cap Weinberger, try so many more. Does NO ONE call the Dems on their lies?


40 posted on 11/01/2005 5:23:55 PM PST by narses (St Thomas says “lex injusta non obligat”)
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