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.
"It means from now on, for the next year and half, I can't trust Senator Reid"
Positively Carteresque.
He just figured this out?
You were expecting the same MSM who (ABC evening NEWS) couldn't even keep straight the sex of the person to whom Rosa wouldn't give up her seat to call Reid on HIS "faulty" memory?
Pray for W and Our Troops
ding, ding, ding! Bingo!
Yep, W pulled a Martell on the dems for sure.
Reagans quip would still apply anyway.
"By the looks of them, I don't think they can do either".
Exactly.
Allen should be the majority leader, not this Alan Alda doctor.
Let's look at some of the successes of the New Tone. We can start with the education bill, written by good ole Ted and then criticized as inadequate by him as soon as it was passed. Then we can move on to power sharing in the Senate, under Trent Lott.
We are fighting a PC war in Iraq because we don't want to seem like bad guys to the Democrats and the Press.
We won't seal our borders because we might offend Presidente Fox (and we've come up with that nifty new amnesty, um, guest worker plan to lure those pesky new Hispanic voters, too!) I wonder what the spin will be when the next attack occurs and we find they came in unmolested over the Northern or Southern border? It's going to be hard to blame that one on the Clintons.
We search old ladies and young girls at the airports while letting the young Arab men walk by unscathed because we don't want to seem like we would use the information we've already got on known hijackers because we might be accused of profiling.
And we've got the Senate held hostage by 5-7 of our own supposed Republicans, because, under the New Tone we just all want to get along. If the President had gotten tough with Dems and RINOs alike he might have actually been able to accomplish more of his agenda than a weak tax cut, spending that would make Bill Clinton blush and a tort reform bill.
We didn't send Republicans to Washington to make nice and play well together. We sent them to enact our agenda. Those that don't will find their stay shorter than they may have hoped.
The Dems are down and going out. Now is not the time to try and make nice. It's time to start shoveling the dirt over them.
"It means from now on, for the next year and half, I can't trust Senator Reid"
He's not just coming to this realization. He's using this as an oppurtunity to justify the new tone we're going to set in the senate. The dems have tried to create a national spectacle, and Frist is capitalizing on the event.
This is his chance to justify the impending nuclear option with the American people. He's saying "See? These are the chuckleheads we're dealing with! They're stuck on the 04 election, and we've got work to do. We can't trust them, and we're going to have to take things in hand, using our majority as necessary, to get things done."
Wow -- pushing a bizarre move which virtually forces Senate Republicans to stand up and show some sack for the party....that has got to be the absolutely stupidest thing the Dems could possibly maneuver at this time.
George Allen isn't going to get anywhere near the majority leader's job. Allen is going to run for president and he would be crazy to get in the middle of the cesspool the GOP has allowed the 'Rats to create.
Dam good question!
Agree.
But he'd be a good one.
ROTF...............
In beltway-speak, this is pretty big news. This stunt might have actually made the GOP Senators play hardball.
Apples, meet oranges .. oranges, apples. :)
"It means from now on, for the next year and half, I can't trust Senator Reid," the Tennessee lawmaker said.
Somebody wake me from this nightmare. What a nancy boy.
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