Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Reid's Closed Door Session

Harry Reid today forced the Senate into closed session evicting nearly everyone not a Senator, including most staffers, closing the doors, and turning off the TV cameras. The reason? To force the Senate to move the intelligence committee into phase 2 of the investigation of intelligence failures of the Iraq war. Phase 2 being an inquiry into how the Administration used or misused the intelligence that it had. The tactic worked, forcing the creation of a bipartison panel to oversee the actions of the intelligence committee. The panel will consist of three Democrats and three Republicans. Not only did this force the Republican majority to listen to the minority Party, but it sent a warning shot accross the bow of the Senate Republican Caucus that Democrats are willing to no longer abide by the gentlemen's agreement that these tactics will not be used if the minority Party is not listened to. If Republicans succeed with the nuclear option, this is what we can expect from Democrats all the way up to the midterm elections. They will refuse to allow bills to be assigned by committee through unamimous consent and will force the full Senate to consider every single bill. This will demonstrate a lesson in the strongest possible way to Republicans that they must listen to the minority party, and if they don't the minority will force them to listen. Mr. Frist, we're now playing hardball, and the fate of the Senate is in your hands, you can restore the traditions of oversight and bipartison cooperation or you can watch business slow to a near standstill, it's up to you, but I would recommend you start caring a little bit about the opinion of the minority party.

1 comment:

The Manly Ferry said...

First, pardon this intrusion on your comment field, but I can't figure any other way to contact you.

Hmm. Hopefully, you check your comments fairly often Mssrs. cwech and camus. I'm mainly responding to the note I got yesterday from (I think) cwech. Right, this blog template ain't big enough for the two of us, so I'm going to use that as an excuse to reformat mine.

Anyway, when that's all said and done, I'll chuck your blog on the ol' sidebar. I think I'll get a few others up while I'm at it. It's one of those things I've always intended to do, but never got around to.

In your comment yesterday, you implied some limitations with html. I've got those in spades as well and only learned what little I know by harrassing others (mainly blogger and Kari Chisholm over at Blue Oregon). Feel free to email me (a link is just below my profile photo) with questions and I'll try to pass on what I know.

Oh, nice work here as well. What's the origin of the name?

I'm cooking up something on this subject as well. We can swap notes later.