Democrats close the Senate

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In case you missed it: yesterday, the Dems used a rare maneuver in the Senate to get the Republican leadership to discuss the administration's push to war.

The Republicans are hopping mad abouut this:

Democrat's comments:

Heh, who knew that Reid had it in him

full article at WaPost

 

Reid is a fraud. Everything the dems did yesterday was just a an attempt to make it look like they matter. No investigation is being "stymied". It's just the party of FDR now stands for nothing. They have no plans of their own, they just reflexively attack every idea the Republicans produce. I'd bet that the dems internal polling is showing that the people have no confidence in them and their leaders.
And you can't leave the new nomination to the supreme court out of this. The dems have shot themselves in the foot with this talking points memo claiming that nominee Alito is conected with organized crime, and that he intentionally threw a trial for them. Hell, they can't even get a party hack like Chris Mathews to support them. Mathews ripped into their parties lead madman Howard Dean over the memo. So don't fall for the hyperbole that they were throwing around yestaerday.

 

ha-ha, the republicans were working on it, right. And if any of you believe that, I know a bridge somewhere you might want to buy.

Comments from the top Democrat on the commision

It might be worth rememebering that this inquiry was supposed to end before the elections last year. However, they split it in two parts: one concerning the accuracy of intelligence assesments, and another concerning the issue if the admministration overplayed them. The report on the first part was out in July 2004 (of course, the intelligence was found to be mostly crap); then they made a deal (republicans and democrats) to finish the second part after the elections (so as not to politicize the process, imagine that). Now is one year after the elections, not much being done yet.

From a NYTimes editorial

Oh, and what's the connection between Alito's nomination and this issue ?!

 

Because they were trying to take attention away from this nomination among other things. This weekend alone the dems insulted Americans of Italian heritage and Catholics in their response to Alito.

Face it, the party is self-destructing, and Howard Dean is speeding things up with his irrational behavior.

 

Heh, one can easily argue that by nominating such a controversial candidate as Alito Bush sought to change the topic from the indictment of administration officials.

What are these terrible insults that the Dems brought to the American-Italians and Catholics anyhow? I keep hearing about them, but I did not see anything specific so far.

And about "Democrats have no plans of their own, they just reflexively attack every idea the Republicans produce": please, this is not an argument, just one of the talking points put out by the Republican spin machine. See Frist's statements in the quotes above: "They have no conviction. They have no principles. They have no ideas." Also, a spokesperson for the RNC: 'Reid's call for a closed-door session "reveals the fact that Democrats are devoid of any ideas and would rather resort to cheap political tricks than talk about an actual agenda." ' Maybe if you repeat it enough times, it will stick.

 

Oh come now. If anybody should be trying to take attention away from anything having to do with politics, it's the Republicans. In the last few weeks, I can run off a litany of things that have gone poorly for GWB specifically, and for the Republican Party in general. It's not the Democrats who would be trying to divert attention from major political issues of the day.

Face it, the Republican party is self-destructing, and a number of high-ranking Republican officials are speeding things up with their illegal behavior.

 

Considering how I feel about Bush and his regime I have to be careful what I say.

I don't care why the Democrats are doing what they are doing. I'm just glad their doing something. We have a two party system and when the party out of power starts rubber stamping what the other does we are in trouble...deep pile of garbage trouble.

Sure. there are times when bi-partisan action is needed but this not one of them.

 

Good to see the Democrats have developed more of a spine than I've seen recently. Leaving aside my sentiments about both sides, no-one really benefits when one party has such control in a two-party state (no matter who it is). Frist seems to have resorted to the typical Republican response to being called to account - react with outrage, condemn the Democrats, use every legal abusive comment under the sun, and deny any wrongdoing.

Based on what khaavern's put up, this is a long-overdue discussion anyway. Sure, it's something of a stunt, but almost perfectly timed (if Alito hadn't just been nominated, I'd give it 10/10 for timing).

@ khazadman: To make it look like they matter? Excuse me, but didn't almost 50% of voters vote for them? They have a responsibility to their supporters to keep the administration as honest as they can. Given the revelations of the past few months (unless they're ALL politically-motivated assaults in conjunction with the leftist mainstream media ), I'd say it's a few years late, but better late than never.

 

Actually, it could be argued that Congress has a constitutional obligation to oversee the actions of the executive branch. Needless to say, this did not happen in the past few years; the Republicans looked at the Bush White House like the Second Coming, and the Dems were ineffective at best.

To see the consequences, just read the newspapers today; the matter of abusing intelligence is just one point; then you have a big scandal developing on the torture issue (apparently, the CIA set up a secret network of torture centers to interrogate suspected terorists; one such center was in Eastern Europe, of all places). It is enough to make you sick.

 

Yes, while the Republicans were up to their old, feeble tricks of "balancing the budget" on the backs of the elderly and the poor. How typical of them.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9917042/

I will say that the Dems move to close the Senate puts them on the right track. It's about time that they started standing up for something. If they keep on like this, they may win those of us back who have viewed them as the "me too" party for the last five years.

 

One man's spine is another man's tantrum

 

TGS - I agree - that was quite a tantrum that Bill Frist threw after the session: