Slumber Party in the Senate? Well, the Dems have accomplished one thing this year. They brought their jammies to the Capitol and are having a slumberless party.
How nice. The Dems are behaving like children. Again. And to think that there are people who want to turn over the reins of power of the WH to these total idiotic morons....!!!
Slumber Party in the Senate?
apnews.myway.com
Jul 18, 12:48 AM (ET)
By LAURIE KELLMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) - In the dead of night, the Senate apparently turns into something other than the oft-cited greatest deliberative body in the world.
It becomes a "circus, a "mockery,""Kabuki theater," a "carnival" and a "charade," Democrats have said. Not only that, but "a colossal waste of time." And given the increasingly geriatric nature of the chamber as a whole, the Senate in all-night session amounts to "elder abuse."
Those were Democrats talking about the last all-night Senate session four years ago. Then, they were in the minority and forced by Republicans to make good on their threat to filibuster judicial nominations.
"We are having this all-night session in order to call to the attention of the public the fact that this unprecedented obstructionism is going on," declared then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, in a 2003 interview on Fox News Network. "Most people think that in the world's oldest democracy if you can get a majority you are entitled to move ahead."
Nowadays, Democrats agree. And they run the chamber - all night, as it turns out.
To be sure, the issue this time is literally about life and death for thousands of Americans and Iraqis. But such lofty debate isn't likely to give Democrats the 60 votes needed to advance troop withdrawal legislation blocked by Republicans.
"Tonight is not a stunt, it's a statement," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.
And so, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., directed Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer to retrieve the Senate's dozen or so cots and place most of them in the incongruously ornate room off the Senate floor named for President Lyndon Johnson, "for senators who wish to remain close to the floor and rest." Only senators were allowed to use those facilities, an official in Reid's office said.
As midnight approached, one senator dozed on an aforementioned cot in the dimly-lit LBJ room, and others began to get more comfortable.
A vote was called on whether to instruct the sergeant-at-arms to retrieve absent senators; Democratic Sens. Ken Salazar of Colorado and Chuck Schumer of New York briefly considered waking the snoozing senator, whose identity they declined to divulge. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., appeared on the floor in loose black sweater and pants rather than the powder blue pantsuit she wore earlier in the day.
Elsewhere on the Capitol's second floor, a cot awaited Reid in a parlor adjacent to his office where Democratic leaders frequently hold news conferences. McConnell, now minority leader, had one at his disposal, according to his spokesman. Senators with enough seniority also had the option of sleeping in their hideaway offices, tucked into the building's myriad corners and hallways.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said he had passed the time playing cards - "I play anything" - and was heading back to his office to use the comforter he said his staff had given him for just such occasions. Asked how she was keeping busy, Sen. Barbra Mikulski, D-Md., cracked, "Oh, I read the Federalist Papers."
Often, the very sight of the cots has had a way of prompting all parties to resolve their differences without a senatorial slumber party.
Not this time. Forced to make good on their filibuster threat, it was the Republicans' turn to describe the state of an all-night Senate.
A "political stunt," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. "Petty kindergarten games."
"We were instructed to legislate, not to strut across a stage," lectured McConnell. "This isn't Hollywood; this is real life, the United States Senate."
Not everyone was complaining. To at least one senator, an all-nighter offered some excitement, and a challenge.
"I'm trying to find a bench around here that's long enough for me to stretch out," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., a 6-foot-4 freshman lawmaker. "It's my first all-nighter - I'm excited."
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Associated Press writers David Espo and Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed to this report. |
