Republicans Call Reid's Bluff
CAPTAIN ED
Harry Reid kept the Senate in business all night long as a way to publicize the fact that Republicans won't allow cloture on an amendment for retreating from Iraq. For some reason, Reid apparently thought that this would somehow break the will of the Republicans in a manner that had escaped the Democratic effort to complain about the same cloture rules they used repeatedly to block legislation and presidential appointments when Reid was Minority Leader instead of Majority Leader.
In the end, not only didn't Reid move the Republicans, he took most of the night off himself:
"So much for forcing Republicans to filibuster all night.
As the clock struck midnight and Tuesday became Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid loosened up a bit on his plans to teach members of the minority that Democrats set the schedule on the debate over Iraq. ...
Speaking of those mandatory attendance tallies, Reid changed his mind about how many, and when. He had originally planned holding one around 3 a.m. and another at 7 a.m. But that changed during the midnight vote when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., made the case against senatorial sleep deprivation and impugned Reid to push the quorum call back.
Reid, who had his very own cot waiting for him in a quiet parlor off his office, agreed. Next live quorum call, he announced: 5 a.m. With a few cases of bed-head among them, senators rolled in and again passed the same motion to instruct. This time the motion passed 37-23, with dawn beginning to break by the time the tally was completed.
So what did this accomplish? Nothing. After midnight, most of the Senate disappeared. It turned into nothing more than a huge bluff, and Reid lost."
Here's what Reid wanted. He knew that he didn't have enough votes for a quorum; he only has 49 Democrats available, with Tim Johnson's disability. Reid counted on Republicans forcing an end to the session by having a single member present to challenge for a quorum. No votes could take place without one, including the instruction motion to the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest recalcitrant members and drag them back to the chamber. That would have allowed Reid and the Democrats to accuse Republicans of dodging the debate, calling them cowards to take the spotlight off of their insistence on retreat.
Many expected the Republicans to do just that, but it turns out that Mitch McConnell is a little smarter than Harry Reid. Instead of denying Reid a quorum, the Republicans showed up for the debate, perhaps charged up by John McCain's earlier speech on the floor. Once Reid figured out that the Republicans would not give him the satisfaction of walking out the door, he caved. In fact, Reid didn't even bother to attend his own No Snooze Until We Lose party after the first instruction motion, choosing to hit the sack instead while Republicans took the podium all night long.
The cloture vote has been scheduled for around 11 am this morning. The overnight session has done nothing except to annoy Republicans into a more unified caucus, and to make Harry Reid look like a fool. One might have expected a Senator from Nevada to recognize a busted flush when he saw it.
captainsquartersblog.com |
