Watching the Senate in action can be a harrowing experience.
Guy T. Sturino
September 07, 2006
The past two days in the Senate have been so full of things to write about that it’s impossible to pick just one. In fact, there was so much to baffle the reasonable mind over the past two days, that by the end of the day yesterday viewers had to have been in a state of “Shock and Awe.”
We got shocked and awed on Tuesday when George Felix Allen pushed his way ahead of Dick Durbin to present an amendment as his own that Durbin had tried to pass on an earlier bill and was preparing to present again. Durbin had little choice but to allow the amendment to go forward with Allen being the author of record. We have known for some time that the central core of the Senate majority has no shame. Now we know that they have no honor either.
Yesterday it began again. The shock was that the Democrats have finally gotten off of their collective backsides and have begun to speak strongly about their dissatisfaction with the Administration in general and Rumsfeld in particular over the conduct of the war in Iraq. The awe was in watching the collective gall of Republicans who immediately criticized Democrats for speaking out at all.
As usual, it was John Cornyn, Jim DeMint, Ted Stevens, Jon Kyle, Jeff Sessions, Rick Santorum and Saxby Chamblis who were the most dismissive of reality in their responses. In essence their response was to repeat the lies of the past – that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11, that just because WMD’s weren’t found doesn’t mean that they weren’t there, that the administration is fighting the good fight protecting us from the “terrorists” keeping the fight off-shore, we’re safer today because of it, and anyone who would speak out against the conduct of the war in Iraq is somehow unpatriotic and bordering on treason.
Not one Republican had the nerve to say yesterday what they’ve been saying in public for weeks – that Rumsfeld has gone too far and needs to be replaced. The Republicans did have the nerve to use procedural tactics to keep Harry Ried’s “Sense of the Senate” resolution from being voted on. The only plausible reason for the action was to keep the public from seeing how many Republicans have gone as far as they can go in support of a failed Administration.
These Senator choose to ignore the fact that the U.S. is burdened with a Secretary of Defense whose decisions have cost much too much in terms of money, prestige, international allies, and world leadership – not to mention the 2700 lives of our military and the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.
Enough on that subject.
Yesterday evening the last speaker was Jay Rockefeller. By this time it was hard to imagine that there could be one more “Shock and Awe” assault on the senses of the American people. It happened anyway. Rockefeller is the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee. His complaint was that for the second year in a row the Intelligence Appropriations, which have been part of the Defense Spending Bill since the early ‘70's, has been dropped from the bill by the Majority Leader, Bill Frist, for the second year in a row. We know that the Republican leadership doesn’t want to conduct oversight of the Administration, but the brazenness of this tactic, refusing to give the committee the power to function, is more than the people should be asked to endure.
Today Senator Rockefeller is going to present an amendment which would reinstate the Intelligence Appropriations in the current Defense Spending Bill. Reasonable Americans can only hope that the Senate will recover, and then exercise their power to oversee the intelligce community. We shall see.
A call to a Senator couldn't hurt --
The future is in our hands.
We got shocked and awed on Tuesday when George Felix Allen pushed his way ahead of Dick Durbin to present an amendment as his own that Durbin had tried to pass on an earlier bill and was preparing to present again. Durbin had little choice but to allow the amendment to go forward with Allen being the author of record. We have known for some time that the central core of the Senate majority has no shame. Now we know that they have no honor either.
Yesterday it began again. The shock was that the Democrats have finally gotten off of their collective backsides and have begun to speak strongly about their dissatisfaction with the Administration in general and Rumsfeld in particular over the conduct of the war in Iraq. The awe was in watching the collective gall of Republicans who immediately criticized Democrats for speaking out at all.
As usual, it was John Cornyn, Jim DeMint, Ted Stevens, Jon Kyle, Jeff Sessions, Rick Santorum and Saxby Chamblis who were the most dismissive of reality in their responses. In essence their response was to repeat the lies of the past – that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11, that just because WMD’s weren’t found doesn’t mean that they weren’t there, that the administration is fighting the good fight protecting us from the “terrorists” keeping the fight off-shore, we’re safer today because of it, and anyone who would speak out against the conduct of the war in Iraq is somehow unpatriotic and bordering on treason.
Not one Republican had the nerve to say yesterday what they’ve been saying in public for weeks – that Rumsfeld has gone too far and needs to be replaced. The Republicans did have the nerve to use procedural tactics to keep Harry Ried’s “Sense of the Senate” resolution from being voted on. The only plausible reason for the action was to keep the public from seeing how many Republicans have gone as far as they can go in support of a failed Administration.
These Senator choose to ignore the fact that the U.S. is burdened with a Secretary of Defense whose decisions have cost much too much in terms of money, prestige, international allies, and world leadership – not to mention the 2700 lives of our military and the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.
Enough on that subject.
Yesterday evening the last speaker was Jay Rockefeller. By this time it was hard to imagine that there could be one more “Shock and Awe” assault on the senses of the American people. It happened anyway. Rockefeller is the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee. His complaint was that for the second year in a row the Intelligence Appropriations, which have been part of the Defense Spending Bill since the early ‘70's, has been dropped from the bill by the Majority Leader, Bill Frist, for the second year in a row. We know that the Republican leadership doesn’t want to conduct oversight of the Administration, but the brazenness of this tactic, refusing to give the committee the power to function, is more than the people should be asked to endure.
Today Senator Rockefeller is going to present an amendment which would reinstate the Intelligence Appropriations in the current Defense Spending Bill. Reasonable Americans can only hope that the Senate will recover, and then exercise their power to oversee the intelligce community. We shall see.
A call to a Senator couldn't hurt --
The future is in our hands.
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