{"id":11495,"date":"2007-07-18T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-18T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11495.html"},"modified":"2007-07-18T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-18T13:00:00","slug":"senate-pulls-an-all-nighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/senate-pulls-an-all-nighter\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate pulls an all-nighter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, how’d things go in the Senate’s overnight debate? As far as I can tell, the unusual debate was largely successful<\/a>. Reports about procedural hurdles that would short-circuit the debate proved to be false, and lawmakers got down to business.<\/p>\n

Democrats rolled out cots and ordered pizzas as they settled in for a marathon Senate debate on Iraq last night that featured numerous speeches but little chance of getting any closer to resolving the stalemate over how to end the war.<\/p>\n

Republicans were determined to block legislation forcing a withdrawal of combat troops, which was expected to come before bleary-eyed senators this morning in the nonstop session. Republicans dismissed the Democrats’ overnight effort as political theatrics and vowed to enforce a 60-vote threshold for passing the withdrawal proposal, which would bring most troop homes by May.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reasonable people can disagree about whether pulling an all-nighter amounted to a “stunt,” but if the point of the endeavor was to generate some attention and bring the debate to public light, I’d say it was a triumph — stories about the debate were on the front pages of every major daily this morning, and from what I hear, TV coverage was pretty good.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) reportedly dispatched interns to buy toothpaste, toothbrushes, and deodorant for delivery to GOP leadership offices, with a note offering the “supplies for your sleepless night.” It added: “Help us bring an end to this war.”<\/p>\n

Will they? It remains a long-shot. Asked whether the all-night session would change any votes, Harry Reid said, “I hope so, because [the debate] will focus attention on the obstructionism of the Republicans.”<\/p>\n

Highlighting GOP obstructionism is important, but in this case, it probably won’t be enough<\/a>. It’s harder than it looks to bring shame to the shameless.
\n<\/p>\n

A handful of Republicans who have distanced themselves from President Bush on the war in Iraq refused Tuesday to back a plan to withdraw American troops from the conflict, leaving Senate Democrats short of the support needed to force a vote on their proposal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can’t blame the Senate Dems for trying. They’re doing just about everything they can, but with 49 votes in the caucus, there are obvious limits.<\/p>\n

To be sure, if Republicans let the chamber vote on Levin-Reed, it would pass. It would inevitably lead to another confrontation with the White House, but that’s a different fight, which Dems are anxious to have. But the GOP has apparently developed quite a fear of majority rule.<\/p>\n

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), sounding a bit like a terrorist, said a few years ago<\/a>,”[Filibustering] is wrong. It’s not supportable under the Constitution. And if they insist on persisting with these filibusters, I’m perfectly prepared to blow the place up.” Funny how times change.<\/p>\n

The Levin-Reed measure is slated for an 11 am (eastern) vote. It almost certainly won’t get past yet another Republican filibuster, but thanks to last night, it’s getting far more public attention than it would have otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, how’d things go in the Senate’s overnight debate? As far as I can tell, the unusual debate was largely successful. Reports about procedural hurdles that would short-circuit the debate proved to be false, and lawmakers got down to business. Democrats rolled out cots and ordered pizzas as they settled in for a marathon Senate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}