The US Senate just went completely nuts.
In an extraordinary sign of the depth of political acrimony here, Democratic leaders employed a rarely invoked rule today to place the entire Senate in closed session for more than two hours, saying that the Republican majority had reneged on a promise to thoroughly investigate flawed intelligence used to justify the Iraq war.Does this mean that Stuff will actually happen about the Bush administration?
Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the minority leader, caught Republicans by surprise when he invoked Rule 21 - a move that Republicans said had not been taken in more than 20 years.
Senator Reid said that while the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, had promised a thorough inquiry into prewar intelligence, including the way the White House had used or misused it, he had not followed through.
"I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted," Senator Reid said from the Senate floor, "and in accordance with Rule 21, I now move that the Senate go into closed session."
Well, probably not. Also, I'd like a pony.
2 Comments:
At least it resulted in people on the radio talking about THAT for an hour or so instead of Bush's attempt to terrify people about avian flu. It's getting ridiculous: the inditement of Libby was HUGE on Friday, then Monday Bush nominates a new supreme court dude (who's really frightening) and the media forget all about it, then Tuesday Bush tries to terrify everyone about avian flu and suggests a 7.1 billion dollar bill to help homes stockpile masks and respirators. OK and some vaccination stuff too, but honestly, the media just eat it up and the vice president's office having leaked the identity of a CIA agent in order to get back at her husband who had been honest about their not being weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - that's just forgotten.
It's a very, very strange country. For sanity's sake I'm thinking I might just stop watching the news. I'm only here for another week or so.
Sigh.
Oh: an upside: Boston Legal (mainstream legal drama series) last night was all about suing the army for shafting recruits and lying to them and so on, and while the case was lost (in the fictional series) a LOT was said about the illegitimacy of the war. They were (unsurprisingly) a lot more up to date than US series are by the time they hit Norway, they even had the "2000 soldiers killed" that only was announced last week, though I suppose it was predictable.
If such strong criticism of the war is becoming common in mainstream television, presumably things are changing.
Also: the local bottle shop now has a couple of anti-Bush cartoons pinned up on their wall. Previously all their cartoons have been really right wing, so this is a big shift.
The US media are so easily distracted, they're like a flock of oooh look! Shiny thing! (the one called "Double vision" - Jon Stewart has become my beacon of sanity. Also, he brings the funny.)
I read the Bitch PhD post after reading about Alito in the NY Times. Judging (pun not intended) by their profile, I got the impression he was a decent enough guy. A little conservative, but in the good sense, generally likeable and not too ravingly anti everything we like. She knocked things back in perspective. Hopefully he'll get filibustered if he passes commitee. If not, they (which also comes to mean we) will have two Scalias on the bench, and god help us then.
But at least the democrats are finally back on the offense, and people are starting to wake up and smell the incompetence and corruption.
Speaking of which, I've been watching some up-to-date US network stuff too through the wonders of digital video and eDonkey. I keep catching all these little digs at the Bush administration in series like Rome and (obviously) West Wing. Rome is all about the decadent end of days for the republic, where going to war is a political game where you have to distract the masses long enough to wipe out your opponent, bribe the right people, offer jobs to those loyal to you, and attempt to keep the real agenda below the table. Every time I watch it, I keep thinking it sounds exactly like american politics. Also, I've been reading some Roman history lately. The parallels are striking and rather uncomfortable.
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