Just when you think the Democrats can't disgrace themselves more than they have already, they manage to come up with a new way to bring shame to their Party.
In a cheap, political stunt, the Dems invoked Rule 21.
Rule XXI: Session with Closed Doors
1. On a motion made and seconded to close the doors of the Senate, on the discussion of any business which may, in the opinion of a Senator, require secrecy, the Presiding Officer shall direct the galleries to be cleared; and during the discussion of such motion the doors shall remain closed.
2. When the Senate meets in closed session, any applicable provisions of rules XXIX and XXXI, including the confidentiality of information shall apply to any information and to the conduct of any debate transacted.
Once Rule 21 is invoked, the motion is not debatable.
MINORITY (for good reason) leader Harry Reid said, "I demand on behalf of the America people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted."
Reid barely finished speaking and Dick Durbin seconded the motion.
Angered by the brazen political stunt, MAJORITY (for good reason) leader Bill Frist proclaimed, "The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership. They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas."
Frist commented, "In recent history, this just hasn't been done. And this lack of respect, the lack of civility is a real affront." He added that the rarely used Rule 21 was invoked after "mutual conversation" between the leaders of both parties.
Rightly so, Frist called the Dems on their sleazy move. He said, "This is an affront to me personally. This is an affront to our leadership. It is an affront to the United States of America, and it is wrong."
So--
Do you think there will be leaks about what went on in that closed session?
Of course, the Senate rules state that what goes on behind closed doors in the session must remain confidential.
So what? Rules? What rules?
Who cares? I want to know what happened. Did you ever notice that there never seems to be a leak when you want one?
I'm guessing that the session was quite ugly. We know it got off to a rocky start.
I think it should be noted that the Dems did not hesitate to stab Republicans in the back. Clearly, they caught the Republican leadership off guard with their defiant disregard of protocol. The Dems don't exactly appear like they're interested in working with the Republicans, do they?
It still bothers me that the seven Republicans of the Gang of Fourteen were so quick to capitulate when the Dems were threatening to filibuster more of Bush's judicial nominees back in May. How silly they were to roll over, trust the Dems, and cut a deal!
The Democrats are ruthless. They proved that today.
For all the Dems' whining about Republican power grabs (Remember when that was a hot Dem talking point?), it was the Dems that decided to go nuclear by invoking Rule 21 without warning.
The reality is the members of the Dem leadership want to block Republicans at every move, to prevent the government from functioning and accomplishing the work that American voters expect to be done.
The Dems are power hungry. They're starving.
Since the American people have voted to keep them out of power, they took this pathetic political move to assert themselves.
The thing is their strategy will come back to bite them, as it should.
They may think that they're firing up their base. They probably are. However, what the Dems do doesn't occur in a vacuum. Republican and Independent voters are watching how they're conducting themselves and what they're seeing is not a pretty picture.
Over the weekend, Reid was all over the media calling for Karl Rove to resign.
From the Associated Press:
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he is disappointed that Bush and Cheney responded to the indictment by lauding Libby and suggested they should apologize for the leak that revealed the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.
"First of all, the vice president issues this very terse statement praising Libby for all the great things he's done," Reid said. "Then we have the president come on camera a few minutes later calling him Scooter and what a great patriot he is. There has not been an apology to the American people for this obvious problem in the White House," Reid, D-Nev., told ABC's "This Week."
Reid should not be criticizing the administration for refusing to disown him Libby.
Flash back to the Rose Garden pep rally that the Dems staged on the Saturday that Clinton was impeached. There was an obvious problem in the White House then, not the least of which had to do with stain removal.
This is not the time for Bush or Cheney to be making apologies.
An indictment is NOT a conviction.
Of course, the Dems are acting as if there is no presumption of innocence, in effect stripping Libby of his rights as an American citizen.
Although it's aggravating to hear Reid make such idiotic statements, it certainly helps Republicans to have him in front of the cameras behaving so foolishly.
Chris Dodd joined the fray. He said Cheney should "come clean" about his involvement and why he discussed Plame with Libby before Libby spoke to reporters about her.
"What did the vice president know? What were his intentions?" Dodd asked on "Fox News Sunday."
"Now, there's no suggestion the vice president is guilty of any crime here whatsoever. But if our standard is just criminality, then we're never going to get to the bottom of this," Dodd said.
The Dems are bent on damaging the administration. They'll adjust the bar arbitrarily and set the standard at whatever level necessary to do the most harm to Bush and the Republicans.
...Reid said Rove should resign or be fired for even discussing Plame. He recalled that Bush once said he would fire anyone involved in the leak, although Bush later amended that standard to say he would fire anyone convicted of a crime.
"If he's a man of his word, Rove should be history," Reid said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Reid is nuts. I'm surprised he didn't call for Rove to be tarred and feathered while he was at it. Again, Plame was not covert. There was no leak, so how could anyone be involved in the leak?
Why all this bluster from the Dems?
It all gets back to their impotency, their inability to perform, their powerlessness.
The Dems have had a rough stretch. They so eagerly awaited the day that Fitzgerald would hand down indictments. When the day finally arrived, it was a disappointment. They hoped it would blow the administration apart. That didn't happen.
Fitzgerald didn't deliver what they anticipated. To the dismay of the Dems and Joe Wilson, Rove wasn't frog-marched out of the White House.
Lawrence "Creepy Liar" O'Donnell had predicted multiple high level Bush administration indictments. Didn't happen. Not even close.
To top it off, Bush nominated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.
It was all too much for the Dems to bear.
The Democrat Party is such a mess. Their "Culture of Corruption" strategy will probably serve to fire up Republicans more than Dems.
Reid, Durbin, and the rest are such fools.
No comments:
Post a Comment