There’s a bruising fight raging in the blogosphere over Democratic Senator Harry Reid’s decision yesterday to invoke Rule 21 and “close” the Senate to discuss the Intelligence Committee’s further inquiry into prewar intelligence, which was supposed to take place after the presidential election a year ago. And, as can be expected, the two sides see very different motives and realities behind the move.
The Michigan Conservative might be going a little too far in outlining a parallel to the fall of ancient Rome in the machinations of the Senate, saying that the United States appears to have “split the Empire into the Demogoths and Republihuns. Two warring tribal factions, each trying its best to decapitate the tribal Warlord of the other. Ancient Rome collapsed under similar circumstances when it divided into an eastern and western empire unable to guard either from the invading barbarians … Yesterday the Demogoth tribal chieftan Blind Reid, declared himself to be Imperial ruler of all the lands of the Senate by calling an executive session behind the back of Chief Wm the Frist … The problem they have, however, is they are not the ruling gang, the Republihuns are. When Chief Frist, the most mighty ruler of the Republihuns and exalted ruler of the Senate gets finished with the Demogoth leadership, some will think Thor really did strike with a lightning bolt.”
The “stunt,” as it is being called, even brought The Corner’s J-Pod (John Podhoretz) out of his self-imposed blogging hiatus to offer some grudging praise for Reid’s move. “I think the Democratic move today in the Senate is politically canny,” he wrote. “This is the sort of thing to make the Huffington Puffington people shriek with happiness and the Kossians to chortle with joy — almost as much as Bush pulling Miers’s nomination did for us (I know, we’re not supposed to gloat, but come on). And unfortunately, what the GOP has to respond to the maneuver is Bill Frist, who’s a great and noble human being but a stinko political leader. It may not work, but there’s no sense pretending this is a dumb thing to do. It isn’t.”
On the other side, Gloaming blog writes, “O glorious day! It’s nice to see the Democrats in office finally start showing some cajones.”
Bark Bark Woof Woof (we can’t believe we just wrote that) makes a point made by few others we’ve seen, writing that “The irony [of Republicans being upset by Reid’s move] is lost on them; this is the party that holds open a 15-minute vote on the House floor for three hours so Tom DeLay can strong-arm wavering members; this is the party that held an extraordinary session and whooped through a bill to stomp the shit out of states’ rights, patients’ rights, and simple dignity in the Terri Schiavo case; this is the party that routinely denies conference status to any member of the minority party when it comes to working out differences in bills in committee …”
Finally, who’s in the mood for a bit of Judy Miller gallows humor? The Panopticist has put together a mock “The Ethicist” column that we — as the carpal tunnel-plagued keyboard jockeys that we are — ruefully find pretty amusing. The upshot? A lot of people are very unhappy with Ms. Miller.
Ah, journalism humor; we’re always a little saddened when we find it so funny.
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.