TPM Reader RM checks in …

As a lawyer at a large corporate law firm and fomer Navy veteran, I am no expert on theparliamentary procedure but am a bit perplexed at the approach the Democrats are taking on this. They have manuevered to get Republicans on record “blocking” debate, but only because Harry Reid seeks to limit debate and a substitute proposal by McConnell. Thus the Republicans can argue about a convoluted process and complain that they could not offer an alternative they wanted. And at that, all the Democrats want to debate is a chocie between two Republican (Hagel and Warner) alternatives.

I have a modest proposal. Why don’t the Senate Democrats put forward a proposed rule that the debate:

(1) is subject to any and all amendments (for binding resolutions, for the “no cutting off funds” proposal that McConell wants) and that there shall be no limit on the debate;
(2) will be held from 9 am to 7pm every weekday, Monday through Friday, until the debate is concluded;
(3) will require, just like the Clinton impeachment trial, that every Senator be physically present in their seats for all of the debate (I mean, the issues are at least equally important).

Maybe the inability of Tim Johnson to be present will cost the Democrats a vote. Maybe the Republicans can filibuster adoption of this rule. But at least the Democrats would have a clean record on which to argue that the Republicans really do not want to debate. If the Republicans manage to get the substantive votes to adopt some alternative resolution, so be it. They will be stuck with their vote come 2008.

And, as a cherry on top, the rule should also specifically invite the President of the Senate to preside personally over the entire debate, every weekday, until it is over. Let’s see Dick Cheney say he has more important things to do. After all, George Bush is the Commander in Chief and the Decider, so why can’t Cheney take the time (especially in light of TPM Muckraker’s find that Cheney is uniquely suited, as the previously unknown fourth branch of government, to moderate this debate). Let’s offer Cheney the opportunity to be on CSPAN every day, dealing with this. Then we shall see who “cuts and runs.”

It escapes me why the Democrats appear to have no skill at setting up the parliamentary process in a way that makes their points in a simple way. Force the debate. Even in the House, when the vote was forced, and the Republicans tries play games over the Murtha resolution, we all saw that the American public understood exactly what was going on.

Curious (and apoplectic),

RM

RM makes a very important point. But before getting to that issue, it’s important to understand precisely what happened on the senate floor today, what parliamentary procedures were in play and why it ended up as it did.

The Republicans main aim here was to prevent a no-confidence vote in the senate on the president’s war policy. They threatened a filibuster for a while until they finally came up with a rationale for the filibuster. And what they came up with was this …

There were three resolutions in play today. The Warner-Levin anti-surge resolution. The McCain-Graham-Lieberman pro-surge resolution. Then there was a third resolution offered by Sen. Judd Gregg. The key is the Gregg resolution. All the Gregg resolution really said was that it’s the Commander-in-Chief’s duty to assign military missions and the Congress’s duty to fund them. (Constitutionally, it’s a ridiculous claim. But let’s set that aside for the moment.)

Now, here’s the rub. The Democrats wanted them all to go to a simple majority vote. The Republicans wanted each to go to a 60+ filibuster-breaking vote.

How do the two thresholds shape the debate?

If each goes to a simple majority vote, the anti-surge resolution wins, the pro-surge resolution loses and the Gregg amendment probably wins too. But the headline is the repudiation of the president. The Gregg amendment is an afterthought.

However, if each resolution goes to a 60 vote test, the thinking was that both surge resolutions (pro and con) would fail. And only the Gregg amendment would win.

So opposition to the president would lose and the only winning amendment would be one that gets the senate on the record saying that Congress is obligated to fund whatever missions the president chooses.

That’s what happened.

Today’s Must Read: GOPers get set to unload on Paul Bremer.

Last month we reported extensively on the purge of US Attorneys across the country and the fact that at the administration’s request Sen. Specter (R-PA) had inserted a provision into the USA Patriot Act that allowed the administration to appoint new US Attorneys without senate approval.

This morning at a senate hearing on the US Attorney purge, Sen. Specter responded to the TPMmuckraker report, calling it “offensive.” But ‘offensive’ in the sense of also being true apparently. See the details and his explanation.

Late Update: Apparently Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) isn’t buying it. She repeated the ‘slipped in’ language when it was her turn to speak.

Phew! What a relief. That board of four ministers appointed to cure disgraced minister Ted Haggard of his homosexuality has been meeting pretty intensively. And it turns out Haggard is now “completely heterosexual.”

Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur, one of the four, said: ”He is completely heterosexual. That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn’t a constant thing.”

As part of his continuing recovery and presumably in the spirit of forgiveness and caring, the group has also recommended he leave Colorado permanently and go into a different line of work. “It’s hard to heal in Colorado Springs right now,” said Rev. Mike Ware of Westminster, another member of the board, “It’s like an open wound. He needs to get somewhere he can get the wound healed.”

It gets better. Now Sen. Specter (R-PA) says his staff was responsible for inserting that US Attorney provision into the Patriot Act. He didn’t know anything about it until Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) told him about it.

Conservative writer: Rudy is “not conservative.” Rudy “will not win.”

Update: Family Research Council president Tony Perkins agrees.

Out of all the talking going on at the House oversight hearing this morning on the administration’s handling of Iraqi reconstruction, you’re not going to get a clearer summary of the problem than this.

I recommend reading Edward Luttwak’s oped today in the New York Times.

The argument is simple: The US shouldn’t completely withdraw from Iraq but it should ‘disengage’, by which he means that the US should stop trying to patrol the streets of Iraq, stop trying to quell violence and in so many words let the militias and contending parties fight it out. Eliminating those missions would allow most of the US troops to head home. The rest would relocated to sealed off camps on the periphery of the country or into Iraqi Kurdistan to be on hand if a neighboring country tries to invade or visibly interfere or if there’s some big concentration of jihadists we want to attack.

One can agree or disagree with whether or not we should ‘disengage’ or withdraw entirely. But Luttwak hits on the key point that our current national debate seems to ignore entirely: Namely, that Iraq is in a state of civil war which we our combat forces are not in a position to stop. We cannot stop it. But our presence is dragging it out, arguably making it even more deadly by making it more protracted.

Here is what Luttwak says about what would happen …

Politically, on the other hand, disengagement should actually reduce the violence. American power has been interposed between Arab Sunnis and Arab Shiites. That has relieved the Shiite majority of responsibility to such an extent that many, notably the leaders of the Mahdi Army, feel free to attack the American and British troops who are busy protecting their co-religionist civilians from Sunni insurgents. For many Arab Sunnis, on the other hand, the United States must be the enemy simply because it upholds the majority of the heretical Shiites.

Were the United States to disengage, both Arab Sunnis and Shiites would have to take responsibility for their own security (as the Kurds have doing been all along). Where these three groups are not naturally separated by geography, they would be forced to find ways to stabilize relations with each other. That would most likely involve violence as well as talks, and some forcing of civilians from their homes. But all this is happening already, and there is no saying which ethno-religious group would be most favored by a reduction of the United States footprint.

This is another example where fairly straightforward and I believe indisputable facts suggest pulling our troops out of the midst of this civil war, not pushing more of them into it. But denial is pushing our national policy in the opposite direction. I think that some key players in the White House realize this. And the surge is either a way to blame ‘failure’ on the Iraqis or pave a path into Iran. Others, perhaps the president, don’t even get this. I don’t know.

But getting our policy in order is also being stymied because the political opponents of the war aren’t willing to say that, yes, the policy has failed. Not ‘defeated’. To be ‘defeated’ you need to have some other party ‘defeat’ you. This is just a failure. But whichever it is, that bogey is being used by the White House to scare off the opposition. It’s a failure. There’s no recovering it. And the unspeakable reality — truly unspeakable, apparently — is that it’s not that bad. Horrible for the Iraqis. Horrible for the American dead. Terrible for American prestige, power and honor. All that. But not the end of the world. The future of our civilization isn’t at stake. And our physical safety isn’t at stake. We’ll go on. We are not the brave British standing behind Winston Churchill bucking us up with the confidence that “We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender …” Those aren’t the stakes here. Put it in those words and it’s almost comical. President Bush wants us to believe that it is because it serves his grandiosity and direct political interests to believe that, to believe that his political interests — where everything, history, legacy, etc. is on the line — are the same as ours as a country. They’re not.

Forget the Senate. If you want to see members of Congress pass judgment on Bush’s escalation, the House of Representatives may be the better place to look.

CIA’s Foggo gave special Iraq contract deals to Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes.

Grand unified scandal watch resumes …

Update: More here.