Meltdown
What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

Yesterday's gambit by Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid to close down the Senate--by sending it to a closed, secret session--was audacious (in the refined decorum that is the Senate, especially this stonewalled version run by the Right Reverend Dr. Bill Frist), but it was exactly what the Dems needed to do. For too long, there have been questions about what the minority party was going to do to counter the slothful, apologist Republican leadership (in both House and Senate). And the prevailing opinion has been that sitting on their haunches while everything else imploded wasn't going to move the public behind them. I like that Harry Reid.

So, let's take a swing through what this was all about and what some of the fallout has been. First, a brief wrap-up from the WaPo:

Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed-door session yesterday, infuriating Republicans but extracting from them a promise to speed up an inquiry into the Bush administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's weapons in the run-up to the war.

With no warning in the mid-afternoon, the Senate's top Democrat invoked the little-used Rule 21, which forced aides to turn off the chamber's cameras and close its massive doors after evicting all visitors, reporters and most staffers. Plans to bring in electronic-bug-sniffing dogs were dropped when it became clear that senators would trade barbs but discuss no classified information.

Republicans condemned the Democrats' maneuver, which marked the first time in more than 25 years that one party had insisted on a closed session without consulting the other party. But within two hours, Republicans appointed a bipartisan panel to report on the progress of a Senate intelligence committee report on prewar intelligence, which Democrats say has been delayed for nearly a year.

And then there's this from the NYTimes:

Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and other senior Republicans said Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, had blindsided them by invoking a seldom-used rule and that the maneuver had seriously damaged relations in the Senate, where partisan tension was already high.

"This is an affront to me personally," an angry Mr. Frist said.

He said would find it difficult to trust Mr. Reid any longer.

"It's an affront to our leadership," Mr. Frist said. "It's an affront to the United States of America. And it is wrong."

But Democrats said last week's indictment of Mr. Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, highlighted anew the need for the Senate to examine the administration's handling of intelligence. They said the unusual demand for a closed session was made out of frustration with the refusal of the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, to make good on his February 2004 pledge to pursue such an investigation.

We'll get back to the affrontery to Frist in a bit. But first, let's take a look at the crux of the matter: Senator Pat Roberts' Intelligence Committee long-delayed investigation into pre-war intelligence failures from the Bush administration side (or Phase 2; Phase 1, where the CIA got their asses whacked, was completed last year before the election). After all the falderal, Frist announced that the investigation report was nearing completion and would be ready by November 14. Here's more from the WaPo:

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said the report was nearing completion anyway, but Democrats disputed that. Committee Vice Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) began inquiring about the evidence against Iraq one week before U.S. troops invaded in March 2003. His interest was sparked by revelations that the Bush administration gave forged documents to U.N. weapons inspectors to support allegations that Iraq had sought to buy a key ingredient for nuclear weapons from the West African nation of Niger.

Roberts resisted a full investigation for three months. But in June 2003, when it became increasingly apparent that no weapons of mass destruction were being found in Iraq, the committee agreed to look into the intelligence cited in the administration's case for war. In February 2004, senators agreed to a second phase that would investigate the Bush administration's use of intelligence and examine public statements made by key policymakers about the threat posed by Iraq.

In July 2004, the committee issued the first phase of its bipartisan report, which found the U.S. intelligence community had assembled a deeply flawed and exaggerated assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities. The second phase was to focus on the administration's deliberations over the intelligence or how it was used. Sources familiar with the committee's work said there has been little examination of these topics to date.

The Defense Department's Office of Special Plans stopped cooperating with the Senate panel in July of this year. Roberts said key officials hired lawyers and stopped talking when Rockefeller suggested laws may have been broken. But Democrats dismissed that as an excuse.

Raw Story has a fact sheet distributed by Democrats yesterday that lists the numerous times that Rockefeller's efforts to get this investigation moving have been thwarted by Pat Roberts and other Republicans. Laura Rozen of the War and Piece blog also did a recent piece for the American Prospect (one of my favorite mags) about this, which paints Rockefeller in a somewhat less flattering hue, though still trying to get to the bottom of things:

Through all the delays, Rockefeller hasn’t exactly been Mr. Aggressive in pushing Roberts to abide by his promise for swift action. There are several reasons why. The most obvious is simple math: The Republicans have more votes on the committee than the Democrats. “In fairness, if you follow the committee rules and procedures, which [Rockefeller] is trying to do, he has been slam-dunked by the Republicans,” one source says. “And they have the votes.”

A second problem for Rockefeller: An internal staff memo urging him to call for an independent investigation of the administration’s use of Iraq intelligence was leaked to FOX News’ Sean Hannity in November 2003. The resulting mini-furor that erupted in the right-wing media has contributed to Rockefeller’s reluctance to act.

But the main reason he has been inhibited is that previous public comments he made apparently caused the Pentagon to abruptly stop cooperating with the investigation. At the July 2004 press conference occasioned by the release of the Phase I report, Rockefeller asserted that certain activities of members of the office of then–Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, including a secret Rome meeting with the Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, might have been “unlawful.” At that point, Feith’s office simply stopped cooperating with the investigation, and Roberts hasn’t compelled Feith or his staff to comply. “[The Defense Department] got very skittish about volunteering as they had been up to that point,” an SSCI staffer told the Prospect. “They got all lawyered up. Roberts’ position, and [the Defense Department’s], has been either ‘show us what you’re talking about’ or ‘withdraw the statement and we’ll continue our cooperation with you.’ Rockefeller wouldn’t do either.”
[...]
Among the documents in the committee’s possession, the Prospect has learned, is a cable the CIA station chief in Rome sent to Langley expressing concern that members of Feith’s office were involved in an unauthorized covert action. The committee also has Franklin’s Rome report, which, according to sources, revealed that the meeting included the discussion of possibilities for engaging a network of Ghorbanifar associates to pursue action against Tehran. (Franklin pled guilty in October to charges stemming from a separate FBI investigation. Feith left the Pentagon for the private sector over the summer.)

“[Rockefeller] made an offhand comment at a press conference, which was totally accurate,” a source close to the investigation told the Prospect. “Some of these guys may have crossed the lines into illegalities. Can you imagine if during Iran-Contra the executive branch had said, ‘We’re not going to provide you any more information because one of your members suggested that one of our members may have acted illegally’? In those days, neither Republicans nor Democrats would have stood for that for one minute.”

But that was then. Today, committee Republicans view their mission as being not oversight but cover-up. Indeed, one source told the Prospect that Roberts has worked closely behind the scenes with Vice President Dick Cheney’s office in crafting the language defining and limiting the investigation’s terms -- even though the committee is supposed to be investigating and providing oversight of the administration’s use of Iraq intelligence. Yet the committee’s leading Democrat, Rockefeller, hobbled by criticism from within the committee -- and according to one account, “a wimp … not confident of his own judgments” -- has felt constrained from pushing the majority more aggressively to comply with its promise.

As for the political maneuvering, Hunter at Daily Kos gives this gambit mad props, noting thusly:

• First, obviously, it forced the Senate to agree to finally investigate the massaged and/or bogus Iraq War intelligence, after stonewalling the investigation for over two years.
• Second, it shows the American people that the Democrats are serious about the Republicans' ongoing dismissal of critical national security matters, even if Republicans like Frist and Roberts have proven over the last two years they aren't trustworthy or responsible about pursuing them. And that Democrats are also dead serious about the Iraq War, and investigating any frauds or manipulations used to send us into the quagmire.
• It absolutely nails the Republicans to the wall on Plamegate. [...] Today, by demanding a response to Senate obstruction efforts, Reid squarely brought the national discourse back to the ongoing now-criminal obstruction efforts in the White House -- a criminal obstruction that had in the last days been made into a talking point praised by Republicans as a Republican victory over the investigation. And it masterfully highlights the fundamental dishonesty of a Republican Senate with no intentions of getting to the bottom of either of them. Frist squealed like a stuck pig at even the mere thought of having to discuss either matter.
• It completely disrupted and short-circuited the nasty, Swift Boat hackery of the Republicans attempting to defend the far-right Judge Sam Alito. The Republican spin machine isn't the only group capable of setting the parameters of the national debate.
• Perhaps most importantly, it fires a huge warning shot into the Republican efforts to break Senate rules to disallow filibusters. Remember, Reid did similar parliamentary moves during the last discussion of Senate-busting "nuclear" rule changes by Republicans. So this is just a little punch to say "You want to mess with the rules? We can make your legislative lives into an unworkable living hell, if you're not willing to play by the rules. Think about whether you want to fire those shots."

Finally, back to Frist, via Dana Milbank at the WaPo:

Frist was now sputtering. "This is an affront to me personally. It's an affront to our leadership. It's an affront to the United States of America!" Turning sorrowful, he vowed that "for the next year and a half, I can't trust Senator Reid."

"Mr. Leader," one stunned journalist observed, "I don't remember you being so exercised over something before."

"You've never seen me in heart surgery," the senator, a transplant specialist, replied.

Dr. Frist's patients -- not to mention the Tennessee medical licensing board -- may be surprised to learn that he had operating-room rage.

Remind me to get a second opinion if Frist is on the docket to operate.