Senate Democrats Show Some Spine

The Nation: Closed Session Was A Promising Move

(The Nation)  This column was written by John Nichols.

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Remarkable as it may sound, there is reason to believe that Congressional Democrats may finally be waking from their long slumber and stirring into a functional opposition party.

The United States Senate went back into session Tuesday for the first time since Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, I. Lewis Libby, was indicted for lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury looking into whether the White House deliberately set out to destroy the reputation of former Ambassador Joe Wilson after he revealed that the Administration’s case for war in Iraq relied on a deliberate misreading of intelligence information. But it was not business as usual. Instead, Democrats used a rare procedural move to force the Republican-controlled Senate into a closed session to discuss the status of a promised investigation into the Administration’s use and misuse of intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

With a grave tone that seemed dramatically out of character for dormant Democrats in recent years, Senate minority leader Harry Reid took to the floor of the chamber and declared, "I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren’t being conducted."

Senate majority leader Bill Frist, who has never left any doubt that his loyalty is to the Republican Party and his President rather than to the Republic, immediately accused Reid of attempting to "hijack" the Senate by forcing a discussion about accountability in matters of war and peace. Though he did not appear to recognize the irony in his statement, Frist said of the Democrats, "They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas."

But Reid pressed his point, calling for a closed session to discuss intelligence matters. Under Senate rules, which traditionally respect demands for closed-door sessions on intelligence, Reid’s request was granted without a vote.

The galleries of the chamber were cleared of all spectators, and the doors to the Senate were shuttered.