Capitol Smackdown

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 2, 2005 8:09 AM

I must say, they really looked mad yesterday.

Politicians are masters of manufactured outrage. In fact, one might say that's what they do for a living.

But when Bill Frist said he felt "slapped in the face" by Harry Reid, it was like his face was red and stinging. And Reid looked just as ticked off when he came out to face the cameras.

The occasion-- and what passed for excitement inside the Beltway-- was a maneuver in which the Democratic leader forced the Senate into secret session over the Libby indictment and prewar intel.

Frist declared it a "stunt," and he was right. But it was a stunt that got attention, which is important when you're in the minority.

Let's separate the theatrics from the substance.

On the drama front, Reid didn't accomplish much, nor did he really intend to. Except, perhaps, to serve notice that he's no Tom Daschle and isn't going to play the gentlemanly game of go along and get along.

On the substance front, Reid has a valid point: The Republican Congress--which held hearings every 10 minutes on various and sundry Clinton scandals-- has no interest in performing serious oversight of the Bush administration. (Imagine if a top Clinton aide had been indicted in the outing of a CIA operative! The GOP chairman would have scars from colliding with each other in the rush to hold hearings.) But with 44 votes, Reid can't do much about that.

All this looks like it will produce some ruptured relations as the Senate gears up to consider Sam Alito-- and with the nuclear option hovering on the horizon, in case the Dems actually try to filibuster.

"Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session on Tuesday over the Bush administration's use of intelligence to justify the Iraq war and the Senate's willingness to examine it," says the New York Times .

"The move provoked a sharp public confrontation between the two parties as the Republicans lost control of the chamber for two hours and were left to complain bitterly about what they called an unnecessary 'stunt.' The confrontation demonstrated an escalation of partisan tensions in the wake of last week's indictment of the White House aide I. Lewis Libby Jr. in the C.I.A. leak case."

Frist said "he would find it difficult to trust Mr. Reid any longer." Like they had such a great relationship before? Frist went to South Dakota last year to campaign against Daschle, so he knows politics ain't beanbag.

"A messy partisan struggle erupted in the Senate today, with Republican leader Bill Frist accusing his Democratic counterpart Harry Reid of breaching Senate courtesy in a fight that threatens to disrupt the chamber's agenda until next year's congressional elections," says the Los Angeles Times .

"The breakdown in comity demonstrates how rough it is likely to be in the months ahead as the Senate takes up a Supreme Court nomination that could determine the high court's direction for decades."

Boston Globe : "In a power play that stunned and angered Republicans, Senate Democrats yesterday forced the chamber into a rare closed session to demand further investigation into the intelligence that led the nation into the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq . . .

"The private session could not force the Republicans to take any action, but the Democrats outmaneuvered and frustrated the majority party, which has largely had its way since the GOP took control of the chamber in 2002."

Philadelphia Inquirer : "The surprise maneuver, exploiting last week's indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff in the CIA leak case, caught Republicans flatfooted and shifted attention back to the increasingly unpopular war and away from President Bush's day-old Supreme Court nomination."

How's it playing? The New Republic's Michael Crowley gives Reid two thumbs up:

"I'm frankly surprised at all the attention the Reid gambit is getting-- namely, live coverage on all the cable networks and an explosion of online news and blog coverage. Bill Frist is, after all, correct to call this a 'stunt.' Democrats aren't saying anything today that they haven't been saying for months previously. But politics is partly theater -- and too often Democrats are like a Broadway show that closes on opening night. So this is a pleasantly surprising tactical victory."

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum : "This seems like it was a pretty canny move on Reid's part. I don't think relations between the parties can get much worse, so there's probably no harm done on that score. On the other hand, it does force the media's attention back on the intelligence scandal, and does it in a way that probably seems pretty reasonable to neutral observers: by asking only that Pat Roberts and the Senate Intelligence Committee conduct the investigation into manipulation of prewar intelligence that they promised to conduct all along."

Kate O'Beirne offers the GOP some talking points at National Review's The Corner:

"A little friendly advice for the outraged Senate GOP leadership: You all take yourselves and the manners and mores of the Senate far more seriously than the universe of people who have never served there. Drop the 'unsenatorial' line-- Reid's behavior on that score offends you more than it does the rest of us. Acuse them of having political motives - wanted a politicized investigation and didn't get it - a bipartisan Senate report found that pre-war intelligence wasn't politicized - mad over the nomination of Sam Alito because he's such a strong candidate - i.e. they are Joe Wilson-Democrats, a bunch of frustrated losers."

Billmon enjoys the spectacle over at his Whiskey Bar:

"In some ways, the reaction of the GOP grandees was an even bigger treat than watching the Democratic jellyfish rear up on its hind tentacles and sting someone. Outside of a nursery school, I don't know if I've ever heard such a chorus of crying and whining from a bunch of babies before. The Republicans have been in power so long now they've started to take on the pompous self-righteousness of those who believe power is their due . . .

"But, GOP sob stories notwithstanding, it really was a remarkable outbreak of minority uppityness. The Gingrich gang used to pull stuff like this all the time when the Dems controlled the House (if Pelosi tried the same tactics now, I think Hastert would probably have her taken outside and shot) but the Senate is still the world's most exclusive men's club and isn't supposed to have its feathers ruffled this way. It's like a pie fight breaking out at the Vatican."

But Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs , it's fair to say, disapproves:

"In one sense, it's a good thing when the Democratic Party shows just how radicalized and out of touch they have become--but in another sense, it's depressing, because our political system needs two functioning, sane parties to work well, and one of them is clearly off the rails."

Other blogger headlines ranged from "Reid Hijacks Senate" at the Grape's Vine to "Give 'Em Hell Harry" at MQA .

Andrew Sullivan wants reporters to get mad over the Libby investigation:

"Where is the vice-president? When was the last time he held a press conference? I ask these obvious questions because reasonable and fair people, having read the indictments against his chief of staff, have reasonable and fair questions. Did Cheney direct Libby to out Valerie Wilson's identity? Why did he order an inquiry into her role? Does he condemn the leaking of her identity? Why has he held back important documents from the Senate that would help explain his role in formulating what turned out to be flawed intelligence before the Iraq war? That's just for starters.

"The issues here are profound ones: they suggest that the vice-president has abused his own power and put the nation's security at risk to pursue a political opponent. Maybe that's not true. Maybe there's an innocent explanation for all of this. So why cannot the vice-president explain? It seems at times as if he does not really regard himself as answerable to the people he represents - that once every four years is enough for him. But having the second most powerful man in the country refuse to be accountable for his actions is dangerous for democracy. He is not above this process. You and I pay his salary. It's time for the press to get angry about his silence and avoidance."

Moving on to Alito . . . Everything you are about to read is media hype. Or so says Halperin & Co. at The Note :

"Despite the long odds (we think) that Democrats will try to filibuster this pick -- the media is sure to spend the next few months counter-factually ratcheting up the impression that the outcome of the nomination hangs in the balance. Why is this?

"Well, some segments of the press like the 'Bush in trouble' storyline and don't want to give it up anytime soon."

Give me a moment until my blood pressure goes down.

"Some segments of the press pretty much always prefer to have (Republican) presidential nominees be derailed (although the blood-thirstiness on that score seems lower than usual for reasons we can't quite explain today -- beyond saying: this guy seems nice!!).

"Some segments of the press can't really identify ideologically with Judge Alito's rulings on abortion, machine guns, and religion in public life.

"Some segments of the press just don't understand Senate rules.

"And some segments of the press just can't bear to demystify the process for their editors by acknowledging that unless Snowe and Collins commit apostasy, it is only a matter of time before Alito joins the High Court."

Can't get on the front page with that approach! (The Note is referring, by the way, to Maine's pro-choice GOP senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.)

David Frum , who led the pundit charge against Miers, has his money on Alito:

"I've been predicting that on Alito, Dems will huff and puff but in the end . . . opt not to blow the house down. The big donnybrook everybody was expecting yesterday will (I think) in the end fail to materialize. Five reasons:

"1) Dems don't have the votes to stop him. To make an effective fight, they'll have to filibuster. But it's a little hard to describe circumstances as 'extraordinary' -- or to condemn a nominee as somehow extreme or bizarre -- when you yourselves voted unanimously to confirm him to the nation's second-highest courts.

"2) Nor will a campaign of character-assassination like that practiced against Clarence Thomas be practical here. Not only is Alito's record clean, but there are a lot of Italian-American voters in up-for-grabs Pennsylvania who will resent it.

"3) Besides which, in event of filibuster, personable, brilliant Judge Alito is exactly the kind of candidate who will embolden Republican moderates to join the rest of the party to vote for the constitutional option, a filibuster-override."

Michael Barone of U.S. News deconstructs the Democratic dilemma:

"On this appointment the Democrats are caught between two constituencies. On one side is the feminist left. They have to oppose Alito if they want the people on their direct-mail lists ever to send in money again . . .

"But if they filibuster, they risk alienating another constituency, Italian-Americans. To understand the risk, consider the number of votes cast against the confirmation of Antonin Scalia in 1986. That number was zero. Democrats knew Scalia was a judicial conservative--he had a paper trail as an academic--but they also knew that Italian-Americans very much wanted to see a fellow Italian-American on the Supreme Court."

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line sees no inconsistency in the conservative position:

"Never miss an opportunity to make a bad argument. At least not if you're a liberal Democrat. The latest example is the notion that, because Miers didn't get an up-or-down vote, Alito shouldn't get one either. Although not all conservatives were consistent on all issues during the Miers confirmation process, there was no inconsistency on the matter of a nominee's entitlement to a floor vote.

"The conservative position has always been that the president is entitled to have his nominee receive an up-or-down vote. If the president decides to withdraw his nominee, then of course that person loses his or her right to such a vote. I don't recall anyone arguing that Miers should not have an up-or-down vote as long as she was the nominee. We simply urged that she withdraw or (in the case of some conservatives) that Bush withdraw her. Liberals likewise should feel free to urge Alito to withdraw and to implore Bush to rescind his nomination. If that fails, they should give Alito an up-or-down vote. If they don't, they shouldn't expect that liberal nominees of future Democratic presidents will receive one."

Nora Ephron makes the case that Bush may be suffering from depression.

And ABC's Jake Tapper has the down-and-dirty on the censorship of Alito's son.