February 20, 2007
Strange coincidence...
Dafydd has an interesting post on how most major papers phrased the recent activities in the Senate as "Republicans closing off debate on the war." In fact the Democrats were trying to end debate—that's what "cloture" means—and force a vote. (That's one lie, but also the papers have covered up the fact that there is opportunity to debate the war with every bill that comes up, and in fact war debate has been preempting almost all the other business of the Senate!)
...But if that is the case -- where did this amazing coincidence of terminology come from? The only other explanation that occurs to me is that editors at the other newspapers simply copied what the New York Times wrote, that the Republicans had "rejected an effort to force debate" on the Iraq war. I suspect they originally wrote their articles straight; but when they saw that artful bit of misdiction in "America's newspaper of record," the lower-tier editorial boards gushed, "What a great way to put it! Let's us do that as well."Posted by John Weidner at February 20, 2007 08:27 AM
I can't think of any other way that such a contorted and misleading phrasing, never before used, could appear on the same day in a half dozen major newspapers and probably dozens of minor ones....
Well, cloture is certainly the cutting off of debate - but I thought what happened here was that the way the Senate works, without there being 60 votes for an issue, that issue won't even be presented on the floor. The sort of back-door filibuster, which they've allowed now so that a) they can move on to other work when a filibuster would happen anyway, and b) Senators don't look like idiots on the age of C-Span, by reading recipes and such from the floor.
I don't understand the ins and outs, but that's my impression from the interviews Hugh Hewitt has done with Senators over the last few weeks...am I wrong in that? I certainly am no parliamentarian...
(And by the way, God love them for doing so; and the point about the laziness of editors still stands open...)
I dug back through transcripts of Hugh's interviews, and found this one with John Kyl from January 25th, 2007...I assume this is still where things stand, which means that the Republicans are, in fact, keeping these resolutions from being debated in the first place. Now, I'd imagine the Democrats could still bring them to the floor, and the Republicans would actually have to filibuster to keep them from coming to a vote - so I guess the Democrats could have their debate if that's really what they wanted - they just can't have a vote is all. Excerpt:
HH: Well, I’m giving a hard time to some of your Republican colleagues today, some friends of mine, because A) I think you’ve got to filibuster the Biden and the Warner resolutions, and B) I can’t imagine a Republican voting for them, Senator Kyl. You’re in the leadership. Will they be filibustered?
JK: I don’t think they’ll need to be filibustered. If worst comes to worst, obviously, they will be. But I think there is a recognition that any resolution is going to require sixty votes to pass, in other words, to be able to mount a filibuster. And typically, in these situations, in order to expedite the Senate’s business, what we do is simply set a sixty vote threshold, and any of the amendments that are going to be brought forward, or resolutions, will simply have to meet the sixty vote threshold by unanimous consent agreement. Hopefully, that’s what we will be able to enter into.
HH: And have you had indications that that will in fact happen, that none of these resolutions will see the light of day?
JK: Well, they’ll see the light of day, in that they will be offered. Presumably, the Biden resolution will be offered, and will not get the sixty votes. The Warner resolution probably will be offered. Senator Warner hasn’t said for sure, but assuming that it is offered, we hope that it will not get sixty votes. And there probably will be some other resolutions, and I doubt that any of them would get sixty votes. So at the end of the day, I mean unless there’s a resolution that’s drafted that doesn’t say a whole lot, and that therefore, everybody can agree with, chances are none of them will get the sixty votes that would be required to pass. And I think that’s a good thing, because I think the worst thing we could do right now is to send a message that we don’t have confidence in General Petraeus, in his troops, and in the decisions that are being made by the Commander-In-Chief right now.
