After months of political stagnation, it's nice that things are really starting to get sexy in U.S. politics again.
With the Iraq War at the forefront of the nation's consciousness and scandals rumbling the ranks of the Bush administration, Democrats saw the weakness in their opposition and struck. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., forced a closed session of the Senate Tuesday afternoon to pressure Republicans to follow up on investigations into the faulty intelligence behind Bush's call to war in Iraq.
Reid called the session in the late afternoon, complaining that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kans., had promised more than a year ago to conduct an investigation into whether the Bush administration misused intelligence before the Iraq war. The "secret" session required the chamber be cleared of visitors and cameras be turned off.
Democrats said they would keep forcing the chambers closed until Republicans agreed to an investigation, an embarrassment Republicans can hardly handle right now on top of them all.
Both sides emerged from the meeting more than an hour later with an agreement: A six member bi-partisan committee has been formed to immediately begin probing the issue, and must report their progress to the Senate on Nov. 14.
Republicans will grumble that it was all an outrageous publicity stunt, and they're right. Democrats are invoking the archaic and seldom-used rule to focus the nation's attention on yet another issue Republicans will find uncomfortable and threatening to keep calling closed sessions. What Republicans won't let slip is that the same technique was used by their camp six times to probe Bill Clinton just under a decade ago, and we were only talking about fibs about sex not smudging the truth to rains bombs upon a sovereign nation.
Political memory is always short when it's convenient.
Since the election of George W., Democrats in Washington have been so cowed into meek moderation by the conservative majority that it was almost painful to watch. The rebirth of liberal balls has been something of a spectacle, with Tom Delay on top of Hurricane Katrina on top of Karl Rove on top of the war in Iraq turning the Bush administration into a veritable Atlas of Scandal.
President Bush's approval rating is at an all time low, and it is only poised to get worse as investigations into major Republican players unfold. Republicans would do well for themselves to brush up on politicking rather than engaging in a collective whine. Washington is ready to rumble again, and it can only be good for the nation.
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