Five Card Dud

by digby

It is nearly incomprehensible to me, but after months and months of haranguing the Democratic leadership to force the Republicans to stage a real filibuster and stand on the floor of the Senate reading the phone book and re-enacting Miss Mellie’s death scene from “Gone With The Wind”, they have finally decided to take our advice. Except for one teensy detail: they have decided to force Chris Dodd, Democratic presidential candidate, senior member of the Senate and Democrat to stage a real filibuster because he has the temerity to defend the constitution.

Dodd is willing to do it if he has to:

Are you willing to go to the mat to restore the Constitution?

Just last night, we heard there are plans to disregard Senator Dodd’s intention to place a hold on a FISA bill that includes amnesty for telecommunications companies.

That would be a pretty extraordinary move, but Chris Dodd has pledged to stop this horrible bill any way he can.

So if the hold is not honored, he is prepared to go to the Senate floor and filibuster.

Rolling back the Bush Administration assault on the rule of law has been a major focus of Chris Dodd’s work in the Senate — and it’s also a centerpiece in his campaign for President.

Jane Hamsher quotes a knowledgeable insider who says:

“I can’t think of one time when Harry Reid went around his own. It’s just not normal for a leader to do that to his own side. Sometimes you’ll go around Republicans, sometimes they’ll use holds to be “spoilers,” but that happens to the other guy. You just don’t do it to one of your own.”

And it’s also just a little bit abnormal for the Democratic leader to allow the Republicans to defeat bill after bill with simple cloture votes rather than making them take to the floor and defend their unpopular positions before the American people. They allowed the Republicans to neatly scuttle bills like the Webb Amendment which would have given the troops more time at home and shown the public just who supports the troops and who doesn’t. And because Democrats are apparently devoted to comity, they even graciously took the hit when the mainstream media portrayed a 57-43 majority vote for that legislation as a sign that the Democrats can’t get anything done rather than that the Republicans were obstructing popular legislation.

This is simply outrageous. Senators place holds all the time and our majority leader hasn’t said he’d force them to filibuster rather than honor the hold. Chris Dodd is a senior member of the judiciary committee who has the standing and the respect to be taken seriously on this issue. It’s not about some moneybags constituent who will be affected by the bill. It’s not about a frivolous or symbolic issue. It is very real and Dodd represents a large constituency of Americans who do not want to give the executive branch the power to wiretap Americans without a warrant and who do not think certain Telcom companies, with their high-priced, thoroughbred legal teams, need to be granted liability because they happily went along with the administration’s lawbreaking. They could have refused. Others did.

The bill is a terrible bill. It’s falling apart. It can be changed. There’s no good reason for the Democratic leadership not to at least publicly support Dodd right now. I would think it actually helps their negotiating posture to have a Senator who is willing to place a hold on the bad bill and a leadership which insists it has to follow tradition and senate rules in allowing him to do it.

Harry Reid is from Nevada for Gawd’s sake. Doesn’t he know how to play poker?

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