The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, caught Republicans by surprise when, with only minutes' warning, he invoked Rule 21 - a move that Republicans said had not been taken in more than 20 years.
..snip..
Senator Reid said that while the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, had promised a thorough inquiry into prewar intelligence, including the way the White House had used or misused it, he had not followed through.
"I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted," Senator Reid said from the Senate floor before the session, "and in accordance with Rule 21, I now move that the Senate go into closed session."
Testify!
Bill Frist helpfully put the whole thing in perspective...
Never before? Fuck you, Doctor. You bastards have been taking a steaming shit on that "grand institution" every day for the past 5 years.
It's about time the Democrats fought back in this game. The White House and the Republicans, aided by the pathetic media, had been extremely successful in getting all this talk off the front pages in the past couple of days. First they sprung the Alito nomination, then it was bird flu. Good for the Dems for fighting back.
And I'll be very interested to see how this plays out. They're demanding that the investigation into the rationale for a war that's cost us over 2000 American lives and over $200 billion be taken seriously and that the congressional leadership stop stalling. Is that unreasonable? I would venture to guess that most regular people would think it's perfectly reasonable. Anyone who has lost a son or daughter in Iraq even more so.
Daily Kos reports that the Democrats are prepared to call a closed session every day until the investigation moves forward.
Yay.
