by hilzoy
The Republican leadership never ceases to amaze me:
"Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist signaled yesterday that he and other White House allies will filibuster a bill dealing with the interrogation and prosecution of detainees if they cannot persuade a rival group of Republicans to rewrite key provisions opposed by President Bush.Frist's chief of staff, Eric M. Ueland, called the dissidents' bill "dead."
With Congress scheduled to adjourn in nine days, delaying tactics such as a filibuster could kill the drive to enact detainee legislation before the Nov. 7 elections, a White House priority. Bush faced still more problems in the House, where GOP moderates Christopher Shays (Conn.), Michael N. Castle (Del.), Jim Leach (Iowa) and James T. Walsh (N.Y.) publicly threw their support behind the bill opposed by the White House. The four Republicans told Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) that any House bill must maintain the dissidents' principles.
On another front, legislation to authorize Bush's warrantless wiretapping program may be in more jeopardy. Frist said yesterday that he referred the warrantless surveillance matter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for further review and would not bring it up for Senate consideration until next week.
Yesterday's actions significantly dimmed prospects that Congress can complete its national security agenda before adjournment. Frist (R-Tenn.) acknowledged that a majority of the 100 senators back the rival group on military commissions but that there are not enough to block a filibuster, which requires a super-majority of 60.
Senate and administration negotiators talked throughout the day, but no real progress was apparent. "It could all come together in a matter of hours, or it could drag out for another week or so," said John Ullyot, spokesman for Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.).
The sharp rhetoric of last week was replaced yesterday by softer language from both the Bush administration and the three Republican senators leading the opposition to its proposals: Warner, John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.).
But Frist struck a more jarring tone, telling reporters that the trio's bill is unacceptable despite its majority support.
For a bill to pass, Frist said, "it's got to preserve our intelligence programs," including the CIA's aggressive interrogation techniques, and it must "protect classified information from terrorists." He said that "the president's bill achieves those two goals" but that "the Warner-McCain-Graham bill falls short.""
Wow. After all sorts of unspeakable bills have passed the Senate under his leadership, here is where Bill Frist is finally going draw the line: he will not allow limitations on the administration's ability to torture people, or to violate treaties our country has solemnly sworn to abide by. Making it illegal for CIA officials to keep people standing for 40 hours, or to hold them in rooms cooled down to 50 degrees while dousing them with water, or to deprive them of sleep, even when a pretty impressive array of intelligence officials say that these techniques don't work, and an even more impressive group of retired generals say allowing them would put our soldiers at risk: that's just too much for him to swallow.
And all this from the self-proclaimed defenders of Moral Values™. It's enough to make an ethicist scream.
The good news, of course, is that the hairier things get, the more likely it is that nothing will pass, which is the best possible outcome.
Posted by: hilzoy | September 20, 2006 at 12:49 AM
I was going to say, won't they filibuster him right back?
On habeas, everyone: I'm hearing rumors that both the House and Senate judiciary committees are considering amendments to removed the habeas stripping provisions from various versions of the bill. Votes could happen as soon as tomorrow. Now is the time to call your Senator or Rep especially if s/he is on one of the judiciary committees. If you call your Senator, refer to the "Specter-Levin amendment to preserve habeas corpus," or something. In the House I believe it's the "Meehan Amendment." I don't have any of the idea of the vote counts, but there are rumors of at least some Republican support. Definitely worth a call. Here is a list of Senate Judiciary members. Here is a list of House Judiciary members.
Posted by: Katherine | September 20, 2006 at 01:01 AM
Katherine: I, too, have been hearing those rumors, but have not yet heard back from the Congressperson I emailed asking for confirmation. But, yes, if your Congresspeople are on the judiciary committees, call them up.
Anyone out there from the districts of Henry Hyde or Jeff Flake, for instance? she mused aloud...
Posted by: hilzoy | September 20, 2006 at 01:06 AM
Kevin Drum found this comment on McCain's efforts:
Well, I suppose torture is a traditional value, for some values of "tradition".But if we can have the legislation killed along with McCain's presidential aspirations, I'd say that's a two-fer. Keeping my fingers crossed, since I have no one to write.
Posted by: KCinDC | September 20, 2006 at 09:26 AM
It seems all the reactionaries are waxing romantic about traditional medieval values.
Posted by: SomeOtherDude | September 20, 2006 at 09:35 AM
"This very definitely is going to put a chilling effect on the tremendous strides he has made in the conservative evangelical community," said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of several conservative activists who support Bush's proposal on interrogation techniques.
This makes perfect sense, if the conservative evangelical community's deity is _eorge _alker _ush.
Posted by: Ugh | September 20, 2006 at 10:12 AM
Could Frist lose his physician's license for this?
Posted by: Lex | September 20, 2006 at 10:16 AM
The good news, of course, is that this would seem to kill much chance of any of the bad bills passing, and thus We Win. (For now, up to a point. One and a half cheers.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 20, 2006 at 10:27 AM
Well, I just wasted 10 minutes e-mailing my senators ... Cochran and Lott.
Cochran has the distinction of being one of 9 senators who voted against the McCain torture bill. Not even Lott sank that low.
If you have a Republican senator or rep, below's what I wrote, if you can't stomach composing anything.
Dear Senator Lott:
You had the courage to vote against torture. I hope you will have the courage to vote against depriving any prisoners, wherever they're held by the U.S., of habeas corpus, a right so fundamental that it dates back to Magna Carta.
Without the right to habeas, wrongly-detained persons must wait to be put on trial to challenge their being wrongly detained. But if the Executive chooses *never* to put them on trial, they can be held forever, with no remedy.
That's not the way to fight the war on terror. Habeas petitions will serve a good cause by speeding up the process of sifting through our detainees to see who's really a terrorist and who's been mistakenly detained. There have been plenty of examples of people wrongfully imprisoned as "terrorists" who turn out to have been innocent (most recently, the Canadian citizen Maher Arar). As a conservative, you must be ready to accept that no government is perfect.
And needless to say, locking up *anybody* indefinitely is not the American way. I was brought up to think that was how communists and tyrants treated people---not the way Americans do.
Please vote for the Specter-Levin amendment. America will be great only so long as America is good.
Posted by: Anderson | September 20, 2006 at 10:44 AM
Does Frist understand that if he filibusters the Republican compromise for gutting the Geneva Conventions, there will be NO bill passed, and The Chimpretzeldentwill be forced to tell the professionals they can't waterboard for fun and profit any longer?
Posted by: robert lewis | September 20, 2006 at 11:00 AM
there will be NO bill passed
No bill passed, no commissions, no hearings for the prisoners, who continue to rot at Gitmo.
I'm sure Bush is crying his eyes out.
Posted by: Anderson | September 20, 2006 at 11:08 AM
No bill passed, no commissions, no hearings for the prisoners, who continue to rot at Gitmo.
Beg to differ. If no bill passes, there WILL be commission, hearings, possibly prosecutions, cause illegal actions have occurred and the laws are on the books (Geneva and War Crimes 1996).
If the Republicans cannot forestall by changing the requirements ex post factor, the cases winding their way to the Supreme Court will hoist these bastards on their own petard.
As Justice Kennedy said to the ABA conventino last month:
It don't come any clearer than that - and he's got 5 votes on his side.
Posted by: robert lewis | September 20, 2006 at 11:51 AM
No bill passed, no commissions, no hearings for the prisoners, who continue to rot at Gitmo.
I beg to differ as well. The status quo is that prisoners who had a habeas petition pending in 2005 will get a hearing.* This is everyone but the 14 new prisoners (I think). Those that the government wants to try for war crimes, it'll have to try under the UCMJ.
* The nature of that hearing is at issue in Al Odah/Boumedienne still at the DC Circuit.
Posted by: CharleyCarp | September 20, 2006 at 01:04 PM
So much for the filibuster being anti-democratic and everything deserving an up-and-down vote. Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob? Oh well, as you say, the best outcome is nothing passing, so I guess this could be a positive development.
Posted by: A.L. | September 20, 2006 at 01:05 PM
Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob?
No.
Posted by: Ugh | September 20, 2006 at 01:07 PM
"Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob?"
Bigger than Floyd's Knob, Indiana?
Posted by: Dantheman | September 20, 2006 at 01:13 PM
Could Bill Frist be a bigger knob?
Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?
Posted by: cleek | September 20, 2006 at 01:37 PM
Bill Frist doesn't care if you think he's a good human being or not. Bill Frist likes being the Senate majority leader.
This nonsense will change when these guys start losing elections. The nutcases will still foam at the mouth, but the ones who are just along for the ride and for whatever they can get out of it will get off at the next available stop.
Vote them out. Give your time and money to people who are running against them. Make them pay for supporting the kinds of outrageous nonsense they seem so fond of.
When it costs them something, it will all be much less appealing to them.
Thanks -
Posted by: russell | September 20, 2006 at 03:11 PM
russell: thus, the post I wrote after this one. I had planned to write it for some time, but it was this that really set me off. I want Bill Frist to become the long-forgotten historical footnote he so clearly deserves to be.
Posted by: hilzoy | September 20, 2006 at 04:07 PM
Frist is not standing for reelection, and his personal hopes notwithstanding, I don't think he has a snowball's chance in hell of getting the Republican nod in 2008, so whether the Democrats take Congress or not, Frist will no longer be a member as of next January.
Posted by: Andrew | September 20, 2006 at 04:16 PM
Hey, just noting a certain trend in the choice of descriptors.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | September 20, 2006 at 04:21 PM
Andrew: true enough. But I have just two words for you: Mitch McConnell.
Posted by: hilzoy | September 20, 2006 at 04:42 PM
Or, more informatively: Mitch McConnell:
Posted by: hilzoy | September 20, 2006 at 04:47 PM
Yep, I just posted about that.
Posted by: Andrew | September 20, 2006 at 04:56 PM
"He has an unblinking, vaguely android-like stare"?
I've seen androids before, and you, Senator McConnell, are no android.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | September 20, 2006 at 04:57 PM
"I've seen androids before, and you, Senator McConnell, are no android."
How can you tell, short of ripping off his faceplate? Only a certain Cabinet member can get close enough to him to do that.
Posted by: Dantheman | September 20, 2006 at 05:21 PM
Journalist questions McConnell: "Senator McConnell, you're in a desert, walking along when you look down and you see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you. You reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?"
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 20, 2006 at 05:32 PM
Replicant!
Posted by: Slartibartfast | September 20, 2006 at 05:45 PM
Is McConnell likely to react in the same way as Leon?
Posted by: JakeB | September 20, 2006 at 08:15 PM
"Is McConnell likely to react in the same way as Leon?"
Probably. It's a test more politicians should undergo.
Posted by: Gary Farber | September 20, 2006 at 09:34 PM