1115.org

(1) Abstinence Would Have Paid Dividends

Whatever the Bush White House has on Harry Reid — personally, I lean towards high-resolution video of threesomes with underage farm animals — somebody else now has something worse?

After setting everything up to try and deliver retroactive immunity for telecoms to Bush on a silver platter — from ignoring the hold put on the bill by Sen. Chris Dodd to stage-managing the bill procedurally so that it takes 60 votes to kill retroactive immunity — Reid has suddenly postponed Bush’s victory to the new year:

U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, facing stiff opposition, on Monday abruptly postponed until next month consideration of a measure to give immunity to telephone companies that participated in President George W. Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program.

Just to be clear, Reid decided to make the Intelligence Committee version of the bill the base bill. So by default, the Senate is presented with the version that contains retroactive immunity. The script calls for Republicans to filibuster attempts to drop retroactive immunity. After Democrats fail to muster the necessary 60 votes, enough Democrats would support Republicans-and-Lieberman that the bill passes. (The bill would then have to be reconciled with the House version, which does not include retroactive immunity. That would be the last line of defense.)

In an alternative universe, Reid would have practiced abstinence when underage farm animals were dangled before him. He would then have made the Judiciary Committee version the base bill. The default version presented to the Senate would have no retroactive immunity. Democrats would filibuster attempts by Republicans-and-Lieberman to add retroactive immunity. Not enough Democrats would support Republicans to overcome the filibuster. The Senate would pass the bill. Bush would veto it. Retroactive immunity would not go through.

(2) The Fruits Of Abstinence

Most initial reports (see this, this, this, this and this) are crediting Chris Dodd’s filibuster threat for Reid’s about-face.

At this point, I’m not so sure that was actually the driving force. It was abundantly clear to anyone who was paying any attention at all that Dodd had every intention of carrying out his threatened filibuster. Indeed, he had left himself no choice but to do so. If Reid was going to be swayed by that, he would not brought the bill to the floor, and then abruptly postponed debate late in the day the way he did.

But it’s probably safe to say that Dodd has not been cavorting with farm animals of any description.

And it’s possible that Reid was swayed by Dodd’s threat to carry out an old-fashioned Jimmy-Stewart-style filibuster:

On a conference call with reporters just moments ago, Chris Dodd’s deputy campaign manager, Amos Hochstein, just vowed that the Senator will filibuster the Senate FISA bill containing telecom immunity later this afternoon for as long as he possibly can hold out.

“He will speak as long as he can,” Hochstein said. “He will speak until he can no longer.”

It’s quite possible Reid didn’t care to have a starring role in that particular piece of made-for-TV political drama. Especially if Biden, Clinton and Obama showed up to play supporting roles:

The question now is, What will other Senators who said they’d support Dodd’s filibuster do today? Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden have all pledged to support it. They can do so under Senate rules by asking questions during Dodd’s filibuster, giving him a chance to rest or to take a drink of water. Will they?

(3) Should Have Rushed The Rushing

When Reid took the bill off the stove and put it back in the fridge, here’s how an aide explained it:

Sen. Reid refused to jam this bill through the Senate because he believes it’s an important bill that deserves to be debated thoroughly…

The right honorable Sen. John Rockefeller (for they are all honorable men) — the midwife of the Intelligence Committee’s with-immunity version of the bill — had this to say for himself later:

I’m disappointed legislation to modernize and improve FISA will now have to wait until January. As I’ve said many times, it is one of the most important bills before Congress, and one that should not be rushed in the final hours before Protect America Act expires.

Yes, why rush through next month what could have so easily been rushed through yesterday?

(4) Sources And Methods

Reuters:

The White House said in a statement, “Providing liability protection to these companies is a just result” and warned that allowing litigation “risks the disclosure of highly classified information regarding intelligence sources and methods.”

You don’t need a secret decoder to translate that: “Some really embarrassing shit will come out if the lawsuits go forward.”

Let’s see…sources and methods. We already know that we can be duped by any source that tells us what we want to hear (to aid in which process, we make it very clear what we want to hear), and we already know that the Bush White House will stoop to any method, no matter how unconscionable.

And there’s still more embarrassing stuff that they need to hide from us?

(5) WTF, Harry?

The question everyone’s asking is: why the eff is Harry doing the Republicans’ work on this bill?

I dunno, but he’s a Mormon, isn’t he?