Catch-21

Wingers are lauging themselves silly thinking the 'two hours Democrats took the Senate away from the people's business' by invoking Rule 21 yesterday was a joke. So, (with "--snips--" ommitted) what is Rule 21?

Section 1 of Rule 21 reads as follows:"On a motion made and seconded to close the doors of the Senate, on the discussion of any business which may, in the opinion of a Senator, require secrecy, the Presiding Officer shall direct the galleries to be cleared; and during the discussion of such motion the doors shall remain closed."

On July 7, 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a report detailing Phase I of a two-phase investigation into pre-war intelligence, intelligence used by the Bush Administration to rally support for a war against Iraq.

Phase I focused on the quality of that intelligence and controversies over its analysis; the White House was less than cooperative in providing evidence and testimony, and many issues were left undressed. Despite those facts, Phase II was planned as an investigation into how pre-war intelligence was used by the Bush White House, and if the White House knew that the information it was using was incorrect -- and in some cases, completely false.

The progress of Phase II has been stalled several times, and little effort to complete it has been made by Senate Republicans. Further, the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Pat Roberts, repeatedly ignored Democrats' requests to commence the investigation and engaged in tactics to distract Democrats. It is believed Roberts, at the behest of the Senate's GOP leadership, has been stalling Phase II to shield the Bush Administration.

Part of Phase II's investigation would explore White House leaks to the media, attempts by the Bush Administration to win public support for the war by planting stories. When Joseph Wilson exposed a major White House lie, Oval Office officials Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby retaliated by speaking with six reporters and falsely accusing Wilson's wife, an undercover CIA operative, of sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger. That mission put Wilson in a position to know that White House had made a blatantly false claim.

A six-member, bipartisan task force will study what little progress Phase II has made, and no doubt the investigation will now be completed rather than fading away. The task force will deliver a report on November 14th on Phase II's findings to date.

He who laughs last...