Harry Reid philibusters to force Iraq withdrawal vote

[bascule]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/16/reid-filibuster/

 

Will this technique work, or is it just another vain attempt by the Democrats to force a vote on Iraq withdrawal?

 

It comes at a time when two Republicans are also pushing Iraq withdrawal, much to the chagrin of the White House:

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1034793420070715

[Pangloss]

It won't accomplish anything, but it's been interesting viewing on CSPAN2 today (if you're a politics geek like me). The ironic sight of Harry "No you can't have an up-or-down vote" Reid demanding an up-or-down vote has been amusing as well.

 

Best part was watching John McCain take both sides to task for being hypocrits. He may be staring sunset in the face, but he's still got the old fire.

[bascule]

For those who care (and don't have TV) that bastion of impartiality ThinkProgress is liveblogging the event.

 

 

Video of Reid, Pelosi, and others speaking during candlelight vigil in DC

[Pangloss]

A candlelight vigil?!?! Bwahahaha! What a perfectly PC outlet for a perfectly PC event. Oustanding. They sang "We Shall Overcome", I assume, right?

 

Thanks, that made my whole morning.

[bascule]

So yeah, my bad... I definitely messed up this thread.

 

Okay first, it's filibuster, not philibuster

 

And second, Reid wasn't filibustering, Republicans were, and Reid was keeping the Senate in session to force a vote.

 

And yeah Pangloss, the candlelight vigil was touching. They didn't sing We Shall Overcome, just shouted WAKE UP

 

And it ends with a 52-47 vote, short of the 60 needed to end debate:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/18/us.iraq.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

 

 

UPDATE:

 

Now I'm confused. I can't find the names of which Republican(s) were filibustering

[Pangloss]

You know, when I saw that I thought it was odd, so I went and typed it in at Wikipedia and it rerouted me to filibuster. I think that may actually be a legitimate spelling. At the very least I'm pretty sure I've seen it spelled that way before.

 

Anyway, weren't they all filibustering?

[bascule]

It's really just stupid. Here we have Harry Reid and Dick Lugar arguing basically the same thing. Why don't they get together and coauthor a withdrawal bill already? A bipartisan withdrawal bill.

 

Instead when Lugar tried to introduce a non-binding resolution Reid panned it and introduced his own binding one, which failed to even get sufficient votes to end debate. I guess he's waiting for cloture or something, and rabble rousing in the meantime.