WP: Senate Does Battle Over Rove's Role in Plame Leak

[Pirate Smile]

Senate Does Battle Over Rove's Role in Plame Leak
Dueling Republican, Democratic Amendments Fail

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 15, 2005; Page A04

In bitingly partisan exchanges yesterday, lawmakers plunged into the dispute over Karl Rove's hand in leaking a covert CIA operative's identity, as the Senate rejected a bid to strip the White House aide of his security clearance.

A day of dueling news conferences ended with a Senate debate that turned unusually personal. It began when Democratic leaders proposed an amendment, aimed at Rove, to deny access to classified information to any federal employee who discloses a covert CIA agent's identity.

Republican leaders retaliated with a measure designed to strip the security clearances of the chamber's top two Democrats. Even as he urged support for his amendment, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) acknowledged the blatantly political tone of the debate. "This is a sad and a disappointing afternoon here in the United States Senate," he said.

Frist's amendment failed, 64 to 33, when 20 Republicans joined all present Democrats in voting against it. The Senate then rejected the Democrats' measure aimed at Rove, by a 53-to-44 vote along party lines. Both items were offered as amendments to a homeland security appropriations bill.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/14/AR2005071401962.html

[JDPriestly]

1. Who are the infamous 33 who voted for Frist's amendment?

It totally violates the spirit of the Constitution. These people are no patriots. What are their names? Does anyone know how to find out?

[maddezmom]

2. Reid called Frist's amendment "about as juvenile and as mudslinging as I h

On the Senate floor, Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) offered the measure targeting Rove's security clearance, and Frist offered his aimed at Reid and Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.). Frist's amendment would have denied clearance to any senator who refers to a classified FBI report on the floor, a shot at Reid's May 12 reference to a report on a Bush judicial nominee. It also would have stripped access to classified information to an officeholder making a statement that is "based on an FBI agent's comments which is used as propaganda by terrorist organizations." That was aimed at Durbin's comments last month comparing the treatment of detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to techniques used by the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge.

Reid called Frist's amendment "about as juvenile and as mudslinging as I have seen."

A dismayed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) vowed to vote against both measures and chastised her colleagues for veering from the homeland security funding issue. "This is exactly why the American public holds Congress is such low esteem," she said in a brief floor speech.

On Frist's amendment, several Republicans did not vote nay until it was clear the measure would fail. Virginia and Maryland senators voted against the Frist amendment except for Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who was absent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frist and the Gop'ers are coming unglued. :D

[Straight Shooter]

3. Apparently Susan Collins cannot separate the wheat from the chaff.

Nor does she recognize that such inability to separate what is good for America versus what is bad for America is why the American public holds Congress in such low esteem.

[Triana]

4. this is f*cking rediculous...

...all of it. I have to agree with Frist on that. Who didn't know that none of this would go anywhere?

Rover needs to be fired or locked up and it's disgusting that the media and Republicans are allowing the dirtbag to get away with this crime.

D I S G U S T I N G

I am DISGUSTED to be an American right now. Not always, not most of the time as I love my poor, battered, embattled country. But this week, I'm disgusted.

[drduffy]

5. yeh

i hear that. what's a patriot to do? I guess just keep trying to remove the traitors from power.

[ncteechur]

6. Throw the bums out. All repubs and a few dems, too.