They wanted drama in the Senate

Did they think it would distract attention from the absence of reason….sort of like smoke and mirrors?

The spin is on today to portray the antics in the Senate as something…what’s the word?…purposeful. That much, we’ll give it. Here’s one way of reporting the purpose of the theatrics last night with pulling a Senate all-nighter.

Republicans on Wednesday made good on their promise to block a Democratic effort to mandate a troop withdrawal from Iraq after an all-night session organized by Democratic leaders to “dramatize” the procedural fight over the measure.

The Levin-Reed Amendment, named for the two Democrats who crafted it, would have required that President Bush begin a troop withdrawal within 120 days of the amendment’s passage. It would also have set an April 30, 2008, deadline to bring troop levels in Iraq to a “limited presence.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) organized the rare all-night session in an attempt to dramatize the fight between Republicans and Democrats over the amendment.

See. Their goal was to dramatize their fight.

The amendment fell eight votes short of the 60 it needed.

Reid expressed his disappointment at the outcome shortly after the vote but pledged to keep trying to pass legislation aimed at changing course in Iraq.

“We spent two days showing America that we’re not going to back down, that we’re going to continue to fight,” he said. “How could we possibly shrink from this fight? How could we possibly try to avoid this fight?”

Well, let’s take a look at what this fight was about. Sen. Mitch McConnell put it in perspective yesterday at NRO so the public know beforehand what was about to happen…and why.

While Republicans focus on the dangers posed by al Qaeda in Iraq, our long-term national-security interests in the Persian Gulf, and the warnings that the United Nations and the Baker-Hamilton Commission are issuing on the potential consequences of withdrawal, Democrats will spend the next 24 hours acting out what their staffers have referred to as a “publicity stunt.” They are staging a modern-day version of Jimmy Stewart’s round-the-clock filibuster from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to wear down opponents of a firm deadline for withdrawal. The only problem: They are, in effect, filibustering their own bill.

Which was this:

The Levin Amendment is a controversial proposal calling for withdrawal from Iraq by April, and the standard procedure for amendments like it has always been the 60-vote threshold. As the Democratic majority leader said earlier this year: “In the Senate it’s always been the case you need 60 votes.”

Always means not just when it’s to your advantage. It’s SOP, standard operating procedure.

So why the theatrics? Democrats are feeling the heat from the antiwar base that gave them the majority in both Houses of Congress last November.

Should it be a surprise that politicians are driven by pure politics? Maybe not, but it is causing the people who elected them a lot of disgust. We want members of Congress in both parties to work through the issues using reason, fairness, critical thinking skills and intelligent debate. They are failing us at the moment, fumbling to follow media-driven perceptions of public sentiment….which don’t usually reflect the majority of the public’s sentiment.

Meanwhile, President Bush offered his own change of course…The president chose General David Petraeus to lead the mission, and Senate Democrats confirmed him by a unanimous vote.

(Remember that? We’ll get back to that in a moment…)

The president’s new plan was devised in consultation with America’s top military commanders in Iraq and the Iraqi prime minister. And it had the backing of a co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, James Baker, who told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January that they should give the strategy a shot: “The general that you confirmed the other day, 81 to nothing, this is his idea,” Baker said of General Petraeus. “He’s the supporter of it. He’s now the commander on the ground in Iraq. Give it a chance.”

Yet despite this plea, Senate Democrats declared the surge a failure before it began…So it surprised no one that soon after confirming General Petraeus, Democrats repeatedly tried to pass a bill that would have limited the General’s mission.

No, this doesn’t make any sense outside of sheer politics.

The real question, of course, is not who’s in the driver’s seat of the Democratic strategy for Iraq. It’s why Democrats would allow themselves to pull a self-described publicity stunt like this in the first place on an issue as serious as the war. Democrats seem to have forgotten that they voted 80 to 14 to give General Petraeus until September to report on the strategy they sent him to Iraq to complete. That was the framework we agreed to, and signed into law, for the conduct of this debate. But then, they voted to send General Petraeus to Iraq even as they declared his mission a failure.

Our troops and our top military commander deserve better.

So do the American people.

Inform youself on these issues, learn more about how we got to this point, and where we’re headed. Scrutinize media coverage, and think for yourself. Some of our senators don’t show evidence that they’re able to right now.