Drum doesn't understand why FOX isn't covering Harry Reid's move today:

"But I keep flipping over to Fox and they've got nothing. What's up with that? Isn't this their kind of story?"

I'm not sure if Kevin is being serious or not, but if he is I'll spell it out for him. Anything that makes the republicans look weak is not a high priority for Roger Ailes. They need a little time to regroup and get their talking points together.

Write Your Own Caption

via: Roxanne

Has anyone seen her blog? It looks like it has been replaced with another site and her email gets kicked back.

Trent Lott: Get Rid-O-Rove

Trent was on Hardball today and said:

TRENT LOTT: Well, the question is, that you asked, is he good for American politics? Look, he has been very successful, very effective in the political arena. The question is should he be the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy under the current circumstances? I don't know all that's going on, so I can't make that final conclusion. But, you know, how many times has the top political person become also the top policy advisor? Maybe you can make that transition, but it's a real challenge, and I think they have to – I do think they need to look at bringing in some more people, you know, old gray beards that have been around this town for a while, help them out a little bit at the White House.

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CHRIS MATTHEWS:...Do you think he should go?

TRENT LOTT: Well, I didn't say that. I mean, I said, you know, is he in the right position? I mean, a lot of political advisors, in fact, most presidents in recent years have a political adviser in the White House. The question is, should they be making, you know, policy decisions. That's the question you've got to evaluate.

Markos says: The White House can't afford to start losing Republican senators on this issue.

C&L: That's a big 180 from what the GOP has been saying about Rove. Is this payback from Lott? Whatever the case, Reid struck a chord today and it turned the republicans into whiners and not dividers.

John has the latest from Bloomberg news.

Jane says: Venance is mine, sayinth the Lott: "Hurricane Katrina victim Trent Lott seems to be going for the payback gold. After all, it was Rover who took advantage of Lott's Strom Thurmand woes and engineered Herr Cat Killer's ascendence to majority leader in the Senate....read on

Harry Reid's Press Conference

Harry Reid responded to questions about the nature of his decision to shut down the Senate. He was obviously upset.

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He explained that if he notified Bill Frist, then Frist could have shut down his attempt to have the many questions answered. More later....

Harry Reid shuts down the Senate

You can see Harry Reid ask to shut down the Senate. Bill Frist becomes unglued.

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Ed Henry does a nice job out of outlining what happened. Jack Cafferty gets off some monumental blasts about the garbage that was passed on to us by the administration leading up to the war. I'm glad Harry Reid blasted Pat Roberts over the negligent way he has been handling his job at getting to the bottom of the bad intelligence and how it was used. Why this was not done before the election is a travesty.

John says: "This just knocked Judge Alito off his game. The story is now the Democrats showing balls on national security. Reid just changed the subject from Judge Alito to the White House's scandals on Iraq and the RoveGate CIA leaks. Absolutely brilliant.

Arthur says: "We may finally have an opposition party again. And just in the nick of time."

Steve: Seven years ago, Ken Starr prepared a lurid report for Congress detailing his case against Bill Clinton. At first blush, it wouldn't appear to have any relevance to the Plame scandal affecting the Bush White House, but I was reviewing the Starr report recently and something jumped out at me.... Is Cheney a constitutional officer? Yes. Did he lie to the country? Yes. On national television? Yes. About a subject that was under a federal investigation at the time? Yes.

Don't blame me; Ken Starr is the one who created the standard. I'm just wondering if it only applies to Democrats....read on

Reid takes Senate into closed session over Iraq intelligence

The Senate's Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-NV) unexpectedly pulled the Senate into secret session Tuesday afternoon in order to have closed discussion of Iraq intelligence...read on"

AmericaBlog has more: Since 1929, the Senate has held 53 secret sessions, generally for reasons of national security.

o For example, in 1997 the Senate held a secret session to consider the Chemical Weapons Convention (treaty).
o In 1992, the Senate met in secret session to consider “most favored nation” trade status for China.
o In 1988, a session was held to consider the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and in 1983 a session was held on Nicaragua.
o In 1942, a secret session was held on navy plans to build battleships and aircraft carriers, and in 1943 a secret session was held on reports from the war fronts.

Six of the most recent secret sessions, however, were held during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton....read on

Seeing the Forrest has Harry Reid's entire statement. "The Democrats have shut down the Senate, demanding to know what happened to the promise to investigate how intelligence was used or misused leading up to the Iraq war."

It looks like I'll be talking to Tucker for a few minutes tomorrow. Anyone have any questions or subjects you think I should talk about with him? I do look at these threads for help so please join in. I will delete any dumb comments in the thread. I'm trying to bring in as much original content as I can to C&L, even though I'm just learning this technique.

Somerby: "The propaganda continued last night on Fox News Channel’s Special Report. Brit Hume was determined to hide a few basic facts: Patrick Fitzgerald found that Libby and Rove revealed Plame’s identity, which was classified—and he said this caused “damage to all of us.” But you know Fox! Brit seemed to determined to fool the rubes into thinking that no such finding exists. And he had assembled a panel of consummate hacks who were willing to play along with the process...read on"