NO RECESS
With Sen. Harry Reid coming under increasing
criticism from inside his own caucus for failing to bring direction
to this term of the Senate, and after several embarrassing missteps
that have seemingly given the Bush Administration a bit of
momentum, the majority leader is looking to play tough with the
White House.
So he has set a Senate session schedule that would essentially
bar President Bush from using the usual weeklong Thanksgiving
holiday recess for recess appointments. The White House had
intended to use the period to put in place James
Holsinger as U.S. surgeon general.
Reid now will put the Senate in “pro forma” session during the
recess: Senate employees will show up for work every other day or
so and do what’s necessary to make it an official session. Reid’s
decision to play hardball came after the White House refused to
bend to Reid’s demands to negotiate what amounted to a
parliamentary truce similar to the one they agreed to earlier this
year for the August recess, whereby the White House wouldn’t make
recess appointments and the majority agreed to move some
nominations through the process.
Playing into Reid’s decision is growing concern among his
advisers that his leadership ability is being questioned by some
within his own caucus, not the least of whom is his deputy leader,
Dick Durbin, a man who has made no bones about his
desire one day to take the leadership post.
Reid, who chose to stick with House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi’s plan to continue opposition to the Iraq War, has
seen support for that position crumbling over the past three months
as better news and military reports indicate the surge and other
military tactics that Reid and his caucus largely opposed appear to
be working.
“Everyone in the Senate knows that it is extremely hard to
remove a majority leader,” says a Democrat leadership aide. “It’s
just plain tough to do. Reid knows this, and he’s doing what he can
to show he hears the criticism and will adjust accordingly.”
CNN’S CENTRAL COMMITTEE
At last week’s Democrat presidential debate, CNN used the Nevada
state Democrat party, the DNC press office, and contacts with
communications directors at U.S. Senate offices to identify and vet
those in attendance who would ask the candidates questions.
“We didn’t go to the campaigns, we used the party infrastructure
to get some people they recommended,” says a CNN employee, who
works in production. “It’s a common practice. We want people who
have some media training or who won’t freeze up on camera on live
TV.”
But CNN had identified the questioners as “undecided” voters,
not party apparatchiks, which is what just about all of them were.
For example, LaShannon Spencer, served as the
political director of the Democratic Party of Arkansas. Doug Ross has the full breakdown on at least six
of the questioners’ ties to the Democrat party.
According to the CNN source, recruiting for the questions began
about two weeks before the event, and seating and coordination were
put in place days before the debate took place. “The only
requirement was that they not be paid or volunteer staff to a
presidential campaign,” says the source.
BYZANTINE U.S. VATICAN POLITICS
While there are several Republican Senators, and many more
Democrats, prepared to roll the hold on Harvard Law Professor and
Romney supporter Mary Ann Glendon, the initial
hold on her nomination as ambassador to the Vatican, as some would
have reporters believe, was not Sen. Sam
Brownback, whose presidential campaign routinely crossed
swords with that of Gov. Mitt Romney’s during
Brownback’s time in the race.
To be sure, Glendon’s involvement with Romney, up until about
two years ago a pro-abortion Republican in some areas of policy,
has created some discomfort for Republicans.
“I, frankly, cannot understand how a person who has staked so
much on the pro-life issue could go with someone so unsteady on the
issue,” says a Republican staffer for a Southern Senator.
GOP Senate staff say they cannot recall a time when the
nomination fight spilled over into current Senate and White House
politics the way the Glendon nomination has, but say that it
remains doubtful her nomination will move any time soon, if at
all.
