Statement from Kerry's office on yesterday's GOP stunt in the Senate:

[_dynamicdems]

Statement issued by April Boyd:

"Yesterday, the Office of the Secretary of Defense distributed a 74-page “debate prep book” to arm Republicans with material to help them defend the Bush Administration’s Iraq policies in the Congressional debate on Iraq.

Today on the Senate floor, Senators Bill Frist, Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn tried to use a page right out of the playbook against John Kerry and Russ Feingold by introducing a measure on troop withdrawal and then immediately trying to shelve debate on it. It’s the exact same stunt DeLay and crew pulled in the House last year when Jack Murtha introduced his Iraq plan.

But the Senate didn't vote on any "plan" today -- it was a vote to dismiss a cheap political stunt cooked up by Mitch McConnell. The Senate will have a real debate and a real vote on withdrawal next week. Period.

The Republicans needs to get focused on our troops and having an honest debate about the way forward in Iraq -- not talking points and phony debates."

Yes, this is exactly the same thing they did to Murtha and this time it didn't even get a blip on the radar screen, whereas last time it created a fairly large howl of outrage from the Democrats. Why aren't Democrats more outraged? Why wasn't there a show of Democratic loyalty over this? We can only hope that they are saving their ammo for next week.

In the meantime, I'm going to write as many LTE and write to as many news stations as I can. Let's keep blogging this too.

Democrats need to wipe the floor with these lying yellow-bellied cowards in seersucker. In fact, Yellow-bellied Cowards in Seersucker sounds like a good start to a new blog post to me. Don't get mad and don't settle for even. KICK ASS and pound the lily-livered, bastards into the ground.

[kerrygoddess]

1. It is making it's way through the MSM

It doesn't always happen immediately - it's all over the wires now - on AP, the NY Times in two pieces and more...

[_dynamicdems]

2. Good to hear! It was so frustrating to watch this yesterday.

Thanks for the info. I haven't had much time to check the news because I've been assembling a cabinate and working on a post about how yellow should be the new color of the GOP. That's the beauty of still having a few civil liberties left: we can say things like this without fear. Maybe. :D

edit: There has been a strange clicking in my phone lately. Just kidding!

[ginnyinWI]

3. I just have to chuckle when I remember that comment of JK's

yesterday--did anybody else catch it? At one point he asked John Warner for a moment to speak after Warner was done--and there was a slight kerfluffle about that from the other side--someone asked what a "moment" was. Then JK rephrased the request to say that he wanted five minutes--and added that he had not thought that the definition of a "moment" would be too difficult to grasp, even for the Senate. This caused a few on the other side to laugh, and broke the tension wonderfully. Later someone else humorously granted Warner "a moment"--it was off camera but I think it was McCain.

It might be that the lack of outrage by Senate Dems yesterday had something to do with the "dignity" of the discourse in the Senate--Senators are generally supposed to rise above reacting to these types of stunts. But the media should still pick up the ball and run it downfield.