First, for anyone who didn't read about it, or have the temperament to watch it on C-SPAN2, something very surprising and--dare we use the word in such a context? yes, let's dare!--dramatic happened in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting yesterday, where they're considering the nomination of the astonishingly offensive John Bolton for representative to the United Nations.
(For anyone still concerned that Bolton might not be the thug that a growing mountain of scarcely secret evidence is showing him to be, consider these twelve all-but-forgotten words: "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count.")
Senate committee-talk is a curious form of speech: a 19th century stiltedness of prose now found mainly in Austen, Dickens, or "Deadwood," combined with elaborate displays of courtesy that clearly expose the shiv-wielding rivalries behind the tight smiles.
The excessively stage-managed form of the talk itself only made the events that played out that much more surprising. Slate has the best quick reference to what's been going on, although the round-the-clock blogging at The Washington Note has been more thorough.
The upshot is this: An evidently uncomfortable Sen. Richard Lugar, chairing the committee, was dutifully trying to steer discussion to a vote. A party line vote, 10-8, would have sent Bolton's name to the full Senate, where the GOP majority would have obeyed the President's wishes and approved the nomination. Mission accomplished. If even one Republican on the committee breaks ranks and votes against Bolton, it's a tie at best and the nomination dies. There are some well-known, comparatively moderate Repubs on the committee where Dems hoped to find that one vote.
But no one was looking at Republican committee member George Voinovich. Like Han Solo diving in out of the sun at the end of "Star Wars," Voinovich unexpectedly announced, "I've heard enough today that I don't feel comfortable about voting for Mr. Bolton." What followed was an abrupt reversal in which stunned Dems, at first unable to believe their good fortune, started looking to capitalize on this unexpected opening while equally stunned Repubs began backpedaling, suddenly searching for reasons to delay the vote (even though most people realize that time is not on their side).
It's worth watching for that moment alone: It reveals a lot, both about the extreme discipline among congressional Repubs and the utterly choreographed nature of Senate committee hearings, to see how Voinovich's quiet statement of conscience left everyone fumbling for what to do next.
But it's noteworthy for something just as surprising in its own way: Throughout the meeting--throughout the hearings, really--there's been a display of Democratic focus, passion, and (above all) unity I'm not used to seeing. Dodd, Byden, Boxer, and to a lesser extent Obama, were flying in tight formation, with Minority Leader Reid ably guarding their backs. One wonders if this might be an indication that they're ready to fight the wave of partisan judicial nominations Bush is preparing to try to ram through the Senate.
Okay, that's the wonky bit of TV from yesterday. Here's the fun one.
Last night's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" featured a very funny, dead-on send-up of the Potemkin "town halls" created for Bush's tour to promote his Social Security phase-out plan. "Daily Show" correspondent Samantha Bee--not usually one of their strongest hitters--smacks one over the wall by enlisting a casting agent to assemble a crowd of representative-but-fake citizens for her own ersatz "town hall" meeting--and, against all logic, she manages to get the GOP's very own Darth Vader of language control, Frank Luntz, to offer advice.
Luntz's deadpan participation in this bit of satire--satire of which he is in no small measure the target--boggles the mind. Either he simply didn't appreciate the extent to which he was the butt of the joke (unlikely--he may have no moral compass, but he's plenty smart), or he saw this as a victory on some as-yet-undiscovered higher level (also pretty unlikely from the looks of things).
A surprising number of Americans report that they go to "The Daily Show" for information as much as comedy. Has Luntz himself joined the ranks of those who are increasingly unsure of the line between lampoonery and news journalism?
[Update: Actually, the Bolton nomination only dies in committee if the vote is 10-8 against him or worse. If the vote is a 9-9 tie, his nomination is sent to the full Senate flagged "no recommendation," which the Washington Post suggests might be the slight opening in the door that some wavering Republican Senators might need to vote against him.]
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