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Via Steve Clemons, check out Senate Intelligence committee vice chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller's statement on the Senate Democrats closing the Senate every day until a serious investigation of the policymakers' use of Iraq intelligence is delivered:
Amazing. Amazing day. One could be forgiven for haven lost hope we'd ever see it.At its core, this is about accountability -- Congressional accountability and White House accountability.
Congress has a fundamental, constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight -- that's what checks and balances are all about -- and we have utterly failed.
My colleagues and I have tried for two years to do our oversight work, and for two years we have been undermined, avoided, put off, and vilified by the other side. Any line of questioning that has brought us too close to the White House has been thwarted.
At some point the majority needs to understand that we are willing to bring the Senate to a halt until they will join us in conducting the kind of investigation this situation demands.
The American people still want to know -- now more than ever -- why the United States went to war, whether they were misled, and whether our intelligence was misused.
Whether these actions amount to crimes is not the litmus test for congressional oversight. Mr. Fitzgerald is investigating possible criminal activity by senior White House officials, and we won't and shouldn't get in the way of his work.
But the American people deserve to know not just whether this Administration committed crimes, but whether this Administration told the truth -- the full truth, the straight story.
And if they didn't -- if they misled about the war and if they misused intelligence, then the American people need to know that the Congress will do everything in its power the make sure that it never happens again.
Update: A Hill veteran writes, "It appears the Reps and Dems are working out an agreement and Frist is speaking now. Dem staff seem delighted." More from Americablog. Here's the LA Times. And the Post. And the NYT.
Update II: "Power shifts," write Mark Schmitt.