Event: To Win a Pillow-Fight, Stuff Two Pillows Into One Pillowcase

It's a step in the right direction.

But make no mistake: it's a small small step. I was hoping that this was a committed attempt to ratchet up pressure. Senators are battle-hardened political campaigners, and if their successful political careers demand a sleepless night every now and then, I'd appreciate their playing the part to the hilt. How disappointing, then, that Harry Reid announced a break from 1 to 5 AM. These are the crucial hours of any all-nighter. They surround 3 AM, which Ray Bradbury described as the "soul's midnight" in Something Wicked This Way Comes. If this is political theater, then the Democrats didn't commit to their reading.

Robert Byrd knew how to bring the fight.

The problem is that when the Democrats get "tough" they're still far too "soft" by Republican Standards.

If you're going to force an all night session, then make it an all night session.

* * * * *

Of course, alan1 is always ready to supply a case in point. As I was drafting this post he emailed me, writing:

On election night, before the polls closed but after it was clear that the Dems were taking Congress, Trent Lott went on one of the network news channels and called the Dems a "lame duck" Congress, and explicitly (if I remember right) admitted to a "scorched earth" policy in which the Repubs would win back Congress in two years because they would have shut down the
government and blamed it on Democrats. He said this, on the record. So why is there confusion as to what is happening now? Why aren't there ad campaigns going on right now in which Trent Lott tells America that the Republican party has a pre-emptive policy of obstruction developed before
they lost power? Why isn't that video being played on the Senate floor?

Does anybody know why?

* * * * *

When I used to have Dungeons & Dragons slumber parties with my nerdy Flint friends, we'd also have a number of pillow fights. These weren't you're typical giggling kids jumping on a bed fights, though. We aimed for the head, and since we were all fighting at once, the faster you could drop numerous opponents, the more likely you were to win. One kid, Chris, had a decisive edge. He was larger, stronger, and slower than the rest of us, but he maximized his advantages by stuffing two pillows into one pillow-case. It gave him an added impact: two or three direct hits from Chris and you were down for the count. Of course, the fact that he started whacking us with pillows while we were asleep almost made him a bully, but it was all in good fun, and any way, the stakes are low.

Now the Democrats are a majority in congress, but they still haven't claimed the authority in congress in a meaningful way. They are debating Iraq deployment, so the stakes are definitively not low. This slumber party was Harry Reid's idea.

Couldn't he please stuff two pillows into one pillowcase?