Diane Sawyer, a former flunky for Richard Nixon during the Watergate years and now a host on ABC's morning show, distinguished herself today by displaying her ignorance of how the filibuster process works in the U.S. Senate.
In recent months, Senate Republicans have been signaling their willingness to filibuster anything having to do with the Iraq War. It's been in all the papers, but Sawyer seems not to have grasped the situation.
And now that Harry Reid and the Democrats are threatening to force the Republicans to wage a real filibuster, not just a pro forma version of such, Sawyer's become more confused than usual.
Said she this morning: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to filibuster, talking all night to close out all topics besides a vote on Iraqi troop withdrawals."
Right-wing bloviator Fred Barnes, a guest on the show, chose not to correct Sawyer, preferring instead to compound her error with this bit of brilliance: "In effect, you know, Harry Reid is going to keep everybody in the Senate overnight. All he's doing is filibustering his own bill..."
It's a Republican filibuster, people, a Republican filibuster. It's an effort by Republicans to prevent an up-and-down vote on setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. A majority of Senators favor such a timetable, but the Republican filibuster sets the bar at 60-percent just to get a vote on the underlying legislation.
Do you understand now, Diane?
