This is what leadership looks like

Chris Dodd for President!

Sam Stein reports:

Senator Chris Dodd won a temporary victory today after his threats of a filibuster forced Democratic leadership to push back consideration of a measure that would grant immunity to telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless surveillance.

The measure was part of a greater bill to reorganize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Earlier on Monday, the Senate, agreed to address a bill that would have overhauled FISA, authorized the monitoring of people outside the United States, given secret courts the power to approve aspects of surveillance, and granted telecom companies retroactive immunity for past cooperation.

But the threat of Dodd's filibuster, aimed primarily at the latter measure, persuaded Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, to table the act until January. A compromise on the immunity will ostensibly be worked out in the interim period.

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A smile on his reddened face, Dodd was at once gracious and joyful by the turn of events. He had been arguing his case for approximately eight hours.

"I want to thank the leader [Sen. Reid]," he said. "This is an awkward time. We want to get the bill done. My longstanding concerns were over retroactive immunity. Look forward to coming back in January. And hopefully between then and January a suggestion can be made to compromise without granting full immunity...I appreciate the fact that we will not have to pursue this further."

Dodd flew back from Iowa last night to personally rally against the amendment to the Protect America Act. After the Senate agreed, by a vote of 79 to 10, to move to debate, Dodd took to the floor. Over the course of the day, the Connecticut Democrat criticized the idea of granting immunity. Expanding on similar remarks made by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, he noted that that the original FISA bill already included an immunity clause and that the courts, not Congress, should decide whether telecom companies deserve legal protections.

While he never technically conducted a filibuster, according to aides, Dodd left the floor only once, to address a press gathering. He did, on occasion cede time to his Democratic colleagues. But even then, they say, he remained engaged in the debate.

"Everyone who spoke on the floor said they were grateful for Dodd taking a stand," said a staffer to the Senator who asked not to be named. "They said if it weren't for him they wouldn't be having this much-needed debate."

Comments

[YF]

You know, this retroactive immunity is the one area in which the Democrats have real leverage. They don't have to overcome a filibuster, they don't have to worry about an executive veto. . . all they have to do is maintain the status quo and they can deal a real blow to the imperial presidency. I'm not saying that they'll do it, but they at least COULD.

[COT]

What if, say, once in a decade, if....say...the retroactive immunity turned into radioactive immunity...even if it is normally not ok, do you think you could rule out waterboarding the hell out of it??? In other news, Rudy loves "24" and I can think of a few people who deserve Man of the Year more than General freaking Petraeus. I'd vote for La Rana just to see if his ensuing ego would literally cause his head to explode.