Where do we find these men?
And women.
Never mind the conditions our soldiers slept through, or fought through, last Tuesday night in Baghdad or Diyala or any of Iraq's other hells. Where do we find senators who are willing to sleep on cots made up by attentive staffers? Where do we find senators who are ready to toil through Capitol Hill's air-conditioned night in "Casual Friday" togs, eating nothing but takeout pizza? Where do we find men and women who accept no substitute for victory in their effort to mandate U.S. defeat in Iraq?
In Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Democratic caucus and the suites of Republican Sens. Gordon Smith, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Chuck Hagel—that's where.
When the going gets tough, the tough get theatrical. Reed's sleepover was all theater—in the words of one Democratic leadership aide "a publicity stunt."
"So the greatest deliberative body in the world, during wartime," Arizona Republican Sen. John Kyl said last Tuesday, "is being used as a stage for political theater designed to benefit a political party at the expense of a nation's war efforts."
Well, yeah—and benefit a few Republicans who fancy themselves generals or commanders in chief.
Forgive me for not taking the world's most heavily coiffeured sleepover seriously. You didn't need to be a capital insider to conclude this little show had nothing to do with serious governance or changing minds on Iraq.
Begin with the fact that the result of Tuesday's show was foreordained. Democrats and their GOP allies were never going to get the required 60 votes for the motion. Reid says a simple majority should be sufficient, but he himself has said, "In the Senate it's always been the case you need 60 votes."
Add to this the fact that the Senate already voted down the Iraq withdrawal amendment and voted overwhelmingly to give Gen. David Petraeus until mid-September to report back on the surge.
But here was the real horselaugh moment in Reid's night-night filibuster. It wasn't Republicans blocking a vote on the Levin-Reed-Snowe-Smith withdrawal amendment. It was Reid and the amendment's backers. "They are staging a modern-day version of Jimmy Stewart's round-the-clock filibuster from 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' to wear down opponents of a firm deadline for withdrawal," Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell noted. "The only problem: They are, in effect, filibustering their own bill."
It wasn't exactly "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," though. It was more like "Mr. Smith Would Very Much Like to Stay in Washington."
In the end and inevitably, the Senate rejected the Levin-Reed-Snowe-Smith withdrawal amendment. It says something about Reid and company's maneuver and amendment that they couldn't bring aboard GOP senators who've recently gone wobbly on Iraq.
In what was once called "the world's greatest deliberative body," it was little more than a great night for Capitol Hill pizza deliverers.
Not that last Tuesday night's farce didn't have its moments of broad comic melodrama—if you think farce and broad comic melodrama are fitting in wartime. My own favorite was this: Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin had interns drop off toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant at GOP leadership offices. A note offered "supplies for your sleepless night" and added, "Help us bring an end to this war."
How precious. The only thing Durbin didn't include was a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker.
Meanwhile in Iraq, as senators made speeches, digested their pizza pies and slept, the U.S. military announced the capture of the highest-ranking Iraqi leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani carried messages for Osama bin Laden and his deputy to the Egyptian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq. He's told interrogators that al-Qaida senior leaders exert significant influence over al-Qaida in Iraq, providing strategic direction, message guidance and foreign fighters.
Back home, anyone who thinks Reid's failed all-nighter ends all this hasn't taken the proper measure of his commitment to defeat in Iraq. He pulled the entire defense bill from the Senate floor after the withdrawal amendment failed. Don't be surprised if he next takes the Senate floor and yells, "Food fight!"
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David Reinhard is the associate editor of The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon.
