Democrat Senate Hangover

Well, that was fun.

The Democrats did their part to boost C-SPAN's overnight ratings, probably by a few hundredths of a percent.

The Senate all-nighter was preordained to end as it did.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans scuttled a Democratic proposal ordering troop withdrawals from Iraq in a showdown Wednesday that capped an all-night debate on the war.

The 52-47 vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate under Senate rules. It was a sound defeat for Democrats who say the U.S. military campaign, in its fifth year and requiring 158,000 troops, cannot tame the sectarian violence in Iraq.

...The vote came after a rare, round-the-clock session Democrats used to highlight Republican support for Bush's Iraq strategy. Republicans said the all-nighter was a useless political stunt.

"All we have achieved are remarkably similar newspaper accounts of our inflated sense of the drama of this display and our own temporary physical fatigue," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, presidential candidate and the top Republican on the Armed Services Committe.

Most senators got a chance for a few hours of shuteye even while a handful of their colleagues took turns droning on through the night with floor speeches.

With a half-dozen spectators watching from the gallery, Republicans Collins and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota were among those speaking during the long night, joined by Democrats Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Jim Webb of Virginia. McCain finished his speech around 4:10 a.m. He was followed by White House hopeful Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

When Harry Reid announced that his all-night session was a fraud, that there weren't going to be votes throughout the night in an effort to keep members in the chamber, the Dems chalked up another defeat.

Reid gave the sign that the senators were free to retreat to their beds.

Actually, I think this fake all-nighter can be seen as a metaphor for the ineffective, "do nothing" Dem Senate.

They said there would be an all-night session. There really wasn't.

They rolled in the cots. They weren't used, image over substance.

They voted to give General Petraeus until September 2007 to assess the progress of the troop surge. They flip flopped on that.

The Dems accomplish nothing.

Simply put, they are puppets of the fringe Left -- the MoveOn, Daily Kos, Democratic Underground extremists.

They go through the motions, but they are essentially meaningless.

As John McCain said, "All we have achieved are remarkably similar newspaper accounts of our inflated sense of the drama of this display and our own temporary physical fatigue."