Don't Embarass The President

There were two amendments added to the Senate's defense spending bill for fiscal 2006, one from John McCain (R - AZ), setting standards for military-prisoner interrogations, and another from Trent Lott (R - MS), delaying base closings. Approval would have been considered "potentially embarrassing defeats for President Bush." Frist was way short of the votes needed to block the amendments, plus there was a very good chance the Senate would have adopted both, so he did the only thing he could do: he pussed out and pulled the entire bill off the floor. Knight-Ridder (07.26.05):

"The Senate's Republican leader on Tuesday derailed a bipartisan effort to set rules for the treatment of enemy prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other military detention camps by abruptly stopping debate on a $491 billion defense bill." Frist pulls defense bill to avoid votes on treatment of detainees

"McCain had been working with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Warner of Virginia, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, to respond to widely publicized cases of prisoner abuse. They proposed to set specific standards for the treatment of foreign detainees. Vice President Dick Cheney, in a meeting last Thursday, urged the three to back off." They essentially told the Veep to stick it. It's not over yet though, not by a long shot. The issues will come up later this year. Gotta have that defense bill. If the legislation passes with either amendment, Bush has threatened to veto it. Then there's another move afoot to protect the President from embarrassment, much less impeachment. Boston Globe (07.27.05):

"For eight months, the Senate Intelligence Committee has made little effort to pursue its long-promised probe into whether the Bush administration intentionally misconstrued intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war -- an investigation that would have delved into whether White House aides tried to put pressure on CIA analysts." Senate probe of prewar intelligence stalls

Committee chair Pat Roberts (R - KS) "vowed last year that soon after the presidential election was over, his panel would examine whether Bush or his top aides misled the public about prewar intelligence, or pressured CIA agents to make a stronger case for invading Iraq." "But since then, the Intelligence Committee has made no measurable progress on the investigation. Instead, Roberts has offered vague public promises of picking up the key pieces of the probe at some point but has warned that other more pressing matters must be dealt with first." None were mentioned in the article, but a couple of 'em are probably the McCain and Lott amendments. Not to mention the investigation and possible indictment of good old Karl and other members of the "All Hat, No Cattle" posse.