While General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker moved to the Senate to field questions, there was an interesting start to the day on the floor of the Senate.  After the opening prayer and comments from Harry Reid, Texas Senator John Cornyn took to the floor to offer an amendment to the Transportation and Housing bill currently being debated.

It was a simple amendment, one that wouldn't cost any money, and relatively speaking, wouldn't cost much time.  It was a simple request that a sense of the Senate be taken to reaffirm support for the credibility of General Petraeus, and denounce as a body the despicable MoveOn.org full-page ad that ran in the New York Times essentially calling the General a traitor. 

At the end of his presentation, in walked Kentucky Senator and Republican leader, Mitch McConnell. Here's what he had to say.



Washington Democrat Patty Murray was managing the time on the transportation bill for the majority, and at this point, she knew she had a problem.  The last thing she wanted to do today was have the Democrats be put on record as either endorsing or rejecting MoveOn.org's ad.  The Democrats know they overreached, but you don't want to go out of your way to upset the money people.  So she called in reinforcements in the person of Illinois Senator and majority whip, Dick Durbin.  Here's a portion of his remarks in defense of the attempt to quash the Cornyn amendment.




Refreshingly, to Durbin's credit, he did say he doesn't agree with the characterization of General Petraeus by MoveOn.org a few times in here.  This, of course, coming from the same Senator who compared our troops at Abu Ghraib to the Nazis, Pol Pot and the Soviet gulags. 

But then the weasely lawyer side of Durbin kicked in.  Read more, including how a MoveOn.org candidate ruled in the chair to protect the Democrats from having to vote on the MoveOn.org ad, at Radioblogger.com.