[NYTr] US Senate erased a page of history; removes vote from Cong'l Record

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

sent by Mark Graffis - Jul 21, 2007

MSNBC - Jul 20, 2007
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/20/280260.aspx

US Senate erased a page of history; removes vote from Cong'l Record

NBC's Ken Strickland

Last night, the US Senate erased a page of history --
literally. The body agreed to permanently remove from
the constitutionally mandated Congressional Record a
vote they'd taken earlier in the evening on a measure
saying the president should not pardon Scooter Libby.
The vote failed 47-49, but any reference to the vote
itself was expunged as though it never happened.

The Senate was in the process of finishing up an
education bill, when various Republican senators
called for votes on measures having nothing to do with
education, like Gitmo and the Fairness Doctrine. After
apparently getting annoyed, Democrats countered with
the Libby amendment. "If you are going to shoot this
way, we have to shoot that way," said Sen. Ken Salazar
(D-Colo.) on the floor.

Republicans were besides themselves. "Until this last
amendment, I haven't seen politically inspired
amendments before this body," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)
said in opposition. There was so much audible
grumbling from senators in reaction (and disbelief),
that Kyl had to pause for it to subside. After the
Libby vote failed, Republicans struck back hard,
offering a amendment condemning about a dozen previous
pardons by President Clinton. As one GOP aide put it,
"we brought our gun to the knife fight." But cooler
heads prevailed when both party leaders decided not to
have the Clinton vote, and the Majority Leader Harry
Reid simply asked that the Libby vote "be vitiated and
stricken from the record."

And with those words, it never happened -- except on
C-SPAN tapes. For what it's worth, Hillary Clinton,
who was on the Hill, did not take the Libby vote.