What just happened in the Senate

After their all night pajama party?

Read Spencer Ackerman at TPM Cafe:

1. Procedurally, what's next for Reid? What various options does he have?

The problem for Reid right now is this: How can he get the Reed-Levin proposal on redeployment, his chosen way of ending the war, to a vote, now that it's been revealed yet again that the GOP has the votes necessary to block it? What legislative vehicles are available to him?

At the Dems' post-vote press conference, Reid said that he's "not tipping my mitt" by answering the question. But leadership staffers acknowledge that there are really only three courses of action open to Reid going forward:

A) Keep them attached to the defense authorization bill. Reid voted against the bill today in order to reserve the right to bring defense authorization to the floor again later. But obviously, as a senior leadership aide conceded to me, this course would just replay today's blocked cloture vote unless the GOP agreed not to block it again, which is an open question.

B) Attach the amendment to the upcoming defense appropriations bill, and reintroduce it that way. The GOP might filibuster again, and the same game would start. This time, each side would try and blame the other for blocking the year's half-trillion-dollars of Pentagon funding.

C) Introduce the amendment as a free-standing bill. This would be a potentially even tougher road to follow, because there's no larger Defense-funding measure to accuse Republicans of opposing. Furthermore, Democrats uncomfortable with a mandated timeline for redeployment, like Nebraska's Ben Nelson, could balk for the same reason.

Reid indicated at the presser that the most likely vehicle for Levin-Reed is going to stay with the defense authorization. "There are two things that I want to accomplish," he said. "One is to pass a defense authorization bill, but with a deadline dealing with Iraq."

While Reid may not want to be hemmed in by his statement, it's a fair indicator of his intent. Sticking with the defense authorization may be the best course politically for the Dems. That's because it has the political upshot of not tying the Dems' Iraq effort to a bill supplying actual money to the Pentagon, which would be the case with the Defense appropriations bill. And that means Dems won't be opened up to the charge that they're willing to defund the Pentagon in order to stop the war.

He goes on from there in discussing Reid and his actions, past and future. He ends with this:

5. Stop this equivocating! Who won?

The GOP won -- today, at least. Sen. Mitch McConnell prevented the crucial ten Republican defections. Much of the media is portraying the Democrats as either obstructionists -- which must rankle them, since they weren't the ones filibustering the defense bill -- or as losers. And since the Dems didn't break the filibuster, that last part is true enough.

Looking beyond the day's vote, however, reveals a more complicated picture. After the Democrats lost the Iraq battle over the supplemental appropriation in the spring and didn't launch another fight against the war, many on the left were disillusioned with the Democrats. Antiwar liberals appear much more energized now, so clearly today's events had one positive effect for Reid: It appeared to shore up his support on the left again.

More importantly, by raising the Iraq debate in the summer, the Democrats have created something of a public expectation that September is the beginning of the end for the war. Even Fred Barnes's summation piece for the Weekly Standard is titled "McConnell Holds The Line; At Least Until September." The benefit for the Democrats of the July push, even the unsuccessful one, has been to redefine the debate over the war.

By forcing the discussion now, Dems forced Republicans into the fall-back position of saying, "The war should begin to end not now, but in September." That means it will be tougher for Republicans to continue to back the war come September -- Petraeus report or no.

Two weeks ago, it was hardly clear that September would be the beginning of the end, as opposed to a potential rallying point for Republicans when Petraeus comes to Washington. But thanks to how the July debate unfolded, come September the GOP's victory today could look like a Pyrrhic one.

Update: The Los Angeles Times:

WASHINGTON -- For the seventh time this year, Senate Republicans today blocked a measure to change U.S. policy in Iraq, beating back the latest Democratic proposal to set a timeline for withdrawing troops.

Democrats fell eight votes short of the 60 votes demanded by Republican leaders for an amendment to the defense authorization bill being debated in the Senate. Four Republican lawmakers joined Democrats, ending a round-the-clock session orchestrated by Democratic leaders Tuesday night to highlight what they alleged was Republican obstructionism.

Reid pulled the defense authorization bill from the Senate floor after the vote, enraging Republicans.

The maneuver means that highly partisan debate on the $649-billion measure — and other amendments calling for a change in Iraq — is on hold. Reid would not say when he would reintroduce the legislation.

And Bill Geiger:

Note how Reid "reminded" the Republicans that nothing in the DoD bill he just set aside takes effect until October anyway as a preemptive strike against their predictable cries of Democrats depriving the troops and not supporting them.

"We have spent 2 days showing America that we will not back down," said Reid. "That we will keep fighting. That if President Bush and his allies in Congress refuse to budge, we will continue to show them the way."

Reduction of troops imminent!

Said in 2007... 2006 ... 2005 ... 2004 ... 2003.

Isn't there a story about a young boy who cried wolf too many times and finally the townspeople stopped listening to him?

Where are those townspeople?

Why are we still listening to this administration?

A woman who married a soldier

Who has served in Bosnia, South Korea and in Iraq twice:

When it comes down to who comes home in a draped-coffin, soldiers and their families have almost no choice. They don't get to decide who will be lucky enough to come back alive (if only a shell of their former self). They don't get to decide which military spouse will be forced to raise a newborn who will never know their parent who died in this war based on lies. They don't get to decide who will be left orphaned by a single parent.

Only our government can decide.

Our government has decided that our soldiers and their families should be willing to sacrifice for a war that never should have been, while their own offspring are only asked to sacrifice a few bucks at Nieman-Marcus.

How come when it comes to the single parents created by the war in Iraq, the "family values" crowd appears to be deafeningly silent?

"Support Real Family Values: Bring Our Troops Home"

Guess who the people are who are signing this petition

I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of American military forces and bases from Iraq.

Latte-slurping tree-hugging sandal-wearing weak-kneed bleeding-heart liberals? No.

Try this:

"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of American military forces and bases from Iraq.

"Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home."

Our soldiers.

What Bush's war is doing to the soldiers

" Pentagon doctors estimate that 12 percent of the 1.5 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD. Newly revised Defence Department guidelines for service-members with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" say they may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem.

Many believe President George W. Bush's newly announced plan to send 21,500 additional U.S. soldiers to Iraq will involve the redeployment of soldiers suffering from severe trauma. Press reports indicate Bush wants to implement his "surge" by speeding up previously scheduled redeployments and extending the tours of soldiers already in the field of battle.

That reality has increasing numbers of soldiers taking matters into their own hands.

Between Christmas and New Year's 2006, five U.S. soldiers committed suicide after being informed they'd been ordered to serve an additional tour in Iraq. In Iraq itself, the military announced on Dec. 30 that soldier Michael Crutchfield of Stockton, California killed himself north of the capital, Baghdad.

The day of his death, he e-mailed his foster brother and confidant, Johnny Sotello, to relate his pain to the remnants of his family still living in the area.

"As you know, there are more people waiting for me to pull this trigger than there are waiting on my return to the states," Crutchfield wrote in a portion of the message, quoted by the Stockton Record.

"I'm done hurting. All my life I've been hurting... end this pain," Crutchfield wrote at the end of his two-page message. "