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Democratic temper tantrum taking place behind closed Senate doors via Breitbart/AP:

Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session Tuesday, demanding answers about intelligence that led to the Iraq war. Republicans derided the move as a political stunt.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Democratic leader Harry Reid said the American people and U.S. troops deserved to know the details of how the United States became engaged in the war, particularly in light of the indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.

Reid demanded the Senate go into closed session. With a second by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the public was ordered out of the chamber, the lights were dimmed, senators filed to their seats on the floor and the doors were closed. No vote is required in such circumstances.

“The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions,” Reid said before the doors were closed.

Byron York hits the nail on the head:

Perhaps the best explanation for the Democrats’ decision to virtually shut down the Senate today can be found in one passage from CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s news conference last Friday:

This indictment is not about the war. This indictment’s not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel….The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified. This is stripped of that debate, and this is focused on a narrow transaction. And I think anyone who’s concerned about the war and has feelings for or against shouldn’t look to this criminal process for any answers or resolution of that.

Fitzgerald’s statement, and his decision to confine the indictment of Lewis Libby to charges of lying and obstruction, threatened to dash the Democrats’ hope of using the CIA leak case as an opportunity to re-debate the reasons for going to war in Iraq. So the party, or at least its leaders in the Senate, has decided to use another route, the shutdown of the Senate, as a way to achieve that goal.

Kathryn Lopez links to background on Rule 21, which enabled Reid’s unhinged stunt.

Bulldogpundit at ABP:

I think Frist and Company should just sit back and let them pull these juvenile stunts. Hell, they should put it on national TV. It’s only going to hurt them.

(Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds)

Dissenter John Podhoretz thinks the stunt is “savvy.” Beg to differ. Even Hillary knows better than to pander to the Sheehan/Kossack wing of the Democrat Party…

A.J. Strata concurs:

What a bad move by the democrats. Here we are only a few short weeks after Iraqis voted in their democratic form of government and took another step towards a stron[g] ally in the ME, and the [D]emocrats pull a stunt in the Senate.

435pmEST. Ok, so the Senate is open again after 2 hours locked down. Is it just me or does Sen. Frist seem shaken? I hope it’s just me.

Pau Mirengoff at Power Line says “Bless the Dems:”

The Democrats must feel that they are losing momentum now that the Republicans have their act together on the Supreme Court, and Fitzgerald did not indict Rove. That the Dems see throwing a temper tantrum as a way to regain momentum, rather than as reminder to the public that they are unfit to govern, speaks volumes.

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