Harry Reid is worried about his grandchildren...because "Scooter" Libby was indicted.

Yes, he really did say that on the Senate floor just a short while ago. And he actually managed to say it with a straight face.

This just before the Senate went into closed session to discuss pre-war intelligence. The Democrats are holding the Senate hostage in order to get a politically motivated investigation into pre-war intelligence, in light of the Libby indictment last Friday.

Not a smart thing to get partisan feelings so stirred prior to the Alito hearings, as it definitely has the potential to move some of those moderates on the Gang of 14. But when has the Democratic party recently showed any hint of common sense?

But who am I to advise the Democrats against jumping off the cliff?

Kathryn Jean Lopez notes

"How did she [Michelle Malkin] get Harry Reid to agree to do p.r. for her book the day it launched, with this tactic? Her book: Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild.

Byron York gets to the crux of the matter:

"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."

Paul over at Powerline:

"The Democrats have forced the Senate into a closed session, demanding answers about the pre-war intelligence on Iraqi WMD. Minority leader Reid used the Libby indictment as a pretext for this meaningless stunt. Presumably, Reid needed a closed door session to prevent the public from witnessing the spectacle of Democrats making fools out of themselves trying to explain the connection between that indictment and pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

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."

And that's really what this was today: A temper tantrum by a party out of steam and out of ideas. Their "Fitzmas" never materialized, and the president has nominated an outstanding SCOTUS nominee, putting him and the Republican party back on track. The Democrats needed a completely useless like this to try and rally their fever swamp left, which wants and needs red meat. Let the Left digest their red meat, while the majority of Americans sit back and observe the hysterical Senate Democrats.

Captain Ed notes:

"This shows the emptiness of Democrats, both in head and heart. As Bill Frist said afterwards, the minority party proves it has nothing to contribute except cheap political stunts. They know that the Fitzgerald investigation came up with next to nothing on the Plame leak -- because it didn't constitute a crime under US statute. Despite having a prosecutor independent of the Bush administration run wild for almost two years and exceed the original boundaries of his mandate, the only indictment he could muster was one in which a very stupid and probably criminal act by a single person could be verified -- and that just had to do with the investigation and grand jury itself, not with the Plame leak."

How stupid are Senate Democrats? With Bill Frist so energized and angry now because of this cheap trick by Harry Reid, Dick Durbin et al, and moderates on the Gang of 14 likely so also, any attempted filibuster of the Alito nomination WILL be defeated with the constitutional option.