War supplemental passes after photo settlement

By GottaLaff

All that back and forth about the torture photos is settled, then. Finally! Oh wait. No it isn't:

The Senate late Thursday passed a $106 billion military supplemental to fund the U.S. military’s efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan after unraveling a controversy over photos of detainee abuse.

Voting 91-5, the Senate sent the measure to President Obama’s desk, after the House voted 226-202 for it on Tuesday. Both chambers had already passed different versions, which were reconciled in conference meetings. [...]

In the end, the controversy was settled with a Senate vote Wednesday night for a stand-alone law to keep the photos from public view. The House still must vote on that bill, however, meaning the controversy may not be over. But White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday told Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that Obama would sign an executive order to classify them if necessary.

Voting 'no' was a hodgepodge of the Senate's more conservative and liberal members: Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.).

Absent from the vote were Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Byrd and Kennedy are both ill, while Ensign has not returned to the Senate after admitting an extramarital affair on Tuesday. There is also an ongoing vacancy in the second Minnesota seat.

Here's what I wrote in one of the posts of my interviews with a Gitmo lawyer/abused detainee:

Wait, sidebar: I smell a reason for releasing those pesky torture photos everyone's talking about… evidence. Sidebar over.

Public view is one thing. Declassifying is another, for limited use in, say, a courtroom.