State of the Union Time Paradox

The Democrats were apparently angry enough today that they actually defeated the Republicans' call to cloture for the FISA bill that featured telecom immunity. Only four Democrats defected, so I suppose that has to count as a triumph. Although the Prez has claimed he'll veto an extension of the current law, which expires at the end of the week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested that some extension might be in order. Because, after all, the Republicans have been clamoring for weeks that allowing the law to expire would essentially give the terrorists carte blanche to organize their next attack. Washington appears to have been in a post-ironic state for a number of years, but surely somebody there would recognize the irony if the Republicans blocked the very thing they claim is the only way to protect the republic. (They got off to a good start, though, preventing a vote on the Democrats' proposed 30-day extension.)

All of this seems to be some sort of White House master plan, and it's hard to imagine that the Prez is not going to make hay with it once he's got the platform of a joint session of Congress. Yet, that's not what he's overtly planning to do. Newspapers are always on strict deadlines for the morning edition, so as it usually does, the Associated Press has helpfully written out its past-tense account of the State of the Union address for those papers that can't wait for the actual event. This is virtually guaranteed to be printed somewhere. There's no mention of the Senate vote this afternoon--the closest we'll get, according to the AP (oddly shifting to the future tense for a moment) is, "He will prod Congress to extend a law allowing surveillance on suspected terrorists." Is he now supporting the extension he had his Senate Republicans knock down this afternoon? I'm not holding my breath. We'll see how much he prods and how much he beats them with his rhetorical club. I'm going to save a copy of the AP pre-report to see what kind of prognosticators they are.