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The end of a nightmare
After her husband was killed in Chile's bloody coup, Joyce Horman thought the only justice would come from telling her story. Now she has reason to hope those responsible will be forced to face the truth.
By Itay Hod
[10/19/99]

Back to the eve of destruction?
Senate GOP leaders have endangered us all by their foolish rejection of the test-ban treaty.
By Joe Conason
[10/19/99]

"Fortunate Son": Better and worse than you might expect
The writer who penned the controversial new Bush bio digs some dirt but depicts a likable George W.
By Craig Offman
[10/19/99]

White Reps. can't jump
Members of Congress and the "third house" hoop it up for charity.
By Jake Tapper
[10/19/99]

The new Serbian police state
As Serbia's opposition unites to demand early elections, Milosevic reveals signs of desperation.
By Laura Rozen
[10/18/99]

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The McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill died Tuesday as it failed to secure 60 "cloture" votes. Actually, it didn't die. It was killed. A contract hit.

It took a truly bipartisan effort to do the deed. The GOP leadership won the award for chutzpah by wrapping itself in the right to free speech while denying McCain and Feingold the chance to exercise that right on the floor of the Senate Monday night.

And although McCain vowed afterward to "never give up" and "to do everything we can" to continue the fight, prospects that this bill will pass in this Senate, with this leadership, both Democratic and Republican, are nil.

Tuesday's drama was more than just a rerun of old C-SPAN 2 footage, however. This time, the campaign finance reform effort was hobbled not only by GOP leaders like Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and McConnell, but by Democratic leaders as well. In the process, Torricelli revealed himself to be, in McCain's words, "as passionately opposed to reform as are the critics ... in my party."

When McCain was asked what he and Feingold could have done differently, he lobbed grenades at Lott, who failed to honor his "gentleman's promise" that he'd allow the bill five full days of debate. "Maybe we shouldn't have relied on the word of people that said we'd be allowed to have an open and total debate on the issue," McCain said, pointedly.

It wasn't supposed to turn out this way, McCain said. After years of beating their heads against the status quo wall in Washington, McCain and Feingold had learned a few lessons not only about their heads, but about the wall as well.

Thus, this year, in an effort to line up 60 senators to support just the basic premise that their bill should be voted upon, McCain and Feingold pared down the measure significantly.

In the end, their bill contained a ban on the unregulated unrestricted party cash known as soft money, as well as a fairly uncontroversial measure codifying a 1988 Supreme Court decision that requires unions to get permission from non-union members before using their dues for political purposes.

But from the moment McCain-Feingold '99 started its journey through the legislative process, it was a Dead Bill Walking.

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