On Rule 21

I did not think I would have any comment on the Democrats’ invocation of Rule 21 to force discussion of the pre-war intelligence deceptions, but then I read Robin Laws’ blog and had to share:

Rule 21 has been used upwards of fifty times in the past half century or so, but never in this innovative ambush fashion. To invoke it requires a mere motion by one Senator, and a seconding by another. There is no way for the opposing party to block it. This is a surprisingly low threshold to activate such an effective weapon against the majority party.

Gamers have a word for a rule with such an unbalance between cost and benefit: a crock.

Thus again confirming that America, while it expresses an engaging core concept and includes plenty of cool crunchy bits, was rushed to press without sufficient playtesting.