They don’t have shredders in D.C.?

From The Hill, regarding that war supplemental bill:

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.

The supplemental was nearly choked by a controversy over how to keep secret photos that showed the U.S. military abusing detainees in custody. Obama decided last month against releasing the photos, and a federal court last week issued a stay to deny a lawsuit to release them by the American Civil Liberties Union, but senators from both parties were searching for a failsafe method to keep the photos under wraps.

Doesn’t anybody have a lighter?

One more thing about that war supplemental bill: Earlier this week, Matthew Yglesias called it a “pure hypocrisy play” for Republicans to vote against the bill because of the IMF money.

I responded:

The “pure hypocrisy play” at work here is attaching the IMF money to a war supplemental bill in the first place.

…If the IMF money is so important, then pass the funding separately. As a standalone bill. Don’t sneak it into a war-funding bill.

…the American people aren’t likely to take kindly to spending that much money on that at a time like this.

So they tie it to military funding and hope that maybe they can get Republicans to look like hypocrites for voting no.

Later, I was pointed to this paragraph of the original story:

Republicans also have used the supplemental war bills to advance non-related priorities. In 2006, Republican senators included $4 billion for farm programs and $700 million for a railroad project on the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast.

So: if Democrats are guilty of hypocrisy (as I alleged), then Republicans are guilty of the same hypocrisy. Both sides put liberal-centric crap into war funding bills in order to put the other side on the spot, and maybe to draw a few more liberal votes.

On the other hand, Democrats told us they had to be in power in order to stop this kind of cynical game-playing (not to mention to stop the war). So I guess that’s pretty much out the window.