Reid to GOP, No Up Or Down Vote On Iraq, No Defense Department Funding.

TPM is reporting that after losing the cloture vote on Levin-Reed this morning Harry Reid surprised everybody by announcing that the Senate is not going to take up the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill until the GOP promises an up or down vote on Iraq. Here are Harry Reid's comments

I have temporarily laid aside the Defense Authorization bill and have entered a motion to reconsider.

But let me be clear to my Republican colleagues – I emphasize the word "temporarily". We will do everything in our power to change course in Iraq. We will do everything in our power to complete consideration of a Defense Authorization bill. We must do both.

And just to remind my Republican colleagues – even if this bill had passed yesterday, its provisions would not take effect until October.

So we will come back to this bill as soon as it is clear we can make real progress. To that end, I have asked the Democratic Whip and Democratic Manager of the bill to sit down with their counterparts to work on a process to address all outstanding issues related to this bill so the Senate can return to it as soon as possible.

Harry Reid is from Nevada. I guess he is a better poker player than I thought. Lots of pressure is going to be applied by defense contractors all across the country. Can you imagine the earful Mitch McConnell is going to get from Boeing's lobbyist this afternoon?