"This all certainly did catch Missourians off guard," former Senator Jean Carnahan, whose family legacy in politics carries weight among Democrats, said in an interview.
Manny, the security guard in the senator's office building, asked me why our diverse group had gathered.
Mr. Cheney commands respect from colleagues and Democratic rivals alike with his pragmatic, straightforward style that is unthreatening to senators who guard their prerogatives zealously and hate to be upstaged.
Federal judges are the primary guardians of Americans' constitutional rights, and it will now be incumbent upon senators to guard against efforts to pack the court system with ideologues intent on eroding these rights.
Working in hourly shifts to hold the floor and guard against surprise maneuvers, senators from both sides of the aisle accused each other of being in thrall to ideological special interests.
But a new guard emerged: civil libertarian senator George Georges, young lawyers like Wayne Goss and Peter Beattie, and progressive western suburbs academics, exemplified by University of Queensland historian Denis Murphy.
An entirely exceptional imperial province was Egypt, so jealously guarded that no senator could visit it without express permission; its prefect was unique in being an equestrian in command of legions.
However, John Nichols, who also made submissions to the inquiry regarding guards spying on Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, claimed to have heard members of the emergency response team (ERT) "brag openly" about the action, and said he did witness guards tying a detainee to a fence with cable ties.
Republican senators have their guard up generally against presidential recess appointments, which allow presidents to fill jobs temporarily without Senate confirmation.
In the back room, where Senators let their guard down, talk strategy and reveal themselves in ways unseen out in front of the microphones, McCain and Kennedy seemed like superheroes in a world of lesser mortals.
Mr. Obama dropped his guard and stopped calling her "Senator Clinton" in a moment that helped breathe new life back into Ms. Clinton's campaign against him.
