Partisan politics are alive and well.

See the Wired article, Madcap Maneuvers Halt MS Hearing, by Declan McCullagh and Ben Polen.

Upset at what the Senate Finance committee was doing with a trade bill, the crafty Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) tried a procedural gambit that pulled the plug on all committee hearings. It was the political equivalent of Windows’ blue screen of death.

Byrd is one of the Senate’s crusty old men, elected to the Senate in 1958, and a wily parliamentarian. He’s a former majority leader and even co-authored a two-volume history of the Senate, called The Senate 1789-1989.

He also, for the record, is the guy who objected to laptop computers on the Senate floor in 1997.

Byrd knew that a Senate rule prohibits committees from meeting for more than two hours while the main chamber is in session, but this is usually bypassed daily with unanimous consent. On Wednesday, Byrd refused to consent, which required committees to halt what they were doing after 11:30 a.m.

Leahy, who was just getting started in the Judiciary committee a block or two away, was visibly peeved. “This committee will be recessed because of a motion made on the Senate floor to stop hearings,” he said.

A judiciary aide said afterward that the hearing won’t be rescheduled until sometime next year.