Brushing Off the Button
It’s 12 days now, or thereabouts, that the Democrats have controlled Congress. Having fumigated the old stink of corruption from the GOP side, it’s time to start the sniffers up for early signs of Democratic putrescence. So far, we have a minor ding for Harry Reid - worth John Cole dusting off the Democratic Stupidity button. It’s fair to note from the comments that Reid’s maneuver was within the rules, and was meant to give a leg up to *his version* of an anti-earmark bill (arguably one more lenient with abusers like himself):
Here’s what actually happened.
Sen. DeMint offered the Republican amendment. There was debate, the Democrats moved to table the amendment, that motion was defeated. This is all standard. Since the amendment wasn’t tabled, that means it comes up for a full roll call vote.
Now, as a matter of Senate tradition and courtesy, such a roll call vote is never taken. Instead, once a motion to table is defeated, the losing side typically agrees via unanimous consent to approve the amendment by voice vote. However, in this case one of the Democrats objected to the unanimous consent request, hoping to be able to talk people around to the other side before the roll call vote on Friday.
Like I said, this is a breach of the usual courtesies relating to unanimous consent, and it’s good that Reid decided to apologize and work out a deal. (The truth is that the competing earmark provisions both had good points and bad points.) But this is light-years away from being like anything Tom DeLay did, or anything Reid could get censured for. It’s 100% within the rules.
Reid backed down on this - making his ding into a minor one.
Next up - Nancy Pelosi… although the Red-Staters are probably a little mixed up about her motives - Del Monte in her district probably had more to do with it than her husband’s tiny share in a parent company of a parent company of StarKist - she gets a major ding for trying to get in the way of extending labor laws to American Samoa. Ummm, this is the same thing that Abramoff’s Republican thugs were bribed to do. It is unconscionable that Americans will accomodate what are essentially sweatshop practices in our own territories. That Pelosi will sign on to the extension of minimum wage protections to the Marianas but hold out on Samoa is disgraceful.
That she has thought better of it is the one redeeming feature to this story.
For scoring purposes:
Harry Reid - 10 demerits
Nancy Pelosi - 100 demerits
I’ll try to keep this a running total and add characters when necessary. I won’t count the GOP demerits, as they are currently countable only by very sophisticated computer equipment available only in the labs of well funded research organizations. Here’s hoping that the Democrats will be duly shamed by their own party when they try these tricks and will therefore not follow in the GOP footsteps.
I appreciate your candor & willingness to keep tabs, but I’m afraid that you’re spitting into a strong wind. It’s the nature of the beast for politicians to become hypocrites when they get into power, both sides.
Besides, we now know that the $17 million in tuna stock that Pelosi’s husband (meaning, her as well) owns is a heckuva lot more by way of tainted legislation than anything that Newt Gingrich had designed by way of writing a book for Rupert Murdoch’s publishing company.
Remember that HUGE story, back in the 90s? My, that tuna thing sure went a way quick by way of comparison, didn’t it?