Category Archives: senate
Byrd of a Different Feather
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that a senate that passed an 800 billion dollar pork packed stimulus bill would go all out for the the passing of the king of pork. Jonah Goldberg has the bad manners to also bring up the Exalted Cyclops’s KKK organizing days here. Michael Barone admires Senator Byrd’s interest in the constitution, in a more balanced view here.
Vapid Confirmation Hearing
Elena Kagan doesn’t have much of a legal paper trail. This is considered a good career move for Supreme Court nominees, ever since Robert Bork talked his way out of a job. One footprint she has left, however, is a 15 year old complaint that the Bork-A-Dope strategy has caused confirmation hearings to become “vapid” .
Presidents Without Borders
Obama pronounced us not defined by our borders and promptly joined Mexican President Felipe Calderon in trashing Arizona for its immigration law. Senator Arlen Specter, now spurned by both democrats and republicans, doesn’t find himself bound by much of anything. At the end of Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999, Specter relied on Scottish Law to vote “not proved”
Strange Bedfellows
Pelosi is considering a plan put forward by Louise Slaughter, chairwoman of the House Rules Committee . It would allow the Senate Health Care Bill to be “deemed” to have passed. Then the House would make amendments to it and pass the new bill. They would be able to pass 2 bills with one vote. Kind of like using the same dollar twice for medicare and the health care. Here’s a Washington Post story explaining the gambit.
Channeling Barbara Boxer
During the health care summit Obama twice pointed out, with a smile on his face, that he was the president. This seemed redundant since everyone in the room was already calling him “Mr. President”. He returned the favor by addressing them by their first names as if they were kids in his class – which they sort of were. Peggy Noonan and Dennis Prager picked up on this.
Helpful note to the president: don’t call Senator Boxer “Babs”.
