Rank hypocrisy
I know that hypocrisy is nothing new to government, but what Senator Robert Byrd is doing these days is a little bit ridiculous.
Senator Byrd, all 87 years old of him, has taken the lead in decrying the threatened "nuclear option", where Republican's would amend Senate rules to limit debate on judicial nominees. For obvious reasons, the Democrats whole-heartedly oppose this.
Regardless of what side of the issue you fall on, Robert Byrd has absolutely no right to be objecting to this particular parliamentary tactic. While majority leader in the 70's, Robert Byrd used the threat of amending the Senate rules to limit debate on four separate occasions to extract painful concessions from the Republican minority. And, in case you were curious, Byrd's arguments against this tactic do NOT reference his threatened use of it. I find his comments equating the current Republican threats to tactics used by Hitler most ironic, since he was basically describing himself. Who knows, at 87 maybe he really can't remember his actions nearly 30 years ago.
By having Byrd be the spokesman against amending Senate rules, without fully disclosing his history with that particular tactic, will actually weaken the Democrats position on this issue once the history of the situation is widely reported.
There's hypocrisy, there's rank hypocrisy, and then there's the senior Senator from West Virginia.
Senator Byrd, all 87 years old of him, has taken the lead in decrying the threatened "nuclear option", where Republican's would amend Senate rules to limit debate on judicial nominees. For obvious reasons, the Democrats whole-heartedly oppose this.
Regardless of what side of the issue you fall on, Robert Byrd has absolutely no right to be objecting to this particular parliamentary tactic. While majority leader in the 70's, Robert Byrd used the threat of amending the Senate rules to limit debate on four separate occasions to extract painful concessions from the Republican minority. And, in case you were curious, Byrd's arguments against this tactic do NOT reference his threatened use of it. I find his comments equating the current Republican threats to tactics used by Hitler most ironic, since he was basically describing himself. Who knows, at 87 maybe he really can't remember his actions nearly 30 years ago.
By having Byrd be the spokesman against amending Senate rules, without fully disclosing his history with that particular tactic, will actually weaken the Democrats position on this issue once the history of the situation is widely reported.
There's hypocrisy, there's rank hypocrisy, and then there's the senior Senator from West Virginia.
1 Comments:
My guess is that Senator Byrd got a little wild in the 1970's, saw the error in his ways, and came to appreciate a new worldview. It can happen.
Don't get into a "I was a little shit when I was in the majority" contest. Nobody wins. We could trade evidence for weeks.
The fact is it doesn't matter who's in charge--the vast majority of presidential appointees get confirmed. If a handful don't get through, that's just tough titty.
Here's a real issue for the Senate--hold a hearing about why the fuck the House passed a bill that fines you 830% more for making a single indecent comment on a single broadcast on a single station than for dumping nuclear waste into the ocean.
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