Wild pitches from Sen. Bunning

[stevedeshazer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/01/AR2010030103401.html

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, March 2, 2010

In his 17 years pitching in the big leagues, Jim Bunning was known for his graceful curveball, his rising slider and his sidearm fastball. Now 78 years old and about to retire from the Senate, the Republican of Kentucky is apparently down to only one pitch: the screwball.

For four days, he has been on a one-man campaign to cut off unemployment benefits, kick the unemployed off of health insurance, cut Medicare payments to doctors, deny satellite TV to rural Americans, shut down federal flood insurance and highway projects, and furlough thousands of federal workers.

Democrats can hardly believe the gift Bunning has given them by single-handedly shutting down these popular programs. Bunning's fellow Republicans are aghast. If this were baseball, the Hall of Famer would be on his way down to triple-A. But this is the Senate, where any one of the 100 members has the ability to bring proceedings to a halt, and Bunning continues to hurl his wild pitches.

The leadoff hitter Bunning faced on Monday was ABC News producer Z. Byron Wolf. Wolf, intercepting Bunning as he left his office, asked the senator to stay and talk to the cameras. Bunning, according to Wolf, flashed him the middle finger.

more @ link

[stevedeshazer]

1. The Republican's unwillingness to get a handle on Bunning is going to cost them. Big time.

While I shudder to think of the effect on families of unemployed folks, this path is one of madness and can have no good effect on the GOP. They fucked with Bunning, who seems dumber than a stump, but now he's driving the GOP bus into the eye of the media.

[AlinPA]

2. No way. The Democrats will quietly work around it, slowly and with deference to him, not wanting

to anger "their friends on the other side of the aisle". The Senate is totally screwed up. The media controls the message and this story will not sink in to Americans. The problems this ignorant senator has caused will be blamed on Obama.

[Bitwit1234]

3. CNN says that Bunning held the vote up and wouldn't vote for the fix

But they lay the blame on the Democrats for not getting it passed and shutting down. So they are starting already. Next they will drop Bunning altogether.