The Godmother

A "culture of corruption," indeed.

Today Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced an amendment bearing his name that will...

...redirect the ridiculous $220 million earmarked for the Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" to Hurricane Katrina relief; specifically, reconstruction of the Twin Spans Bridge that connects New Orleans with Slidell, Louisiana.

Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn't it? So leave it to the Senate's designated no-brainer to issue a mafiaseque threat:

...Patty Murray (D-WA) is now speaking against the Coburn Amendment, and has just issued a threat against any Senators who vote for the amendment: we on the Appropriations Committee will take a "long, hard look" at any projects in your state.

And so the airhead becomes capo. Does this mean that the severed horseheads heading for Georgetown beds will be as empty as hers is? And did she ever stop to consider that such legislative thuggery could backfire by its very hamfistedness by rallying outraged support behind the courageous (literally) advocates of fiscal sanity?

That last question is rhetorical, by the way. As, in a way, is K-Lo's observation that if she were from Washington, she'd be livid. If she were from Washington, she'd know that we were overrun and conquered by California years ago, which is the only conceivable explanation for how a certified moron like Peppermint Patty could be in her third consecutive Senate term, with her "sister" Maria Cantwell (she of the caterwauling demands for oil price controls) headed for easy re-election to a second term of her own. Heck, we're the state that made Ukraine's democracy look honest, open, and ethical a year ago. If we woebegone dissidents got "livid" every time one of these neoBolsheviks did what comes naturally, we'd all be in cardiac intensive care, and they'd probably take the opportunity to "statize" health care like they tried to do a decade ago.

Now you know why I blog. It's my version of "preventive care."

UPDATE: I guess senators find Peppermint Patty more intimidating than I do - the Senate rejected the Coburn amendment 86-13.

Or maybe it was Senate president pro tem Ted Stevens (R-AK), who threatened to paralyze the Senate AND resign in protest if the Coburn amendment was passed.

Yeah, that's just the way to fire up the GOP base. Now all the majority has to do is confirm Harriet Miers and they can start preparing to call their "colleagues" on the other side of the aisle "Mr. Chairman" again.

You know they want to.