Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Foul Ball!

Sorry, but with Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning as the central character in the story, the baseball headlines are irresistible. Oh well, at least I'm not alone.

Anyway, we know now, if we didn't already, that soon to retire Senator Bunning has a nasty side that makes him often difficult to get along with. In fact, we've learned that even his relationship with fellow Blue Grass Sate senator, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has long been strained. A man easy not to like it seems, but that does not excuse the utterly dishonest reporting of the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. Milbank writes of Bunning:

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.

Bunning has done nothing of the sort, and that is both clear and undeniable. Rather, he has, plainly, loudly, and no doubt embarrassingly if you're a Republican, demanded that all this stuff be paid for first. This stand is probably politically foolish and will likely reduce even further the number of people in Congress Bunning can call friends. But Milbank's role in this melodrama is that of the umpire. As such, he has a duty to call the balls and strikes honestly even if he despises the pitcher.

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