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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (747964)	8/18/2006 3:24:41 PM
From: haqihana	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Buddy, >>some people seem to be quite happy diddy-bopping through life that way....<< Then they are cruising for a bruising somewhere down the line.

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (747964)	8/19/2006 1:59:40 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Poisonous Senate: Stories about partisanship in Congress have abounded in the years since the disputed 2000 election polarized the nation along political lines. The most recent story of humiliation and revenge among senior senators is quite illustrative of the partisan snake pit that currently exists there. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Senate president pro tempore and former Appropriations chairman, thwarted Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who was seeking a $2-million earmark for the University of Chicago. It may seem ironic that Stevens, a reigning king of pork, would crack down on earmarking, but the fact is that he was avenging a public humiliation dealt him by Durbin last fall. On. Nov. 16, 2005, Durbin took the Senate floor to accuse Stevens of permitting oil company executives to lie to the Senate Commerce Committee by not putting them under oath. Two days short of his 82nd birthday, Stevens was outraged by this assault on his integrity. He roared onto the floor after Durbin's speech and demanded an apology -- which Durbin refused to give and was not forced to give under Senate rules. Stevens bided his time, and payback came only this month when the Defense appropriations bill was debated under his management as a subcommittee chairman. Durbin proposed his University of Chicago earmark to improve imaging of traumatic brain injuries for injured soldiers. Stevens derided the earmark as a pink elephant demanded by "a single senator." He noted the lack of demand at the Pentagon for such funding. Stevens then broke the standard protocol and became unusually revealing about Durbin's machinations to get the earmark. He noted that many medical earmarks had been requested in subcommittee, but that "we turned them all down. The senator from Illinois wouldn't take 'no.'" Stevens added that Durbin was using his floor access as whip to advance his earmark agenda. As a result, Durbin's amendment lost on a mostly party-line vote 52 to 41. Stevens collected all Republican senators except Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) -- both of whom face uphill battles for re-election. Stevens's Defense bill, awaiting final action when Congress reconvenes, includes other earmarks: for example, $5 million for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission and $500,000 for a traveling exhibit on the World War II Memorial. The rejection of Durbin's earmark did not signify the coming of reform in the Senate, but looked more like Stevens' and other Republicans' getting even with the Senator they like least.