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A wild and crazy Senate
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Jun 04, 2009 08:26pm |
| Category | Profile |
| News Date | Jun 04, 2009 05:25am |
| Description | Who says this Senate isn’t one wild and crazy place?
Having slain the credit card companies and protected widows from foreclosure, Sen. Chris Dodd is out on the floor these days shielding teenagers from the clutches of Big Tobacco. And this from a Connecticut Democrat who was being demonized just weeks ago for allegedly helping Wall Street fat cats collect rich bonuses — at the taxpayers’ expense.
Down one floor in the Capitol, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) is defying the White House with his own bipartisan outreach program: adding a half-billion-dollar public works project to a war-funding bill at the request of the panel’s ranking Republican, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran.
No matter that President Barack Obama specifically asked Democrats to keep the bill clean or that his fellow Hawaiian has been a loyal trouper on everything else the president wants. Appropriations is Inouye’s committee now; this is his decision, and the Mississippi Republican his partner.
“I think those who discussed this matter with me must have concluded I was serious,” Inouye told POLITICO. And then he smiled.
It was Obama himself, during his short Senate stint, who famously likened the intrigue of the place to the Peloponnesian Wars of Ancient Greece. If so, Dodd and Inouye — two allies who have served a combined 75 years in the chamber — would qualify as three stars in the Athenian or Spartan officer corps.
Each is decidedly old school and vulnerable to the changes in Washington. Each is also a reminder of how the Senate is a place ultimately shaped by human beings with all the frailties, quirkiness and resourcefulness that that implies. And each is a legislator heavily invested in exactly those human loyalties — which can be good and bad for Obama’s message of change. |
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