All Pitchers Are Liars or Crybabies – Yogi Berra

New York Times

Well, frumps, on a Sorry Spectacle scale of 1 to 10, Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-KY) hold-up of the passage of an emergency extension of Unemployment Compensation and COBRA is a chart-buster. I figure one of two things is going on here and both are sad possibilities; either Bunning is indeed suffering from senile dementia, as many have speculated for the past 6 years, or he has just taken a commanding lead in the 2010 Republican Obstruction Derby.

Unless you’ve gone fishing on an island in an IPhone-free Zone somewhere, you’ve probably caught at least some highlights of Bunning’s breathtaking performance. For a slow week in February, the media must have felt that “the gods must be smiling” every time Bunning hurled epithets at them or flipped them the bird. For years now, Bunning has exhibited “behavioral problems” in the Senate flamboyant enough that even his fellow Republicans have distanced themselves from him (if you can imagine such a thing).

All of this couldn’t have come along at a worse time for the GOP as they try to polish up their somewhat tarnished brand going into mid-term elections. Democrats “made hay while the sun shined” pumping up the volume on the usual talking points: Republicans don’t care about the unemployed, they have no moral compass, they are socially callous political robots, etc., etc.; and since “jobs,” and all things job-related are the holy grail of the 2010 elections, many Republicans hunkered down and waited for this to blow over. When it dragged on, they decided to conscript Susan Collins to inject a maternal, nurturing note in a request to move on to other things.

None of it impressed Sen. Bunning who soldiered on with the irrational zeal of either a demented old man or a recalcitrant old Republican (whichever the case may be). He even decided, in the eleventh hour, to throw in a blanket-hold on executive-branch appointments, for good measure (h/t Sen. Shelby (R-AL)).

Last night, though, Bunning loosened his strangle-hold on unemployed Americans’ next paycheck in return for a promise that he could introduce an amendment calling for unused stimulus funds to cover the tab. The emergency extension passed, the Bunning amendment did not; the score: 78 – 19. Clearly, most Senate Republicans consider the issue a poison pill, best flushed away and forgotten. But, that has not kept some on the fringier fringes of the GOP from becoming Bunning Boosters in some cockeyed attempt at wooing the anti-government mob in the Tea Party and Independent world.

As reported in Mother Jones:

“If you ever wondered what type of candidate the Tea Party movement would like to see elected to Congress, look no farther than Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning (R), the man who is single-handedly holding up unemployment benefit extensions and health insurance coverage for hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans. While the rest of his party is quietly trying to ignore him, Bunning is giving Tea Party activists in Kentucky much to love.”

“’We’re all in support of Sen. Bunning,’” says Wendy Caswell, the founder of the Louisville Tea Party. She says Tea Party activists believe that Bunning is being fiscally responsible, and that’s a core Tea Party value. “’He is kind of one of our models of a good representative of the people of Kentucky.’”

Obviously, the Caswell clan is enjoying full employment. Also, obvious, is the fact that the Kentucky Tea Party crowd are holding the GOP in thrall. The GOP candidates running in Kentucky to fill Bunning’s seat – Rand Paul (son of Ron), Trey Grayson, and Bill Johnson — have all decided that it’s a winning strategy to align with Bunning (good news for the Democrats).

According to an article in the Huffington Post, Rand Paul said:

“Jim Bunning is being unfairly attacked for saying we should spend money already set aside for benefits rather than borrowing more. He deserves our support and he is going to get it.”

Rand Paul went so far as to hold a support rally in front of Bunning HQ in Louisville.

Trey Grayson had this to say:

“I would proudly stand up to ensure that programs are paid for and think that this is further evidence of mismanagement of the Senate by Harry Reid. If we had not wasted time debating and passing a pet bill for Reid, we would not have been in the situation that led to the delay. I agree with Senators Bunning and McConnell that the government has a responsibility to pay for its programs and a good place to start would be to cut funding from the stimulus in order to pay for the extension of unemployment benefits. If the stimulus had created jobs as promised, then we would not need more unemployment insurance.”

Kentucky’s Tea Party candidate, Bill Johnson, said this:

“I support Senator Jim Bunning. Frankly, unemployment benefits are currently 99 weeks or almost two years. While I support extending the benefits for a short period of time longer, we must find a way to pay for those benefits. I do not support extending unemployment benefits beyond two years. Even Germany limits unemployment benefits to one year. Benefits here in America are exceeding those offered in the most liberal countries of Europe. Two years of government support is not a safety net. It is an entitlement program. I am tired of paying for entitlement programs that continue well beyond a compassionate need.”

Along those lines, Sen. John Kyl decided to weigh in, yesterday, with his Bully Brahmin opinion that Unemployment Compensation is part of the problem: why would anyone look for a job when the can collect unemployment? he asks. Watch:

Obviously, Sen. Kyl has never lived on unemployment checks.

And then, of course, there’s Sen. Jim DeMint who has recently been showing signs of his own disconnect from reality:

Don’t feel bad if you know next to nothing about Bunning, up until now, except for his baseball career. That’s because, as a US Senator, Bunning has not done a whole hell of a lot in either his years as a Senator (1998-2011) or his years in the House of Representatives prior to that (1986 – 1999). According to multiple reports, Bunning has always been a bit of an odd fellow and a loner. Taylor Branch has written a definitive book on the Clinton administration entitled The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President and, as documented there, here’s what former President Bill Clinton had to say about Bunning immediately after the 1998 congressional elections in which Bunning won a seat in the Senate

“Clinton bemoaned the fact that GOP Rep. Jim Bunning had narrowly won a Senate seat in Kentucky. Branch writes, He said Bunning, a former baseball player, was so mean-spirited that he repulsed even his fellow know-nothings. ‘I tried to work with him a couple times,’ said Clinton, ‘and he just sent shivers up my spine….I know you’re a baseball fan and everything, and you don’t like to hear it, but this guy is beyond the pale.’”

In 2004, Bunning almost managed to blow re-election handed to him on a silver platter just by being, well . . . Jim. His expected Democratic opponent, Governor Paul Patton’s career abruptly ended when a scandal over an extramarital affair came to light. The Democrats chose Daniel Mongiardo, a relatively unknown physician and Kentucky state senator. Bunning was sitting on a $4 million campaign fund, while Mongiardo had only $600,000.

Democrats weren’t expecting much of Mongiardo against Bunning, the Republican incumbent, but the more Bunning acted out in his campaign, the more money the Democrats pumped into Mongiardo’s campaign. During his reelection bid, Bunning described Mongiardo as looking “like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons.” Public pressure compelled him to apologize.

Dan Mongiardo

Bunning was further criticized for making an unsubstantiated claim that his wife had been attacked by Mongiardo’s supporters and for calling Mongiardo “limp wristed”. And then there was the quite bizarre campaign debate episode. The most entertaining account of that campaign debate was Mary Jacoby’s article for Slate.com. Here’s that:

“It’s no secret in Kentucky that Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican who was expected to coast to reelection on Nov. 2, has been acting strange. Over the past few months, Bunning has angrily pushed away reporters, exchanged testy words with a questioner at a Rotary Club and stuck to brief, heavily scripted remarks at campaign events, delivered in a halting monotone. The former major league baseball star now travels the Bluegrass State with a special police escort, at taxpayer expense. His explanation? Al-Qaida may be out to get him. “

“More substantively, the incumbent would agree to only one debate with his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Daniel Mongiardo. And the rules Bunning negotiated were bizarrely rigid: The encounter could not be live; the taping has to occur in the afternoon, not the evening; no audience could be present in the studio; and, under threat of legal action, Mongiardo could not use any sound clips or video of Bunning’s debate performance in campaign advertisements.”

“This apparent fear of the spontaneous has spurred rumors in Kentucky that Bunning, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, is suffering from some sort of dementia, perhaps Alzheimer’s. Bunning has declined to release his medical records. But until now, there was nothing hard to suggest that the one-term Republican senator was anything but a crotchety, occasionally confused, or arrogant old man.”

“On Monday, however, Bunning — who turns 73 this month — abruptly retreated behind yet another barrier, in an action so inexplicable that it appears likely to bring the rumors about his health, now referred to obliquely in Kentucky news reports, into open discussion. It may also mark a turning point in a race that, against all expectations, has been tightening recently.”

“Saying falsely that he was needed in Washington this week for Senate votes, Bunning tore up his own carefully crafted debate agreement and refused to return to Kentucky on Monday for his one scheduled debate with Mongiardo. It was to have taken place at 2:30 p.m. Monday in the Lexington, Ky., studio of WKYT-TV. Instead, Bunning insisted on “debating” via satellite from the womblike conditions of the Republican National Committee headquarters studio in Washington.”

“The senator refused to allow a member of the Kentucky media to be present at the RNC studio to monitor whether Bunning was receiving assistance with his answers, according to Mongiardo campaign manager Kim Geveden and WKYT news director Jim Ogle. And Bunning refused to engage reporters via satellite in a previously agreed upon post-debate news conference, insisting instead that his 15 minutes of answering questions occur by telephone, without accompanying video footage.”

“The people of Kentucky are very smart. They can put two and two together,” Bill Garmer, chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, told me by telephone Tuesday. Garmer and former Kentucky Gov. Julian Carroll, a Democrat, called on Bunning last month to release his medical records, and Kentucky news reporters have also sought the records, all to no avail. “

So it is that Bunning managed to blow a two-digit lead in that race and wound up eking out a 51% to 49% to win another six year term in which to demonstrate his unfitness for polite society and, quite possibly, his unfitness for holding office.

Much has been made already of the blatant hypocrisy of Bunning’s most recent conscientious objections. For example, back in 2003, with George W. Bush in office, Bunning championed an unpaid-for $6.6-billion unemployment extension. At that time, Bunning was proud and empathetic:

“This is hopeful news for our most needy families in Kentucky. By approving this legislation we will help those folks who are currently without work continue to make ends meet until they can find new employment.”

More recently, as Harry Reid was happy to point out, Bunning voted against passing pay-go rules requiring the Senate to offset costs of legislation with revenue raising provisions or tax cuts. Bunning also had no objections to passing the Bush tax cuts and authorizing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without paying for the provisions.

He has proven, again and again, to be gruff at best and breathtakingly mean-spirited at worst. Last February, as you may remember, Bunning scored media attention when he predicted that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was being treated for cancer, only had nine months to live.

The good news is that this man is retiring and whether his problem is in the brain or in the soul, that problem will no longer be directly affecting the lives and welfare of American citizens. We can only hope that Bunning’s extreme and ungraceful conduct in carrying out what is, after all, the GOP agenda, will serve as a warning to many of his Republican colleagues who are dancing dangerously close to the same precipice.

[tags]Sen. Jim Bunning, emergency extension, Unemployment Compensation, COBRA[/tags]