Thursday, January 22, 2009

Why Is It Always The Guy From Texas?

So, the junior senator from our great state (and my former boss—blech) decided that it was critical to block a voice vote on the confirmation of his fellow Senator, HRC, as Secretary of State. Why? Because he had grave concerns and unanswered questions about The Clinton Global Initiative’s foreign contributors.

Oooo-kay.

I think it’s great to work within the rules to make sure there is no rush, to make sure that all of your questions are cleared up.

So he waited a day and then voted to confirm her. Hunh?!

Of course, if a “Global Initiative” were only being funded by Americans, it wouldn’t look very global, now would it? But that wasn’t really the point, was it? I mean the Obama team had pretty much already vetted all this, right? The point was to play “gotcha” with an Obama appointee on inauguration day. A day when over 80% of Americans (I’m guessing the other 20% were mostly cracker Texans. Sheesh.) were agreeing that Obama was the right man in the right job. Thanks, Senator. Way to start the new day with the spirit of bipartisan cooperation. Beady-eyed motherfucker.


You know, I had wondered what Cornyn would be like once his Master left office. I don’t say that lightly. Cornyn was Bush’s guy from the day he was elected AG here in Texas. He didn’t really care about much except doing Bush’s bidding and building a power base to further his political career. He served one term and ran for Senate, where he was in absolute lockstep with the White House, carrying Bush water on the Hill again and again. And we are SO proud.

But at least now I have my answer. He will continue to be obstructionist, petty and mean. He’s like a schoolyard bully. But let me tell you, he has incredibly thin skin. My favorite word to describe him is “embarrassed.”

Several of his senior staffers and I thought it was a joke the first time we were told that something had “embarrassed” the General (that’s what our AG is called. Pretty funny stuff, huh?). We thought, “whatever dude. There’s no way a man who has managed to get elected to statewide office in Texas can be embarrassed by such trivial bullshit. We were so wrong. And when he gets embarrassed (which happens with alarming frequency) he gets angry. And when he gets angry, his big old balloon head turns bright red and that white hair just glows.

So maybe he’ll read the article in today’s Austin paper (“Cornyn’s Pettiness Sullies a Historic Day”) and pop a gasket. More likely though, he’ll gloat at the “success” of his maneuver. Just to torture myself, I read through all the comments. It was the typical schoolyard taunting between ignorant people of divergent ideologies. Some defended Cornyn’s right to process (I agree) and some called Clinton everything short of the AntiChrist (I disagree), but the best comment came from RobInGTown:

Dear Senator Cornyn: I know you will be taking heat for casting what seem to be a petty vote on Senator Clinton's nomination to be Secretary of State, but I wish to applaud your efforts and make a further suggestion. From the founding of Harken Oil through the operation of Ignite!, the Bush family has received tens of millions of dollars from the Arab world, from some of the very same figures who financed the terror attacks of 2001. Perhaps you would, Senator, devote your remaining time in Congress to the profitable examination of the Bush family's many connections to terrorist funders. And it's only a shame you didn't start years ago. Sincerely, RobInGTown

I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

2 comments:

batonnage said...

Last night on Maddow she saw the episode as such a blatant grab for media attention from the old tool that she refused to say his name while reporting the story.

"a Senator from Texas who is not named Kay Bailey Hutchison..."

Hah!

hokgardner said...

I'm particularly proud that I managed to embarass him within months of his taking office by writing an Ask The AG column on raves and drug use. That created a firestorm among the dozen ravers who read papers. Hee.