Bob Geiger reports that Sen. Tom Coburn, in a fit of pique, looks (as ever) to make a bad situation worse:
Enter Coburn with an amendment to the Gonzales no-confidence resolution, which is the legislative equivalent of something I would expect to see in my son's fourth-grade class.
In the face of his fellow Senators pushing to express a lack of confidence in George W. Bush's boy, Gonzales, Coburn says "Oh yeah, well I'm going to express no confidence in you."
Coburn's amendment to S.J. Res. 14 gives a laundry list of 19 items, intended to demonstrate wasteful spending and a lack of fiscal responsibility on the part of the Congress and ends with this:
No Confidence.--It is the sense of the Senate that Congress neither has the will nor the desire to cut frivolous, excessive, or wasteful spending and therefore the American people should have no confidence in the ability of Congress or its members to balance the budget or protect the long term financial solvency of Social Security, Medicare, or the Nation itself.
Is it immaturity at work? Or is Coburn just stumped?
Hmm. 22 Across: Vote of no-confidence in [blank]-o-n-[blank]-[blank]-[blank]-[blank]-s. Hmm.
G-o-n-z-a-l-e-s? Nah, that's ridiculous. Must be C-o-n-g-r-e-s-s! Yeah! That has to be it!