So maybe Sen. Chuck Grassley should stick to the tweeter machine:
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: If you have ways to improve the bill, offer an amendment when we start markup in May and let's vote on it. I say that particularly to those who are point to what happened, the terrible tragedy in Boston, as, I would say, an excuse for not doing a bill or delaying it many months or years.
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (SHOUTING AND POINTING FINGER): I never said that!
SCHUMER: I didn't say you did.
GRASSLEY (SHOUTING AND POINTING FINGER): I never said that!
SCHUMER: I didn't say you did, sir.
GRASSLEY (STILL SHOUTING AND POINTING): I didn't say [unintelligble].
SCHUMER: I don't blame you, Mr. Grassley.
Last week, Grassley
did draw a connection between the Boston attacks and immigration reform. The focus of his remarks wasn't on delaying the timeline, but the remarks were aligned with people seeking to use the Boston attack as an excuse for delay.
But now that he's angrily denied wanting a delay, Grassley has put himself up against senators like Rand Paul, who are making the case that the immigration reform should be postponed because the Tsarnaev brothers were born overseas.
Sen. Rand Paul called for comprehensive immigration reform legislation to be delayed until Congress can investigate the Boston terrorist bombings to determine what added protections should be added to the legislation.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Paul bluntly warned, "We should not proceed until we understand the specific failures of our immigration system. Why did the current system allow two individuals to immigrate to the United States from the Chechen Republic in Russia, an area known as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, who then committed acts of terrorism? Were there any safeguards? Could this have been prevented? Does the immigration reform before us address this?"
As you might recall, it was just a few days ago that Paul
self-righteously denounced Newtown families for publicly supporting gun safety legislation. In his words, they were just "props." Which makes this a fair point:
Rand Paul asks Reid for immig bill delay bc Boston "exposed weakness." By his guns/Newtown logic, is he using marathon victims as "props"?
— @JohnJHarwood via Twitter for BlackBerry®
Given Grassley's eagerness to dissociate himself from the delay position, I'm thinking Rand Paul isn't going to have much success with this gambit.