Some days, our elected leaders seem to think they're engaged in a dark comedy. A comedy in which it's a big laugh that 50 million or so Americans have no health care, 30 million or so Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and 535 Americans with excellent health coverage and well-paying jobs include the likes of Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn whose fundamental concept of good governance is no, no, no.
At a meeting with constituents in McAlester, Okla., Friday, Coburn said:
"I get along well with Harry Reid," Coburn said, saying they have a great relationship.
However, Coburn said the media never reports that because "that doesn’t sell newspapers."
He went on to say that he is for gridlock in Congress.
"I love gridlock," Coburn said. "I think we’re better off when we’re gridlocked because we’re not passing things."
Not a surprise. Coburn is known as Dr. No in Washington. He has a framed print of the word "no" on his Senate office wall. Anything he can do to put sand in the gears he will. He views his obstructionism as a badge of honor. "In the Senate, you can be a pain in the rear, and I am, I guarantee it," Coburn said, adding that every day Congress doesn't pass a bill is a good day.
The Senator boasts that he is a friend of President Obama in addition to that great relationship with Senate Majority Leader Reid. However, Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, said last October: "Senator Coburn relishes it when people call him Dr. No, but he is more appropriately called Dr. I Know Best. He has routinely blocked and delayed bills that have wide bipartisan support, often based on specious arguments."
Coburn sees himself as a maverick. But despite his folksy outspokenness, he's typical of the modern Republican Party. First, break the government, then, after the Democrats win Congress and the White House, complain about the government being broken. You would expect something productive would come from a guy who complains about Congress being full of "short-term thinkers." Instead, he is Exhibit A.
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h/t to Think Progress