Grassley: I Would Have Let Baucus Kick Football If He’d Tried One More Time
The perfect postscript to the Gang of Six fiasco! After months spent cannily stringing along Max Baucus, Senator Chuck Grassley is now insisting they would have worked things out if Baucus had just given it a bit more time:
Sen. Max Baucus would have been able to craft a health bill with broad bipartisan support had he been given more time, a key Senate colleague claimed Thursday…
“The sad commentary is that we were working to practically completion of a bill,” Grassley told CNBC during an interview this morning. “Another couple weeks would have given us an opportunity to have a bipartisan bill that I think would have gotten broad-based support.”
I’ve enlisted my seven-year-old son, a big Peanuts fan, to act as research assistant on this one. He unearthed this exchange:
Grassley/Lucy: Okay, Charlie Brown…I’ll hold the ball, and you come running up and kick it…
Baucus/Charlie Brown: I can’t believe it! I can’t believe that anyone would think I was so completely stupid!
Grassley/Lucy: I won’t pull it away like I usually do, Charlie Brown…I promise!
Baucus/Charlie Brown: Ha! I know your promises!
Grassley/Lucy: Look…we’ll shake on it, okay? Let’s shake on it…this proves my sincerity…
Baucus/Charlie Brown: What could I do? If someone is willing to shake on something, you have to trust her…[he runs...Lucy yanks away ball...] AAUGH! [he lands flat on back.]
Grassley/Lucy: A woman’s handshake is not legally binding!
Update: Commenter Liam sends in the illustration….
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O my god, Greg – that’s priceless. I bow in both of your general directions:
(-.-)(_ _)(-.-)//**** {and applaud}
Another couple weeks would have given us an opportunity to have a bipartisan bill that I think would have gotten broad-based support.
Oh, if only he’d let me wear him down just a few weeks longer!
http://www.gwoltal.myfastmail.com/files/Lucy%20Football
Is Congress the only job in the world where setting a deadline on something is frowned upon?
Seriously, I’ve never been in a job where we don’t set deadlines and try and meet them. If it were a life/death situation like health care, I would hope those in congress took it serious enough to set a deadline to get it done.
What Baucus is doing is whining that he wasn’t able to run out the legislative clock to prevent any chance of using reconciliation to get this necessary reform past The Party Of No.
Somebody do us all a favor and ask Baucus *specifically* what proposals/compromises of HIS were left on the table by this “rush” to report a bill out of committee that should have been in the bill. What compromises was HE … Baucus … willing to make, which he will not … now … have the opportunity to offer?
Greg…your Peanuts analogy is spot on. Nthing to add.
Good grief!
Nice picture Liam…reminds me that fall is just around the corner with all that yellow and orange.
I might have to head back to yes we carve to get some cutouts for this year. Maybe swap out Vote with Health Care. 8^)
Your son is developing a keen sense of irony.
Liam, thx much, illustration added…
I agree with Arlington, for once we are meeting a deadline- its just a proposed bill, not like its going to pass immediately or anything. At least someone is attempting to offer a concrete solution.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/on_an_island_for_health_care_reform
Liam – you get applause for the illustration -
(-.-)//****
“Is Congress the only job in the world where setting a deadline on something is frowned upon?”
Why yes, Mike, it is. If Congress had its way, it would endlessly do nothing.
Does anyone, from either party, believe anything Grassley says anymore? I agree with Liam and let’s find out who’s running against him in the general election next year and boot him out via a national campaign.
Grassley just wanted to be sure that imaginary part where they “pull the plug on Grandma” was taken out. With that gone, he would have been all for the bill.
“Another couple weeks would have given us an opportunity to have a bipartisan bill that I think would have gotten broad-based support.”
The old man is hallucinating.
Absolute must-read at The Hill:
Grassley ‘resents’ Obama over healthcare
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/59271-grassley-resents-obama-over-healthcare
“I’ll tell you, there’s some things that the president has said since then that I took very personally,” Grassley said. “He gave some speeches during August in which he was associating me with efforts to make this a political document.”
The article then goes on to describe the several ways GrASSley brought it on himself. Brilliant, must read.
Well, there is only so much one can say about Grassley. Ever watch him, when he was sitting on the judiciary. He is not a lawyer, so when ever he was questioning a nominee, it was like listening to Wilford Brimley trying to score points against a DNA research expert.
Some thoughts on a certain religion that loves to wear hilarious pointy hats:
A Poll of the Vatican shows that the Pope, The Cardinals, and all the Bishops are one hundred percent for banning abortions.
I will respect their wishes, and promise to never force any of them to undergo an abortion procedure. However, since they are also one hundred percent in favor of living lives of total celibacy, why the hell did their creator endow them with male genitalia. If their God did not intend them to have s*ex, then why did he give each of them a serving of Frank and Beans? Hmmmm. Could it be he wanted them to be able to easily count up to eleven. Nah, that can’t be, there is no eleventh commandment.
Which reminds me, honest to God, tablets of Stone! Is that really the best that the Creator of the universe could come up with to write on. Hell, you would think that he could at least have etched it out on a metal sheet, or introduced it on a DVD. That would have gotten Moses attention. Also, where the hell are those tablets of stone.
I know if The Creator of the universe handed me such an important item, I would make sure not to forget it on moving day.
Wow, especially this part where Snake-in-the-Grassley basically admits that the only thing he opposed was the PO.
“What about the fundraising letter?” Grassley said Thursday. “I said, ‘I oppose Obama-care because of the public option.’ Doesn’t mean that there’s other things in the healthcare [plan] that I’m against. The letter was to tell people that I was against [a] public option, and that’s exactly what the letter said.”
Un-freaking-believable.
Ethan – no kidding. Snake-in-the-Grassley is just perfect for him.
Would a Public Option pay for treatment of CCFS? There sure appears to be a huge need for such treatment.
You could have also tried many other great Lucy/Grassley excuses:
“The funny thing about this document is, it was never notarized”
(After Charlie Brown quotes Isaiah “How long, O Lord?”) “How long? Why all your life, Charlie Brown.”
“Never listen to a women’s tears, Charlie Brown”
“I looked it up, Charlie Brown; the actual odds of an involuntary muscle spasm causing me to pull away the football are 10 billion to one.”
“In every program, Charlie Brown, there are always a few last-minute changes”
“Would you like to see how that looked on instant replay?”
“I was afraid your shoes might be dirty.” (The very first Lucy excuse)
In this case, it is not that the kicker might have dirty shoes, it is because Grassley has dirty hands!
How quickly things change in the world of the left.
“So as Americans, we reject the false choice between our security and our ideals. We can and we must and we will protect both.” – President Obama, May 21, 2009
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/05/reject_false_choice_between_se_1.html
“We are a free country and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance.” – Nancy Pelosi, September 18, 2009
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8603009
Good show!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/sparkley_dudette/clap.gif
Great post..will bookmark this..thanks