Bunning and Belushi
The senator who has lost his fastball
Bunning and Belushi
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
On the original Saturday Night Live, John Belushi used to play a slobbering character called The Thing That Wouldn't Leave, so named because of his clueless propensity for staying too long at a party, and refusing all hints and entreaties from his hosts to haul himself off the sofa and hit the road.
Senate Democrats are currently saddled with such a character; I refer, of course, to Roland Burris. But Burris has sucked up so much attention lately that it's easier to forget about the Thing who persists in camping out on the Republican sofa, even as his hapless hosts gnash their teeth and pray that he will go away.
I refer, of course, to GOP senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, the former baseball pitcher who hurled a perfect game as a Phillie in 1964, but who, in his two terms as a Washington lawmaker, has been pitching way too many screwballs.
Bunning is such an embarrassment, with his verbal miscues and bizarre behavior, that Senate Republican leaders are now working openly to bounce him out of the chamber. They have made it abundantly clear that they don't want him to run for re-election next year - a highly unusual posture, since party leaders normally encourage incumbents to run again. But Bunning, at age 77, is shaking off all the signs and digging in for a third bid. The GOP is so distressed by his intransigence - and so worried that a Bunning defeat next year would help the Democrats win a filibuster-proof 60 seats - that they are actively soliciting another Kentucky Republican to challenge their own senator in a party primary. That's how bad things are with the Thing.
Actually, things got even worse over the weekend, when Bunning declared in a speech that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg will soon be dead. By the end of the summer, in fact.
While making an argument for more conservative judges, Bunning informed his audience that the high court will soon have one less liberal judge. Bunning, who is not a doctor, and who naturally has no access to Ginsberg's private medical records, nevertheless stated that she has "bad cancer. The kind you don't get better from. Even though she was operated on (Feb. 5), usually nine months is the longest that anybody would live after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer."
Meanwhile, Ginsberg was back on the bench yesterday, firing questions at lawyers, as medical experts provided a cautiously optimistic prognosis, noting that her cancer had been caught at an early stage and that it had not spread beyond her pancreas. And Bunning - realizing, perhaps, that it's a tad tacky for a senator to summarily consign a high court judge to her eternal rest - shifted yesterday into mea culpa mode: "I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsburg." (If?)
The Ginsberg episode is merely the latest in a long string of embarrassments. That's one big reason why he has barely raised any money for his 2010 re-election bid (a Senate incumbent in Kentucky needs to raise upwards of $20 million; in Bunning's latest filing, he has raised around $175,000). Meanwhile, the Kentucky polls show that he is highly vulnerable - which is no surprise, given the fact that Bunning barely eked out a two-point victory in 2004, on a night when President Bush won Kentucky by 20.
Bunning's behavior is legendary in GOP circles. During his '04 campaign, he said that Democratic challenger Daniel Mongiardo looked like Saddam Hussein's sons "and even dresses like them, too." (A Bunning spokesman later apologized, while insisting that the remark had generated "a lot of laughs.") Bunning also boosted his security detail, at taxpayer expense, claiming that al Qaeda might be targeting him; indeed, he told a TV crew, "There may be strangers among us." (Senate officials said there were no specific threats against Bunning.) Even in 2007, he insisted that Mongiardo (a doctor by trade) had dispatched campaign workers dressed as doctors to harass him and Mrs. Bunning ("I had little green doctors pounding on my back"), though there was no evidence of it happening.
He has also alienated business leaders and fellow Republicans back home. During the '04 campaign, he told a chamber of commerce luncheon in Louisville that, contrary to all expectations, the city would not be getting a new bridge. This was news to the local Republican congresswoman, Anne Northrup, who had arranged for that bridge to be built with federal funds - and who knew that, in fact, the project had the green light. Northrup had to mollify the shocked business leaders by declaring that the senator was merely "confused," a word that is code for "senile." As for Bunning, he at first denied that he had uttered his inaccuracy - then admitted saying it only after he was informed that his speech had been recorded. (He had also denied the remark about Hussein's sons, until informed that those remarks had been videotaped.)
Bunning also has a habit of being in the wrong place. In October '04, he was supposed to be in Kentucky for the only scheduled Senate campaign debate; instead, he was up in Washington, claiming he was "tied up" with legislative duties (actually, the Senate was not in session). So he participated via satellite, and appeared to be using a teleprompter in violation of the debate rules.
By contrast, when he was supposed to be in Washington last month, for the opening Senate session and the casting of consequential votes, he was somewhere else on vacation (he has never said where). Republican officials were less than thrilled, rightly recognizing that Bunning's decision to go AWOL in a time of crisis could well become grist for Democratic attack ads in Kentucky next year.
So it's no wonder that Washington GOP strategists have been huddling with a respected Republican state senator, mapping the possibility of his challenging Bunning in a primary (while officially denying, naturally, that any such plans are in the works). Most instructive, however, is that posture being taken by Republicans Mitch McConnell (the GOP's Senate leader) and John Cornyn (who chairs the party's 2010 campaign committee). They have met with Bunning, he has told them that he intends to run, and yet they still keep insisting publicly that Bunning has yet to make up his mind. To which Bunning said of Cornyn, "He's either deaf, or he doesn't listen very well."
Cornyn was also recently asked whether Bunning would be the best candidate to hold a seat that the GOP dearly needs next year. Cornyn replied, "I don't know. I think it's really up to Senator Bunning."
Stripping away the politesse, here's the translation: "I wish that freaking slag heap would take a hint, get off the sofa, and hit the road."
But the point is, senators don't feel compelled to take such hints. Once ensconced, they often tend to be independent actors, heedless of the needs of their party. Once ensconced, they are tough to extricate - short of waging a successful, and costly, primary. That's the deal at the moment with Burris and Bunning, this season's winners of the Belushi award.
Here's what really didnt make sense to me about Bunning's comments: we have a liberal president in office and liberals control both houses, what made Bunning think the death of a liberal justice would be cause for a conservative justice to take her place? There is zero chances of that happening with the WH and Congress made up like this.— Master Dreamz- jwad - sure let's talk about that speech that hasn't been made yet. But really, why? 80% of America has confidence that Obama will make the right decisions and 68% approve of the job he is is doing so far. You can't let that stand for a day? Are you that desperate to trash Obama? Today's American Debate column is about Burris and Bunning. If you have nothing to add, why not just move on until tomorrow. That being said: The Dems need to get Burris out, quickly and the GOP should let Bunning yap all he wants. Happy Fat Tuesday. Off to prep for a Mardi Gras party.— SNS08
- Good point, Master Dreamz.— Djoko Pritza
- NEPhilly, sorry, but I'm not looking up any links provided by other posters, left or right, from here on out. My experience is that like everything else, the poster cherry-picks something from a link to support her/his viewpoint and ignores all that doesn't, or misinterprets the link, or that the link is just plain dumb (see SMike's touting of the infamous Naked Emperor production). Then you spend all your time arguing over what was a bogus link in the first place. So, bring it on, but don't link me to it!— Djoko Pritza
- NEPhilly, that was MY point on partisanship. You don't see the irony of your post to Polman?:)— Djoko Pritza
- Djoko, yes I see the irony:) The link is to the NY Times for heck sake, it is a short article from 1999! Take a look, it is interesting:)— NEPhilly
- Burris will be gone shortly. His appointment by the national joke Blago almost assures it. Bunning may make it easier for the Dems to pick up a seat as it is almost assured of a fractured GOP after the primary. And as far as Obama and the fear isn't selling fear EXACTLY how the miserable Bush presidency got extended in 2004 ????— ModerateMarge
- *In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.*— NEPhilly
- ''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''— NEPhilly
- Find this guy and let him run the Treasury:) **In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's. ''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.'' ***— NEPhilly
- NEPhilly, 1999 was a bad year:) All right, I'll take a look, but don't let me down!— Djoko Pritza
- Geeze, I hope he runs; He is emblematic of a GOP that really has nothing to offer and that continually rehashes the bygone era of Ronald Reagan and the no-hitters of the past. Like him, they are the Grumpy Old Party with no new ideas, whose old ideas have no basis in reality, but they insist on their own relevancy. What a bunch of losers; who are they to pass judgement on such an esteemed GOP elder.— tiredoftheBS
- I have been checking out the NY Times website and it is good! The front page looks like the top fold of the paper, pretty cool. I added it as a favorite so I can become more informed:) It is right under the NY Post, ha, ha, ha:)— NEPhilly
- WAD: Yes, let's keep the heat on Obama for that awful speech he'll give tonight, because we know for a fact it will be all lies, like Rush Limbaugh has noticed.— Talvenada
- SWEDE: Remind everyone of how much The Dow dropped yesterday, and will drop tomorrow.— Talvenada
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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