One More Time On The 109th

There was a whole bunch of nutty stuff in last Sunday’s New York Times, and as to be expected, it has already been covered by my “betters,” including Matthew Yglesias on the latest warmongering from Fred Kagan and Michael O’Hanlon envisioning “our feasible military options” in Pakistan (we have any?), and Shakesville’s “Space Cowboy” on Tom Friedman’s utterly deranged idea of putting Dick Cheney on the ticket with Barack Obama should he win the Democratic nomination for president.

But since I tend to focus on the obscure stuff at least as much as anyone else, allow me to take note of the quote from Repug Sen. Jon Kyl that appeared in this Times story of Congress departing for a two-week holiday recess…

Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said (Speaker Harry) Reid’s decision to ban amendments (related to immigration and taxation in the thus-stalled farm bill) was typical of the dismissive treatment toward Republicans that has soured the atmosphere, though he acknowledged that Republicans were maneuvering, too.

“This town is full of politics,” Mr. Kyl said. “But these kinds of things are unique to this Democratic leadership and have contributed to the sorry state of affairs right now.”

Senator, if I were you, I wouldn’t say anything that could imply a comparison to the dreaded 109th Congress of which you were a prominent part (talk about “dismissive treatment” and “sour(ing) the atmosphere,” to say nothing of "a sorry state of affairs").

But to refresh our memories anyway, I present the following from Wikipedia…

Prominent events included the filibuster "nuclear option" scare, the alleged failure of the federal government to help in Hurricane Katrina disaster relief, the Tom DeLay corruption investigation, the CIA leak scandal, the rising unpopularity of the Iraq War, the 2006 immigration reform protests and government involvement in the Terri Schiavo case.

In addition to the DeLay indictment, this Congress also had a number of scandals: Bob Ney, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, William J. Jefferson, Mark Foley scandal, and the Jack Abramoff scandals.

As the session neared its conclusion, some commentators labeled this the "Do Nothing Congress," [1][2][3] a pejorative originally given to the 80th United States Congress by President Harry Truman. Noting the comparison, congressional scholar Norman J. Ornstein said, "What would Harry Truman say about the 109th Congress? Harry Truman would probably apologize to the 80th Congress."[4][5]

This Congress met for 242 days, the fewest since World War II and 12 days fewer than the 80th Congress.[4][6][7]

Now, you were saying, Senator…?