In Unhingedland, it's said Republicans disrupted the funeral of Congressman Tom Lantos.
Even the dead are political pawns to the Republicans (then again, we already knew that post-September 11). House Republicans, at the bidding of the Bush White House, are upset that House Democrats are voting on contempt citations for Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton today. So the House GOP members are disrupting proceedings in the House today, calling for "protest votes" and the like that eat up 15 minutes of the day at a time. Well, they just called one such protest vote in the middle of recently-deceased Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos' memorial service, which they certainly knew was taking place. This is akin to forcing people to leave a wake on purpose. The House Republicans and the White House couldn't wait for Lantos' service to be finished before forcing everyone back to the House floor to vote for something silly. They intentionally disrupted a dead man's memorial service for political gain. But as was already noted, the Republicans have been abusing the memory of 3,000 dead for seven years now, so why expect anything new and better from them now.
As Michelle Malkin points out, no Democrat should discuss the idea of disrupting a statesman's funeral after this and this.
But, unfortunately for the residents of Unhingedland, Republicans weren't trying to disrupt the funeral.
A senior Republican aide, however, said the GOP was given no choice in asking for a vote because Democrats broke their commitment to keep the House in recess during the memorial service. Democrats are pushing a contempt vote against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former Bush counsel Harriet Miers, and have bypassed traditional rules allowing an hour of debate on the matter, according to Jo Maney, a spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Rules Committee.
"The reason for the chaos is the majority," Maney said. "We made clear we would use every procedural rule" to delay the contempt votes.
"There was an agreement that there would be no votes during the service, but they [Democrats] rang the bells" to bring the House back into session, Maney said.
The scene in the Capitol was extremely tense as the procedural motion failed. The Crypt has already received several angry denouncements from both sides of the aisle as tempers flared this morning in the House.
Democrats are now debating the contempt resolution, which stems from an investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys.
“This is the height of disrespect and completely shameful," said one senior Democratic leadership aide. "... They just chose to vote at the most inappropriate time.”
But another GOP House aide complained that Democrats allowed no other option because Republicans have been denied the ability to offer any alternatives to the contempt votes.
In other words, this was a big faux pas. There was no disrespect intended. Apology?
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