Senate Faces Showdown on Bills: Close Votes Expected on Spending Cuts, Arctic Oil Drilling
No one will ever accuse Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens of having a sunny disposition. In fact, describing him as a joyless, mean-spirited troll would be an injustice to those poor souls who happen to call the undersides of bridges home. No, Stevens lack of humor is more than just an acquired taste. It’s more like having to endure an appendectomy with no anesthetic. Stevens is the sort who, if he backed over you in his Hummer by accident, would reverse over your prostrate form a few more times just to make certain that he finished you off.
Yessiree, Ted Stevens makes The Grinch Who Stole Christmas look like the love child of Jon Stewart and Sarah Silverman.
In light of Stevens’ “sunny” disposition, it should come as no surprise that Stevens is making a stand in a manner that is both characteristic and reprehensible. For this, Ted Stevens has amply demonstrated his worth as a wiener of the (not so) coveted DUMB@$$ AWARD. By refusing to allow passage of funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until the Senate approves drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). By attaching the ANWR rider to the fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill, Stevens has put his own narrow interests above those men and women fighting and dying overseas. Yes, Virginia, if EVER there was a DUMB@$$ to be found walking this Earth, Ted Stevens is it.
[A] Senate showdown is expected over a provision allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, added to the fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Democrats intend to mount a procedural challenge in an effort to strip out the provision, or if necessary, to block the bill until Stevens backs down. Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) predicted “a very close vote.”….
Stevens said on the Senate floor yesterday that he will not relent. “We’re going to face up to ANWR either now or Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve or sometime, however long we stay in.”
The veteran senator said that if the drilling provision is blocked, it would delay final passage of the defense bill until next year — forcing the Pentagon to operate on an extension of 2005 funding levels.
To call Stevens’ stubborn refusal to separate his and his state’s interest from those of American men and women in uniform reprehensible wouldn’t begin to do justice to his perfidy and corrupt political machinations. That a Republican senator is doing this is bad enough; that it is Ted Stevens only cements his reputation as a curmudgeon and a craven ideologue…not to mention a DUMB@$$. Congratulations, Senator; I hope that you’re DUMB@$$ AWARD will find a place of honor- where the sun doesn’t shine.
