Don't Ask

THIRTY-five years of Nixon's Favorite Mayor Goes to Washington, appropriately crammed in a nutshell by the Racist Beacon:

Sen. Richard Lugar joined with all Republicans to oppose debate [on the 2011 Defense Appropriations bill].

Lugar did so even though the bill was a potential vehicle for a measure that Lugar has sponsored for years that would let illegal immigrants who grew up in the United States earn legal status by going to college or enlisting in the military.

Lugar voted against proceeding to debate because the Democrats wanted to limit how long the bill could be debated and which amendments could be offered, said Lugar spokesman Andy Fisher.

Mind you, the longest serving Hoosier in the history of the US Senate (you're welcome) doesn't oppose the Maybe We Might Possibly Occasionally Help A Brown Person In This Country Illegally amendment, as John McCain does, now that he realizes he's against it, and as the rest of his Senate colleagues do on grounds that it violates their party's principle of Unbridled Racism in the Pursuit of Votes. No. Lugar co-sponsored the amendment, but now doesn't think it should come to the floor because, for the first time in his third-of-a-century in America's Oldest Whites-Only club, it was attached to a political maneuver. Right out in public an' everything. And this maneuver would have helped Harry Reid, by making Hispanics love him, but now they'll be thanking Republicans.

And this from a man who last week, while in town for one of his bi-annual photo ops which, if you've seen Dick Lugar lately, you might imagine were contraindicated, bemoaned the hyper-partisanship of our politics. Because they prevent us from dismantling Social Security and Medicare like we need to. And yes, I'm paraphrasing, but not by much. If we'd all just follow Dick Lugar's example, and pay lip service to our higher ideals while voting reliably for every shit-grubbing, pro-Defense and Big Business piece of Republican legislation lobbyists can dream up, the world would be a much nicer place. At least the Senate would.

Don't Ask Don't Tell? Oh, like the Pentagon, Lugar needs more time to study the issue.

You may recall that the last time we saw Lugar in these parts he was explaining to the local hairdos how really truly sincerely he wanted to help Hoosier families (by extending unemployment benefits), if only we could clear up a couple of procedural problems he had with the vote, which he was confident we would. Then he voted against it and disappeared. (In fairness, the locals then reported his office had "no comment" about the results, which, for them, is like working up the courage to kick his dog while he's not looking.)

Lugar, of course, is a moderate Republican, meaning he occasionally counsels caution in executing the military disasters he votes for. He's ninety-six years old, and his first vote as a US Senator helped create the Trans-Atlantic cable. Yet, somehow, he's aware of political partisanship only insofar as it thwarts the minority party's desire to shred the social safety net. And Senate procedural prestidigitations are constantly thwarting his innate humanitarianism, but never his admiration for billions in military hardware with no purpose.

This is the sort of thing his "Democratic" junior, one Birch Evans Bayh III, just couldn't take anymore, right around the time people started insisting he either act like a Democrat on national healthcare, or explain to a curious public just what qualifications put his wife on the boards of so many pharmaceutical giants. This opened the door for former Senator, lifelong government teat-suckler, and Chamber of Commerce cipher Dan Coats to take another shot at the seat, although going through that door meant he had to drive in from North Carolina. Coats' retirement hobby--collecting pictures of famous Americans in exchange for access to his government contacts--got some play in the Republican primary, where his major opposition was Some Effin Teabagger, but shortly after he secured the nomination the revolutionaries discovered that most of the Founders had been lobbyists, too, so the matter was dropped. This allowed Coats more time to paint his opponent, Representative Brad "Blue Dog" Ellsworth, as a man who isn't a Stalinist only because Stalin is dead.

Seriously, the man's campaign ads are keeping Channel 8 news afloat, despite it's continuing difficulties in finding anyone who can read English. It's the Mitch Daniels' Drown Everything Else Out approach, featuring charges that Ellsworth "voted to close Gitmo and let terrorists loose on US soil" and "voted to bankrupt decent Americans to give healthcare to lazy illegals". This, despite the fact that two Novembers ago Hoosiers rather famously voted for the guy who promised to do precisely those things. And, naturally, Coats is leading the race by like 20 points.

And here's a guy who's about as exciting as the dessert menu in a Chinese restaurant, and half as innovative, so you might be wondering how he accumulated all that money. Assuming you're not familiar with which end is Up. But I would like to point out that he's already mastered the art of not letting what he thinks is right get in the way of a good political decision. So, thirty years in the Senate, here he comes.