Appropriations are the lifeblood of all federal agencies including the Social Security Administration. Anything that affects the appropriations process is of considerable importance to the Social Security Administration. It seems as if Robert Byrd of West Virginia has been a Senator since shortly after the Civil War. He has been chairman or ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Committee for decades, but he has long been the most respected of the elders in the Senate, but for some time now there have been whispers about the effects of age on Byrd's ability to lead the Appropriations Committee. Those whispers are getting much louder. From Politico:
Oh, the full dialogue from the blogpost below according to WaPo's Paul Kane (and other reporters in the gallery) who heard the full shouting match between Sen. Robert C. Byrd and Sen. Jim Bunning, shouting from their seats across that aisle at each other:
Bunning: "Regular order!"
Byrd: "Who said that?"
Bunning: "I did."
Byrd: "Who are you?"
Bunning: "I'm a senator."
Byrd: "You're a great baseball man."
Bunning: "I'm a senator; I have the same rights as you."
Byrd: "Yeah, man, you're a senator." [Ends by laughing hysterically at Bunning.]
I'm not sure I see a problem. It's out of context. We don't know what came before. We also don't know whether the guy ever teased Bunning about this before. I bet it's been a long standing tease fest. I know every time I hear Bunning's name I think of baseball and then I wonder if it's really Bunning or Bunting and then I wonder whose gonna win the series and whether they;ll ever have a Subway series and whether Quisno's will ever get to take over the Subway series. I mean seriously, I just thought the guy was kidding and free associating. Is that illegal for a senator to do? free basing yeah but free associating?
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