It’s been an historic week in the U.S. Senate as Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, used an obscure parliamentary move dubbed the “clay pigeon” amendment to force votes on nearly two dozen earmarks slipped into the emergency appropriations bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Gulf Coast hurricane recovery.
There have been some victories and more defeats, but Coburn has succeeded in putting before the American people as no politician has before him in the modern era the magnitude and fundamental dishonesty inherent in so much of federal spending.
By standing up by himself in the beginning and then persevering through the insults, counter-attacks and tirades of the old bulls of the Senate, Coburn has given the country a vivid demonstration of genuine political courage. One result has been that many more Members of the Senate have begun to vote with him instead of against him.
But there is another aspect of Coburn’s demonstration that bears comment and that is how he has also provided a demonstration of the tremendously salutary effects of term limits.
I think we should term-limit some folks this November, but he’s right. The argument against going ahead on term limits was that electing Republicans would fix things. It didn’t.