Honest to god, the Senate is full of them. Sicko? Yes. Even the doctor is sick.
Dr. Tom Coburn of Muskogee is waiting, panting, for the cameras and the reporters.
“I’ve always considered myself an opposition within the opposition,” said Mr. Coburn, whose willingness to block, delay or neuter bills through an array of procedural measures has made him an effective nuisance during his five years in the Senate.
As the health care overhaul heads to the Senate floor, Mr. Coburn is preparing for what he considers a career pinnacle of havoc. Enacting the proposal, he says, would be catastrophic, and so if precedent holds, he will try to hinder it with every annoying tool in his arsenal: filing amendments (he has done that 508 times since joining the Senate, second only to John McCain’s 542 in that period), undertaking filibusters and objecting strenuously.
“When it comes to obstructing bills, he is part of a very tiny pantheon in the history of the Senate,” said Ross Baker, a Senate historian at Rutgers University.
To Mr. Coburn, charges of obstructionism are a mark of honor he will wear as proudly as ever in the coming weeks.“My mission is to frame this health care debate in terms of the fiscal ruin of this country,” said the 61-year-old Mr. Coburn, who recently railed on the Senate floor that the federal debt was “waterboarding” his five grandchildren. “I have instructed my staff to clear my schedule for every minute that bill is on the floor.”... NYT
You're not impressed by his charm yet? Try this:
An ordained Southern Baptist deacon, he attends church every Sunday back in Muskogee and teaches a Bible study class. He tries to stop armadillos from tearing up his lawn. He pulls fat water moccasins from his pool. “I kill them,” he said with relish, “by slicing their heads off with the sharp edge of a shovel.”
