Sorry this is just a cut & paste job but no time for my two bits.

How did Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) commemorate Constitution and Citizenship Day, when he returned to the Senate floor on Monday? In an odd twist of logic, he blamed the minority party for how little work has been done in the 109th Congress.

September 17, which fell on Sunday, celebrated the ratification of the United States Constitution and Frist used that occasion to announce that Senate Democrats are actually the reason that the last 20 legislative months have been proclaimed the “Do-Nothing Congress.”

Dem. leader Harry Reid responded:

“For more than 3 years, this Congress, which has been given the name of the “do-nothing Congress,” has turned a blind eye to the intractable war in Iraq, ignoring the administration’s many mistakes and allowing it to stay on a failed course,” said Reid. “Here we are, with 6 days left in the 109th Congress, and the Republicans, who control the House and Senate and the White House, have not held one hearing — not one — into the President’s wartime failures.”

Given how little attention the White House and Congressional Republicans have actually paid to the Constitution in the last few years, I’m sure Frist was blindsided by Reid actually invoking that old checks and balances thing that schoolchildren all over America were probably learning about last week.

Reid went on to give the Senate leadership a quick history lesson on how Congress is suppose to work and how it indeed operated before the current crop of Bush rubber-stampers took over:

“During the Civil War, President Lincoln was faced continually with oversight hearings by his Congress. Of course, we know during World War II, there were a number of commissions. The most famous was that conducted by Senator Harry Truman of Missouri, which led to his becoming Vice President. Some say, but for that he would not have been chosen as Vice President.

“What was the Truman Commission? It was to determine what was going on with World War II. Was money being wasted? Were troop levels right? Korean war hearings were also held, and the same for the Vietnam war. But for this war, none–even though this war has taken longer than it took to settle the differences in the European theater in World War II. Soon it will be the same amount of time that we were able to beat Japan.”
Reid then let loose the frustration that’s no doubt been building after watching Republicans shoot down three attempts by Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage in this Congress and killing many pieces of legislation designed to bolster homeland security — including the 528-page, Democratic-sponsored Real Security Act of 2006, which was snuffed by Republicans just last week.

“This Republican Congress has wasted 20 months on horse slaughtering; the Schiavo case, dealing with someone’s personal relationship, which should not even have been before this body; gay marriage; the nuclear option; flag burning; repealing the estate tax,” said Reid. “But they could not find a day for some time to look at the President’s mistakes, missteps, and misconduct, which have hurt American security and plunged Iraq into a civil war — not a day.”

It gets better. What follows is an exchange between Reid and Democratic Whip Dick Durban that must have had Frist fuming.

Read (there’s also a link to a short video here):
BobGeiger.com: Frist Blames Democratic Minority for Do-Nothing Congress, Gets Spanked