Thirty-one-year-old Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) is not a large man, standing perhaps 5 feet 3 inches tall in thick soles. But he packed a whole lot of chutzpah when he walked into the House TV gallery yesterday to demand that the new Democratic majority give the new Republican minority all the rights that Republicans had denied Democrats for years.It's true that the GOP is disingenuous in demanding rights that they refused to grant the Dems, but it's also a clever political ploy. After all, if Pelosi thought this bill was a good idea when she was in the minority, why shouldn't the GOP ask her to push it through now that she has the power to do so. The whole thing points up the hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle.
"The bill we offer today, the minority bill of rights, is crafted based on the exact text that then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi submitted in 2004 to then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert," declared McHenry, with 10 Republican colleagues arrayed around him. "We're submitting this minority bill of rights, which will ensure that all sides are protected, that fairness and openness is in fact granted by the new majority."
Omitted from McHenry's plea for fairness was the fact that the GOP had ignored Pelosi's 2004 request -- while routinely engaging in the procedural maneuvers that her plan would have corrected. Was the gentleman from North Carolina asking Democrats to do as he says, not as he did?
"Look, I'm a junior member," young McHenry protested. "I'm not beholden to what former congresses did."
Anne Kornblut of the New York Times asked McHenry if his complaint might come across as whining.
"I'm not whining," he whined.
I think we can expect to see many more articles with this belittling, smarmy attitude toward anything the GOP does. After all, the media thinks a new Dem majority puts them back in power too.
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