11 September 2009 (am)

Workout notes 2000 yard swim: 500 warm up, 10 x (25 drill, 25 swim), 5 x (50 paddle, 50 free), 5 x 100 IM.

Easy effort.

What’s on tap this weekend: a racewalking clinic with Jeff Salvage.

Posts: light blogging; this Eugene Robinson article caught my eye:

Anyone who watched Wednesday night as President Obama explained his health-care reform proposals to Congress saw a chief executive making what sounded like a genuine appeal for bipartisanship — and his opponents behaving like a bunch of spoiled first-graders. Obama should ignore them, even if they hold their breath until they turn blue.

House Republicans were particularly ostentatious in showing their disrespect not just for Obama but for the office he holds. The outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina — who shouted “You lie!” when Obama said his plan would not cover illegal immigrants — was only the most egregious display of contempt. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House minority whip, fiddled with his BlackBerry while the commander in chief was speaking. Other Republicans made a show of waving copies of their own alleged reform plan, which isn’t really a plan at all.

And Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas waved hand-lettered signs at the president, as if he thought he were attending one of those made-for-television town-hall meetings rather than a solemn gathering of the nation’s highest elected officials.

I never remember President Bush being treated this way.

I do remember reading about this though:

So you think yelling “You Lie!” at the President of the United States during his speech to Congress is bad?

How about this – a member of the House of Representatives once entered the Senate chamber and savagely beat a senator from Massachusetts into unconsciousness.

The folks at Universal Hub found this interesting bit of history on the U.S. Senate web site:

It’s called “The Caning of Senator Charles Sumner.”

According to the Senate records, on May 19, 1856 Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts antislavery Republican, addressed the Senate “on the explosive issue of whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state.”

During his speech Sumner insulted two Democratic senators – Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina.

Douglas, who was in the chamber, was called a “noise-some, squat, and nameless animal . . . not a proper model for an American senator.”

Butler was not there.

But Sumner reportedly accused him of taking “a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight.”

Those words didn’t sit well with Rep. Preston Brooks, who, like Butler, was from South Carolina.

Three days later, Brooks entered the Senate chamber and “slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner’s head.”

Here’s how the Senate site described the attack:

“As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended. Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away. “

“Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers. Overnight, both men became heroes in their respective regions.”

Brooks survived a censure resolution, then resigned. But he was reelected, and then died a short time later.

Not much has changed, except that the neo-Confederates are now in the Republican party.

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