Lost in Mahmoud week and the rush to SCHP, a new embarrassing low was held in in the Dirksen Building as Robert Byrd convened the Senate Appropriations Committee looking into the supplemental funding request by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Joining Gates on the panel was John Negroponte, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace, and about two dozen Code Pink nutters, who couldn't, it seems, miss this for the world. If there's one thing you have to give them credit for, it's attendance. The Code Pink gals have shown up at more government public meetings as well as think tank meetings than most politicians over the last few months. In fact, the only place they weren't was at Columbia University this week. If only these ladies dogged the Iranian terrorist-in-chief, chanting for him to get out of Iraq, as fervently as they do to U.S. officials and realist pundits on the war, they actually might have served a useful purpose in reducing the propaganda gains Ahmadinejad made while in America this week.
Back to Robert Byrd, the long of tooth Senator from West Virginia. His opening remarks of the hearing were spent on theatrics about the costs of the war in Iraq. When he asked rhetorical questions, the Code Pink gals stepped in as the Greek chorus.
But then, things got out of hand. The Code Pink gals couldn't contain themselves to merely being backup singers to the Robert Byrd band, and got removed from the chambers.
Senator Byrd was a fool in his youth as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He is a fool in his advanced years, clearly not capable of discharging his duties as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. And yet the Democrats continue to let this nonsense continue. Here's a clue. If you are about to start a hearing that concerns the war, and you see two dozen people in the audience all wearing pink shirts holding signs indicating they're about to make a disturbance, they are. Regardless of the party running the hearing, if you call witnesses to testify, you owe them to chance to testify, not to waste their time in a circus environment that you could easily keep civil.
Listen again to the tail end of the 2nd clip, where Byrd tells the protestors he's had enough, and he's been protesting the end of the war before they were born. Really? He was protesting the U.S.' involvement in Iraq since the 50's in some cases with these women? Well, I declare.
Keep in mind that this man is currently third in line to the presidency behind Nancy Pelosi and the Vice President.