Democratic Donkey Isn't the Only Braying Beast

There is a cliché that there are two things you should never see being made, sausages and laws.

Never truer than late Thursday night when Republicans stormed out of the House after Democrats gaveled into defeat a procedural motion on the appropriations bill to fund Agriculture Department giveaways to corporate farmers. The problem was the Republicans actually had enough votes to defeat the motion. (The substance behind the procedural move was another Republican attempt to stick it to Latinos in a way they couldn’t on the immigration bill they killed.)

The Democrats screwed up, both procedurally and politically, although they could not resist recalling how four years ago the Republican majority broke custom, convention, House rules and ethics by leaving a 15-minute open for three hours until they twisted enough arms to hand the drug industry billions of your dollars. The Republicans screwed up by bitching not about the high-handed Democratic parliamentary tactics -- a matter of fairness everyone can understand -- but by talking about how they were cheated out of denying emergency benefits to undocumented worker.

This kind of dispute further demonstrates how uncivil politics has become, but it also is a reminder that elections do matter and the Republicans in Congress are going to have eat not only crow but the crow’s shit they smeared all over the Capitol in their 12 years in power.

The incident is also notable for the pained yelps of Republicans who suddenly are for fairness. I mean, it doesn't get any better than the San Diego jamoke Brian Bilbray, who succeeded the imprisoned felon Duke Cunningham. Brayed Bilbray: “How do you have a representative form of government if you don’t count votes and if you mess with electoral results?”

Clearly, you appeal to the Supremes and cite Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000.)