There is a true story I like to tell that is a perfect metaphor for Republican behavior.
When I was a teenager we lived next door to a couple, their twelve year old son, and a grandmother. I often spent the afternoon in my bedroom doing homework, where my window looked out on the side yard of our neighbors.
One afternoon as I was struggling with some algebra equations, I heard a commotion next door. The grandmother was struggling with the side gate that had some off its hinges and was falling on her. She cried for help to her grandson whose bedroom also looked out on the yard, and he came to the window and yelled "You broke it, you fix it."
Ultimately, a neighbor helped, but I will never forget that little 12 year old creep of a grandson.
This is the story I thought of as I watched the Republican nonsense this week in refusing to support the president's stimulus bill. No Republican House members voted for it, and only three Senators crossed over to support it. Even with three Republicans supporting it in the Senate, however, the Dems were one short of the sixty they needed. Even though they should have 59 senators, meaning they would only need one Republican vote, when the vote was taken there were three senators absent. Al Franken is not yet seated as Norm Coleman continues to challenge an election he has lost, only to cripple the Democratic Party and the president's agenda. Ted Kennedy is in Florida, fighting brain cancer (he came back for the first vote but had to return for treatment), and Sherrod Brown was at his mother's funeral.
Ultimately, Sherrod Brown returned after the funeral, just to vote, then got on a plane and returned to be with his family, which is what people want to do when they are grieving.
Not one Republican senator offered to vote "yes" so Senator Brown could stay with his family and mourn. Not one offered to vote in Ted Kennedy's stead. Not one showed any compassion, when they knew they would lose anyway. Their actions were the equivalent of "you broke it, you fix it" except to be accurate they would have to say "we broke it, but you fix it."
Party before helping the American people.
Party before bipartisanship.
Party before humanity.
Every one of the Republican Senators who could have lent a hand and didn't, who forced Senator Brown to leave his family when he was in mourning, is in my opinion just as much a creep as that twelve year old former neighbor of mine.
May they all get what they deserve!
