Here's what Senator McCain had to say after Daschle surprised everyone by trying to amend McCain's internet taxation bill:
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I regret that I was not here at the time the Democratic leader offered his amendment. But, of course, it would not have mattered really much whether I was here....
But I have to say, I am unaccustomed to this kind of procedure where in good faith we brought this bill to the floor, in good faith we voted cloture on the motion to proceed, and then the Democratic leader stands up and proposes a totally, completely, absolutely extraneous amendment, an entire piece of legislation, the Energy bill, which has been hard fought in this body many times, as an amendment on the Internet tax moratorium bill, without warning, without saying what he was going to do, without having the courtesy to inform me as the chairman of the committee and the manager of the bill.
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There was an old line in the cold war era. The Russians said: We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us. Well, we pretend to work and we are still getting paid. We are not working. We are not doing anything.
I say to my friend the minority leader and to my friend from Nevada--and they are my friends--what is this all about? You know very well that if an Internet moratorium is passed, an energy bill will not be part of it. Now we are going to go through the parliamentary charade of having somebody offer a second-degree amendment and somebody else will do a substitute, and then somebody else will offer a second-degree amendment. What am I supposed to tell my constituents, the taxpayers, we are doing here in Washington?
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Here we go now. Here we go. The Democrats have a retreat on Friday, so we are not going to be here on Friday. No, we are not going to work 5 days this week. Actually, 3, excuse me. And here we go, now we are going to spend late this afternoon jockeying back and forth. I am sure there may be a headline in South Dakota that says: Senator Daschle fights for ethanol. I bet there will be a whole lot of press releases, too, and maybe even the distinguished Senator from North Dakota will be fighting for ethanol, too. Meanwhile, we are not addressing the issues that the American people care about.
Yes, Senator McCain, Daschle got his headline from the Argus Leader! As if on cue...
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