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Boy, this is some hard-hitting journalism by George Stephanopoulos here isn't it? Anyone think Tom Coburn would have gotten this type of softball from Rachel Maddow?

Shorter George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So Senator, is there anything else we should know about you arranging a bribe for your C-Street buddy that you can tell us in ten seconds or less?

COBURN: Nope.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, nothing to see here. Move along. Thanks for coming in everybody.

Let's hope his network's interview with Doug Hampton yields just a tad more information than Georgie-boy decided to try to elicit from Coburn on This Week. Really pathetic George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm going to have to -- I'm going to have to stop this right now. And, Senator, before you go -- and I know this is your least favorite subject -- but Doug Hampton, Senator Ensign's chief of staff, has given an interview to "Nightline" which is going to air tomorrow night, where he says that you were an intermediary between him and Senator Ensign, and I want to show that for a second.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMPTON: Tom Coburn said, "What I would do, Doug, if I was you is I would have them buy your home, give you $1 million bucks so you could get started over, and that's what I'm willing to help you negotiate."

(UNKNOWN): And what happened?

HAMPTON: John said, "No can do. Not going to happen."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is he telling the truth?

COBURN: No.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Flat no?

COBURN: No.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You did not serve as an intermediary?

COBURN: Oh, I did. No, there's no question. Look, my whole goal in this thing was to bring two families to a closure of a very painful episode. And there's no question that Doug called me and said, "Will you talk to John about solving a problem?" And so I called John Ensign and said, "Do you want me to talk to him?" He said, "Yes."

But, you know, the -- the question that's worrisome is, what is the motivation now for -- for this? Doug obviously asked to have some remuneration for the injury that he had. And on private sector, that happens all the time. But there -- there was no negotiation. There was, "I'll pass it along," or, "Yes, I won't."

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, thanks very much.

Thank you all very much.

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Rachel follows up on TPM's reporting on the C-Street house--C Street House No Longer Tax Exempt:

Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes.

Previously, the house -- despite being home to numerous lawmakers -- had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building's owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.

Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation.

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Jeff Sharlet followed up with more insight from his time spent there researching his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. At least one good thing has come out of all the attention Bart Stupak has drawn to himself and to the formerly very secretive C-Street House.

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Rachel Maddow reports on the latest news to come out of the C-Street House. It appears that Tom Coburn, despite previous denials, was allowed by John Ensign to basically negotiate his bribes for him. So much for those "family values".

MCCONNELL: I really don`t have any observations to make about the Ensign matter. Senator Ensign continues to serve. He`s a member of the finance committee, been active in the discussions here.

I don`t think today is a day to make any observations about the matter. It just appeared in the newspaper today. I don`t have any observations to make about the Ensign matter today. At the risk of being redundant, I really don`t have anything to add about the newspaper article that was in the "New York Times" today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: That`s the top Republican in the United States Senate. Mitch McConnell today pointedly and refusing to say anything supportive whatsoever about Nevada Senator John Ensign. His political fortunes have gone from dismal to humiliating, to him now being on resignation watch because of an adulterous affair so dramatically mishandled it may ultimately land the senator in prison.

But the dramatic new revelations in the blockbuster 4,000-word expose published on the front page of "The New York Times" today have also ensnared another Republican senator whose self-proclaimed integrity and piety have also been dragged down into the gutter with John Ensign. The second senator has been caught on tape lying to reporters about something he now admits -- lying about the fact that he ended up being the financial broker who tried to get Senator Ensign a cheaper payoff rate for his mistress.

It`s Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. He`s an evangelical. He`s an ordained deacon and he lived with Senator Ensign at the C Street house in Washington, a house that`s maintained as living quarters for conservative Christian members of Congress by a secretive religious group that`s called the Family. We discussed the Family a lot on this show.

The Family actually lists on the C Street property as a church for tax purposes. And it was at that church, C Street, where Senator Tom Coburn learned that his housemate, John Ensign, was having an extramarital affair. And it was there that Senator Coburn made the extraordinary decision to try to help John Ensign contain the damage from that affair with cash.

According to an interview that Senator Coburn himself gave the "New York Times," while Ensign was still sleeping with his mistress, Coburn became Ensign`s negotiator, his financial negotiator. A lawyer hired by the mistress` husband wanted a cash payout to the mistress and her family as compensation for the harm caused by the affair.

Senator Coburn personally negotiated the financial deal, trying to get Ensign the best possible price for his sins.

What you`re looking at here is the first proposed cash settlement. This is what the family of John Ensign`s mistress wanted Ensign to pay as compensation for messing up their family and costing both the mistress and her husband their jobs since they were both employed by Senator Ensign. The cash demand was $8.5 million. That was presented to the upright and pious Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma who acted as Ensign`s negotiator in the deal. Coburn`s reaction to that proposed settlement was: no way.

We don`t know if he has experience negotiating senator`s payoff rates for their extramarital affairs, or if he just thought that he could get his friend in this case a better deal. But according to "The Times," the mistress` family lawyer, quote, "gave Mr. Coburn a figure, just under $8.5 million. Mr. Coburn dismissed that as ridiculous. The mistress` husband came back with a lower number, about $2 million, which Mr. Coburn passed on to Senator Ensign."

It`s really a heck of a news flash for the people of Oklahoma if you think about it. People of Oklahoma, your U.S. senator, the deacon, the anti-abortion, anti-gay, holier-than-thou senator who went so far as to demand that "Schindler`s List" not be shown on television because it contained nudity, Senator Tom Coburn has been spending his time in Washington brokering cheaper payoff rates for senators to their mistresses. And he`s been lying about it.

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(h/t Heather)

Do you want to know how lost in space conservatives are during this health care debate? Watch Eric Cantor, the golden boy of the conservatives, make a complete fool of himself. When their goal is to just block everything, lies, dodges and sick thoughts cascade out of their mouths and into the atmosphere. First he says health-care reform is so time-consuming and is stopping them from doing anything else, but the real sickness comes out when he's asked at a town hall if he could help a woman who has tumors in her belly, who had lost their health insurance and has cancer.

The anti-government freak Cantor actually looks this woman in the eye and asks her to try and find some mythical government program for help. If these programs existed, shouldn't the golden boy at least know what they are? And I thought the government was the devil to Cantor? When confronted with real-life problems, they have no solutions and just make twisted crap up.

Then he brings up the BIG CANARD: Charity care. Hahahahahahaha.

We saw the same thing with Tom Coburn at his town hall and now we see it with Cantor. Remember Coburn?

Coburn: Well, I think—first of all, yeah. We'll help. The first thing we will do is to see what we can do, individually, to help you, through our office. But the other thing that is missing in this debate is us as neighbors, helping people that need our help. [Applause.] You know we tend to ... [Applause.] The idea that the government is a solution to our problems is an inaccurate, a very inaccurate statement.

There answer is to go broke, become indigent, then beg the government for some crumbs while you die waiting for a non existent program to swoop in and save you. Or maybe you can go begging...

I wonder if one of his health-care reform proposals will be that Americans should organize charity squads that go door-to-door and beg for charity money from their towns and hope they can raise 400K in a couple of days for one person. I'm sorry, I just got queasy just watching this video of this asshole.

The San Francisco Chronicle is equally appalled:

I cannot make this up. You have to watch the entire video unedited (though I also have the short video version) and see if Representative and Minority Whip Eric Cantor's version of a "public option" squares with your personal values as a human being and as an American.
--
The question an audience participant asked is paraphrased as "Relative got cancer and lost his insurance... what happens?"

Representative Eric Cantors response paraphrased: "Sell or auction all your belongings. After you reach a certain poverty threshold, apply for Medicaid, the federal medical insurance for the very poor. If that's not enough apply for indigent services."

As I said, I cannot make this up. Just watch the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Rep. Eric Cantor.

Cantor was on MSNBC and said that he was only trying to answer the question and figure out a way for that women to get help immediately. Tamryn Hall didn't ask a follow-up, but Cantor looked like a buffoon. Is the only thing he can think of to help quickly is that a person become indigent. Why is he blocking any meaningful reform?

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Rachel Maddow featured a hilarious bit from this weekend's "Values Voters Summit" in Missouri, featuring a fellow named Mike Schwartz, who is Republican Sen. Tom Coburn's chief of staff. Matt Corley at ThinkProgress actually had this first (and deserves credit from those who later make use of it -- ahem!), and has the transcript too:

SCHWARTZ: But it is my observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. They speak badly about homosexuality. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it. And that’s a good instinct. After all, homosexuality, we know, studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that its genetic and all those studies have proved its not genetic. Homosexuality is inflicted on people.

How does Schwartz know this? Well, a friend of his was once tragically caught up in "the homosexual lifestyle":

SCHWARTZ: And one of the things that he said to me, that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark. He said, “all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants." You know, that’s a, that’s a good comment. It’s a good point and it’s a good thing to teach young people.

You can't make this stuff up. This is a truly special level of stupid we are reaching here in America.

The full video is at YouTube.

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When the GOP trotted out the hapless Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) to deliver the response to President Obama, the former cardiologist became just the latest Republican physician deployed to halt health care reform. As it turns out, the repentant Birther was an unfortunate choice to carry the GOP banner of tort reform, given his own history of malpractice suits. Of course, as his colleagues Tom Price, Tom Coburn and Bill Frist all show, when it comes to the politics of health care, Boustany isn't the only Republican doctor offering Americans the wrong diagnosis and bad prescriptions.

Georgia's Tom Price, a one-time orthopedic surgeon and current chairman of the Republican Study Committee, is a case in point. While the GOP tried to block the passage of Medicare in the 1960's and tried to slash its budget by 15% in the 1990's, today's Republicans pretend to be the defenders of the system Newt Gingrich famously said they hoped to see "wither on the vine." But in a July op-ed, Dr. Price reminded America's seniors why it is Republicans and not President Obama they should fear when it comes to Medicare:

Going down the path of more government will only compound the problem. While the stated goal remains noble, as a physician, I can attest that nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare.

Then there's Oklahoma Senator and unexpected Obama confidante Tom Coburn. As a Senate candidate in 2004, Dr. Coburn famously warned that "lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom." Upon his arrival in the Senate, the former obstetrician was elevated to the Judiciary Committee despite having advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. More recently, Coburn the C Street marriage counselor to John Ensign and Mark Sanford turned Deather:

In an interview with KOTV, Coburn said that he disagreed with Obama's dismissal of fears that reform will "pull the plug on grandma."

Coburn said that he'd offered three amendments seeking an "absolute prohibition" on rationing care based on effectiveness research.

"Why would you not want an absolute prohibition? Because you ultimately plan to ration care," Coburn said. "Their plan is to control costs by limiting options."

Last but certainly not least is former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

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Michael Steele goes to a black college and insults a woman whose mother died of cancer because she said that everyone should have good health care.

So people go out to town halls, they go to the community, and they’re like this. (SHAKES ARMS) It makes for great TV. You’ll probably make it tonight. Enjoy it.

First, there's the insanity of the head of the RNC criticizing anyone for disrupting a town hall meeting. Second, you have a woman whose mother died, ostensibly because of a lack of insurance, basically being insulted for daring to try to call attention to herself.

And this is not the only example. I can think of a dozen instances of Republican officials dismissing people trying to explain how the current system is broken. There was Tom Coburn telling the crying woman whose insurance refused to cover her husband that she should go to her neighbors for help. There was "Great White Hope" Republican Lynn Jenkins telling an uninsured constituent to be a grown-up and get insurance. The callousness on display at these things is palpable. And it could easily be turned into a powerful force for change.

That is, if there was one Democratic strategist interested in making a moral case anymore instead of a bunch of functionaries squandering a progressive agenda in favor of pleasing elites and talking about "bending the cost curve."

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Rick Sanchez shows some footage of a woman pleading with Tom Coburn to help her at a town hall meeting because her husband has had a traumatic brain injury, and they can't get insurance for him. After Coburn says he'll help through his office that that we "as neighbors" ought to help each other and the idea that the government is here to help is inaccurate. Gotta' love Sanchez's response here.

What's interesting about that is that Sen. Coburn just essentially said the government is not the solution, but then you have to ask yourself. He just told her to come and see him, isn't he the government? By the way after helping her, what will he do about the other 46,999,999 who don't have insurance, and the thousands upon thousands of Americans who say they do have insurance but like her, they're not getting covered? We'll ask those questions.

Exactly.

h/t The Political Carnival

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Rachel Maddow and Kent Jones do a hokie, but apt parody of what dealing with the Republicans on health care amounts to. Kent Jones really doesn't want to order pizza, and the Republicans really don't want any sort of health care reform.

Maddow: Republicans in the United States' Senate are Kent. And we're trying to order pizza. They do say that they want health care reform.

[....]

Because Republicans have said that they want health care reform, Democrats have been trying to work with them to come up with a bill that both sides can agree on. We can compromise. Democrats took national health care and single payer off the table from the very beginning because they were sure that Republicans wouldn't want those.

Then they started negotiating down from there, trying to find something, anything that the Republican would say yes to. But just as national health care was unacceptable to them, and single payer was unacceptable to them, the public option is also turning out to be unacceptable to them. And now even the further watered down reform option of co-ops are unacceptable to them.

[....]

That's a really important moment. Senator Grassley is the top Republican negotiator in the Senate on health care and he just admitted to Chuck Todd that even if he personally gets to draft a bill for the Senate to vote on, even if he ends up with a policy to vote on that he thinks is great, he himself might not vote for it.

Mean while Jon Kyl, the number two Republican in the whole Senate told reporters on a conference call today that dropping the public option still won't get any Republicans to vote for the bill.

No matter what is in the bill, Republicans are not going to vote for the bill. No matter what is on the pizza, Kent doesn't want it.

Maybe it's time for Democrats to take the hint. Republicans don't want pizza. Order exactly what you want. Put together the best possible reform bill purely on the basis of what you think the best policy for the country is, and then, forget the Republicans. Focus on getting all the Democrats in line to vote for it.

The Republicans are not here to help. And Kent is not here to make a good pizza order. Take the hint.

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Aug. 18, 2009 with winner, the Texas State School Board. Runners up Glenn Beck and Tom Coburn.

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Tom Coburn tried to rationalize the threats of violence and the anger at these town hall protests on Meet the Press today and was called out by Rachel Maddow for it. Dick Armey chimed in as well and tried to say that MoveOn.org was just as bad for running an ad comparing Bush to Hitler. As Rachel points out, they never ran that ad, not that it stopped Dick Armey from trying to say it again a bit later in the show. Coburn's statement was far enough over the top that even David Gregory refuted him.

MR. GREGORY: All right. But let’s talk about the tone of the debate. There have been death threats against members of Congress, there are Nazi references to members of Congress and to the president. Here are some of the images. The president being called a Nazi, his reform effort being called Nazi-like, referring to Nazi Germany, members of Congress being called the same. And then there was this image this week outside of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a town hall event that the president had, this man with a gun strapped to his leg held that sign, “It is time to water the tree of liberty.” It was a reference to that famous Thomas Jefferson quote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” That has become a motto for violence against the government. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, had that very quote on his shirt the day of the bombing of the Murrah building when 168 people were killed.

Senator Coburn, you are from Oklahoma. When this element comes out in larger numbers because of this debate, what, what troubles you about that?

SEN. TOM COBURN (R-OK): Well, I’m, I’m troubled anytime when we, we stop having confidence in, in our government. But we’ve earned it. You know, this debate isn’t about health care. Health care’s the symptom. The debate is an uncontrolled federal government that’s going to run--50 percent of everything we’re spending this year we’re borrowing from the next generation. You...

MR. GREGORY: That’s—but wait, hold on, I want to stop you there. I’m talking about the tone. I am talking about violence against the government. That’s what this is synonymous with.

SEN. COBURN: The, the—but the tone is based on fear of loss of control of their own government. What, what is the genesis behind people going to such extreme statements? What is it? We, we have lost the confidence, to a certain degree, and it’s much worse than when Tom was the, the, the leader of the Senate. We have, we have raised the question of whether or not we’re legitimately thinking about the American people and their long-term best interests. And that’s the question. The, the mail volume of all the senators didn’t go up based on the healthcare debate, the mail volume went up when we started spending away our future indiscriminately. And that’s not Republican or Democrat, that has been a problem for years. But it’s exacerbated now that we’re in the kind of financial situation and economic situation.

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Newt advises Sarah (h/t Blue Gal. Click here for larger.)

Can you believe it? I'm actually looking forward to this morning's shows. No, not George Snufflupagus on This Week or William the Bloody on Fox News Sunday, but our very own Rachel Maddow is subbing for David Gregory is on the panel opposite Dick Armey on Meet the Press. Rachel has been relentless in the last couple of weeks on the astroturfing of FreedomWorks, so this promises to be a lot of fun. Around the dial, it's all about the health care reform bill, with HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius on This Week and State of the Union, Robert Gibbs on Face the Nation and executives from the AMA and AARP on Fox News Sunday. Arlen Specter will be on This Week, to share his take on the recent Town Hall shout fests. Fareed Zakaria will continue his interview Sec of State Hillary Clinton and you can bet her defensive responses in Africa will definitely be brought up.

ABC's "This Week" - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.; former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - FreedomWorks chairman and former Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas; Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.; Gov. Bill Ritter, D-Colo.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Rick Stengel, Trish Regan, John Heilemann, Kathleen Parker. Topics: Has the domestic "change" President Obama promised stalled? How has Woodstock in 1969 impacted the politics of the past forty years? Meter Questions: Will outspoken fringe players dominate GOP for the rest of Obama's term? YES: 9 NO: 3; If unemployment is still high next year, will Obama revise his tax proposals? YES: 11 NO: 1.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sebelius; Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Reps. Mike Ross, D-Ark., Tom Price, R-Ga., and Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - The first television interview with Michael Oren as Israel's new Ambassador to the United States. Plus, the Prime Minister of Kenya and an unusual event in Nairobi featuring Hillary Clinton and Fareed.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.; J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association; John Rother, executive vice president for policy and strategy at AARP.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

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Chris Matthews carries water for the C-Street house members and asks Jeff Sharlet if some of them are living there because they just want a cheap place to stay. This is after having Jeff Sharlet fully explain to him what type of activities are going on there.

Matthews also seems to think that he has "outed" these members. Not hardly Chris. You're only almost a month and a mound of interviews behind your co-worker Rachel Maddow with your interview of Jeff Sharlet. Matthews appears to be a whole lot more worried about the reaction he's going to get from the Congress members for this interview than reporting the truth about them.

Matthews just can't seem to wrap his brain around the idea that Irish Catholics or Jews might be staying at the C-Street House as well and that not all of them are "fundamentalists".

Matthews: Let me ask you about what's wrong here. So what? My favorite question. So what if a bunch of these guys go to prayer breakfast and all live together. I see some guys here like Irish Catholic Mike Doyle, Bart Stupak, he's not a fundamentalist. I know what Zach Wamp is. John Ensign, you mentioned him, Tom Coburn is probably a fundamentalist. What, people have their own religion, they go to prayer breakfast, I don't know that culture very well, but what's so harmful about it?

Sharlet: Absolutely nothing going to a prayer group or you want to pray with some folks, you want to get support. The issue is when you have an organization that is not registered like a lobby that's acting like a lobby...

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Rachel Maddow weighs in on the overt racism that the GOP and their counterparts in the media don't seem to be too concerned about expressing these days.

BECK: This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seed hatred for white people or the white culture.

LIMBAUGH: Here you have a black president trying to destroy a white policeman. I think he is genuinely revved up about race. You know me. I think he is genuinely angry in his heart and has been his whole life.

MALKIN: I think he is a racial opportunist.

LIMBAUGH: Look, I had a dream. I had a dream that I was a slave building a sphinx in a desert that looked like Obama.

BECK: He has a problem. He has a - this guy is, I believe, a racist.

LIMBAUGH: And after that, they‘re going to go after Oreos. Might have to put that off until Obama is out of office, but they‘ll eventually go after Oreos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Now, the racial divide in this country didn‘t disappear when Barack Obama was elected president. And no reasonable person has expected it to. But it is somewhere between eyebrow raising and breathtaking to have such blunt, unvarnished race-baiting so forward in the national discourse right now.

And the type of race baiting to which we‘re subjected is fairly specific and fairly consistent. The argument that the president hates white people, for example, which you just heard Glenn Beck make on Fox News, that it‘s he, the president, who is racist, that argument dovetails perfectly with the arguments made against Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor and the far more genteel setting of the United States Senate.

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I wonder if the South really appreciates Vitter's defense of them since he's been linked to hookers and diapers. I also have to wonder who had a hand in firebombing the car of Stormy Daniels' political adviser. She's Vitter's opponent for his Senate seat. Mr. Family Values and a regular customer of the D.C. Madam, Sen. David Vitter came out in defense of the south after Sen. Voinovich criticized the Republican Party for being way too Southern-fried.

Sen. George V. Voinovich, Ohio Republican, reignited the debate about the direction of the struggling party when he told a newspaper Monday that the biggest problem for Republicans right now is conservative Southerners, particularly Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

"They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr . . .' People hear them and say, 'These people, they're Southerners,'" said Mr. Voinovich, who is not seeking re-election in 2010. "The party's being taken over by Southerners. What they hell have they got to do with Ohio?"

The hooker-loving Vitter shot back with this:

"I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values," said Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "There are a lot of us from the South who hold those values, which I think the party is supposed to be about. We strayed from them in the past few years, and that's why we performed so badly in the national elections."

...Mr. Vitter also criticized Mr. Voinovich for voting last week against a failed amendment sponsored by Mr. Vitter and Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican, to expand Americans' ability to carry concealed weapons.

"He's a moderate, really wishy-washy," Mr. Vitter said.

Let's see who has it right---a moderate, or a diaper dandy?