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Sen. Tom Coburn didn't go as far as his cohort, Sen. Lamar Alexander, who accused Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of acting just like Oliver North during the Iran-Contra scandal -- but he was still willing to accuse her of breaking the law by soliciting private donations to help implement the Affordable Care Act after Congress cut the purse strings.

Coburn appeared on this Monday's Your World With Neil Cavuto to discuss Republicans demands that there be an investigation into whether Sebelius violated any appropriations and ethics rules, and while he was more than willing to imply that the HHS secretary might have broken the law, he was careful to parse his words while doing so:

COBURN: I have no doubt in my mind they have broken US code by augmenting their appropriations. I've had several large insurance executives tell me that they were asked to contribute to this. So we're just beginning on this, but if it's not illegal, it should be and it's for sure unethical and it is definitely a conflict of interest to extort money from the very people that you regulate.

As Think Progress pointed out a few weeks ago, Republicans didn't mind it so much when they did the exact same thing during the last administration: Senator Who Criticized Sebelius For Soliciting Donations Asked For Private Funds While Serving In Bush Administration:

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Ok, so not all Republicans think like this, but then again not all of them are U.S. Senators from Tennessee like Lamar Alexander. Here's his verbatim quote to Chuck Todd yesterday morning:

LAMAR ALEXANDER: "I think video games is a bigger problem than guns, because video games affect people."

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During the GOP Weekly Response, Senator Lamar Alexander attacked and distorted the National Labor Relations Board's decision to stop Boeing from punishing their workers and moving one of their plants to South Carolina in retribution for a pair of strikes over the last six years.

Here's more from Think Progress on that -- Gov. Haley Defends Boeing’s Union-Busting: ‘It’s Called Capitalism’:

The National Labor Relations Board last week filed a complaint against the airplane manufacturer Boeing, noting that, according to public pronouncements by the company’s officials, the construction of a new plant in South Carolina was intended as retribution against workers in Washington who have engaged in a pair of strikes over the last six years. One senior Boeing official, for instance, said during an interview, “The overriding factor [in moving to South Carolina] was not the business climate. And it was not the wages we’re paying today. It was that we cannot afford to have a work stoppage, you know, every three years.”

Under national labor law, retaliating against workers for striking is illegal union-busting, but several Republican lawmakers have attacked the NLRB and the Obama administration for initiating the complaint. “This is nothing more than a political favor for the unions who are supporting President Obama’s re-election campaign,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). “The Obama administration is now dictating where companies are allowed to create new jobs,” wrote former Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN).

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) took to the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page today to decry the NLRB’s decision, saying that it circumvents capitalism and falsely claiming that the NLRB “wants Boeing to produce the planes only in Washington state“.

More there so go read the rest.

Alexander went on to tout how wonderful it was that foreign auto manufacturers were coming in and employing people in his state and he blamed the unionized workers rather than management decisions for American auto companies not being able to compete with them.

This weekly response by the GOP seems completely tone deaf to me unless they think that somehow praising foreign companies and calling them "American" auto companies and touting a race to the bottom on wages in this economic environment is going to be a winning message for them in 2012.

Transcript via the LA Times below the fold.

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Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) urged CNN's Candy Crowley Sunday not to mention Fox News' Sarah Palin in connection with the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).

In an a Sunday interview, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) noted that public figures have used violent rhetoric against Giffords, something Palin has done.

"Those of us in public life and the journalists who cover this should be thoughtful in response to this and try to bring down the rhetoric, which I'm afraid has become pervasive in the discussion of political issues," he said.

"The phrase 'don't retreat, reload,' putting crosshairs on congressional districts as targets, these sort of things, I think, invite the kind of toxic rhetoric that can lead unstable people to believe this is an acceptable response," Durbin added.

The Illinois senator was referring to a post on Sarah Palin's Facebook page that placed crosshairs over Giffords' congressional district. Palin said supporters should "reload" and use their votes to "aim for" the Democrat's defeat.

"You talk about putting those that you want to defeat in the crosshairs graphically on the Internet, you're talking about Sarah Palin here," Crowley observed. "I guess that the undertow -- and certainly it's not an undertow on the internet -- but the undertow with politicians now speaking publicly is, 'Well, the Republicans and tea party and Sarah Palin have gone way too far in their rhetoric. It's been violent rhetoric and therefore this sort of thing happens.' Are you making that direct connection?"

"I don't think you can ever make that direct connection," Durbin explained. "But don't we have an obligation, those of news public life and those who cover us, to say this is beyond the bounds? It may be constitutionally permissible, but it shouldn't be acceptable rhetoric. We shouldn't invite it on the radio talk shows or the TV, at least without comment. We ought to say that goes too far."

Crowley turned to Alexander for his view.

"Is it over the line politically these days, given the kind of climate we're in, to be talking about or graphically showing a politician in the crosshairs or talking about taking them out? Was it over the line, sort of specifically, since it's now being talked about everywhere, Sarah Palin's web ads for people she would like to see targeted for political defeat?" she asked.

"Well, Candy, I think you're responsible, by bringing this up, of doing the very thing you’re trying to condemn," Alexander shot back. "You're making and implying a direct connection between Sarah Palin and what happened."

"I think the way to get away from it is for you not to be talking about it," he added.

Apparently Fox News agrees with the senator from Tennessee because when Palin's name was mentioned at a vigil for Giffords, they cut the video feed.

Palin offered her "sincere condolences" on her Facebook page Saturday, but did not acknowledge any responsibility for inciting the shooting.

"We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," Palin aide Rebecca Mansour told conservative talk show host Tammy Bruce.

Mansour agreed with Bruce's suggestion that the crosshairs were simply represented a "surveyor's symbol."

From Media Matters new project, Political Correction -- Sen. Alexander's Deeply Dishonest Filibuster Reform Speech:

At a Heritage Foundation event yesterday, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) gave a speech decrying Democratic attempts to change the filibuster rules. The speech was shot through with falsehoods, such as the claim that Democrats are trying to eliminate minority rights in the Senate because they lost an election. In fact, the reform proposals preserve the filibuster, but require obstructionists to actually hold the floor continuously to prevent a bill's consideration. Similarly, Alexander claimed that Democrats have invented the simple majority vote for rules changes out of thin air, but the practice is based in the Constitution and was used as early as 1917 — and Republicans argued for the procedure in 2005. Later, Alexander disingenuously quoted the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). Byrd condemned GOP filibusters, but Alexander simply skipped that part of Byrd's speech. Most egregious among Alexander's falsehoods, he claimed that Democrats are "the real party of no," despite the fact that filibusters have doubled since Republicans lost control of the Senate.

Lots more fact checking there on a very long speech that was too large for our servers if you've got the desire to watch any of it, so go read the rest. I caught part of it and am just glad we've got our friends over at Media Matters who have got the time to wade through this stuff.

h/t Steve Benen

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Alan Colmes asks, Who Will Be First To Call Lamar Alexander A Socialist?. From Think Progress:

Sen. Lamar Alexander Advocates A Government Takeover Of BP:

This week, a flurry of environmental organizations, members of Congress, and local officials in the states affected by the spill called for the federal government to take over the response effort from BP. “This is an all-hands-on-deck crisis, and we need to use every asset the U.S. has, including the Defense Department and all of its most sophisticated technology,” said Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA).

Today, on CBS’ Face the Nation, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) — who spends a lot of his time fearmongering about various government takeovers — seemed to advocate that the government simply take over BP entirely.

I'm waiting to see how he walks this one back later. I'm sure he'll say he was advocating them taking over the clean up and stopping the oil spill and not BP itself.

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just start where Robert Gibbs was talking about that the administration has done everything possible--morning, noon, and daylight, nighttime, too--to get this thing fixed down in the Gulf. Senator, do you think they’ve done everything they could do?

ALEXANDER: Bob, I’m not-- I’m not going to start pointing fingers at the administration. There’s one thing they could do under the law. They can fire BP and take it over. But the truth is the federal government probably doesn’t have the capacity to do that. I think we ought to allow the administration working with the governments and others to do its best to clean it up and make our verdict about the blame later.

SCHIEFFER: But would you favor taking over BP if that became necessary?

ALEXANDER: Sure. That’s up to the President to decide. Under the law we know who pays. That’s BP. They are the responsible party. And we know who is managing the federal effort. That’s the Coast Guard. But under the law, the federal government can take it over if they choose. And I understand why they might not choose but that option exists.

Update: Think Progress changed their post title to this: Sen. Lamar Alexander Advocates A Government Takeover Of The Oil Spill Clean-Up. As I said I was pretty sure he would be walking his comments back to saying they should take care of the clean up and not actually taking over BP. Apparently Think Progress decided that's what he really meant as well. If he didn't want anyone to take him literally he should watch what comes out of his mouth.

And I'll add one last note. I'm sick to death of these free market politicians crying about what the government is doing or not doing when unregulated industries make a mess, so Lamar Alexander needs to decide what side he's on. Either you let industries run wild and the government stays out of it, or you let them regulate so they're not expected to clean up their messes later. The man is still a flaming hypocrite. He cries about "government takeovers" until he wants the government to, you know... take over. But only when it means taking over a mess.

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Sen. Lamar Alexander tries to explain to David Gregory why he thinks Charlie Crist making an independent run for the Senate in Florida is destroying our democracy, but what Joe Lieberman did was okay in his book. This is some seriously twisted logic here. We'll see if he's still singing the same tune if Charlie Crist ends up winning that Senate seat.

GREGORY: We've had a lot of breaking news here, so--and still a lot of issues to get to. We'll get to as much as we can on a busy Sunday morning. I do want to start with politics.

Senator Alexander, you didn't get a commitment from the governor of Florida, who's now a Republican, to caucus with Republicans. And the leadership, of which you're a part, has said, "Thanks but no thanks." You don't want much association with Governor Crist at the moment.

ALEXANDER: Well, when he changed his mind, I changed my mind about him. I'm very disappointed by that. I mean, it really undermines the ability of people to participate in our, our, our politics. We've got a lot of alienated people in America right now. They want a place to have their say. So we say, "Come on in to our primary if you want to put a check and a balance on runaway government." So he did, and now he says, "I'm not doing so well by the rules, so I'm going to go another direction." That's what primaries are for.

GREGORY: But why--you know, when Senator Lieberman ran as an independent, the Democratic Party did not push him away. They said, "No, we're still, still--stay with us here." And yet the Republican leadership has said, "No thanks, Governor." You know, "We've changed our mind about you," as you just said. Is that a right strategy?

ALEXANDER: Senator Lieberman was different. First, he ran as an independent at the same time he was running as a Democrat. Second, he had a very strong principled opposition to the Iraq war. And third, the Democratic leadership in that case said that they didn't, they didn't support him. So Marco Rubio has shown to the people of Florida that he's a better candidate than Governor Crist, apparently, and Governor Crist has said, "I'm not doing too well by these rules. I think I'll try some other rules."

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As Think Progress noted, Joe Lieberman had himself a little chuckle while peddling the conservative lies on nuclear modernization:

Joe Lieberman (I-CT), once a reliable vote in favor of nuclear arms reduction efforts, has now bought into the right-wing myth that our nuclear arsenal is deteriorating and that the U.S. needs to build new nuclear weapons. Lieberman on Fox News Sunday said he is “real hesitant” to vote for a New START treaty unless the US effectively builds new nuclear weapons:

LIEBERMAN: Anytime we are working on something with our old Cold War enemy, Russia, cooperatively, it’s a good sign. Anything we can do to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in the world is a positive development. But in my opinion as we reduce the number of nuclear warheads… we have to make darn sure that are nuclear warheads are capable and modern and a lot of them are decades old. So I feel very strongly that I am going to be real hesitant to vote for this treaty unless we have a commitment from the Administration that they are prepared to modernize our nuclear stockpile.

In a demonstration of just how seriously Lieberman is taking these issues, as Chris Wallace shifted the conversation — noting that the treaty would need 9 Republican votes instead of 8 since “Lieberman was gone” — Lieberman audibly chuckled.

And from The Hill: Lieberman: Not enough votes in Senate to ratify new START treaty:

"I don't believe that there will be 67 votes to ratify the START treaty unless the administration does two things," Liberman said on "Fox News Sunday." "First, commit to modernize our nuclear stockpile so as we have less nuclear weapons we know they're capable, if, God forbid, we need them; and secondly, to make absolutely clear that some of the statements by Russian President Medvedev at the signing in Prague that seem to suggest that if we continue to build the ballistic missile defense in Europe that they may pull out of this treaty -- they're just unacceptable to us.

"We need that defense to protect our allies and ourselves from Iran," Lieberman said.

President Barack Obama backed away from the controversial missile shield, a plan launched under President George W. Bush, at the beginning of his term, earning kudos from Russia but disappointment from Poland and the Czech Republic.

Lieberman stressed that as stockpiles are slashed, "we have to make darn sure that our nuclear warheads are capable, are modern. And a lot of them are decades old."

"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace asked Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) about the chances of getting nine Republican votes need in the Senate to ratify the treaty.

That depends on the administration's answers to the concerns posed by those like Lieberman, Alexander said.

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When Bob Schieffer asks Sen. Lamar Alexander if the Republicans are at risk for being seen as purely obstructionists if the health care bill passes, Alexander responds by saying that it will be "a political kamikaze mission" for the Democrats if they pass the bill and vows they're going to run on repealing it. I think Lamar Alexander is the last person the Democrats should be taking any political advice from.

SCHIEFFER: Critics have said that the President has really put his whole presidency on the line. He’s put all the chips on the line. By putting everything he can muster against health care-- for health care and getting it passed. I guess, I would ask the other side of the question. Aren’t Republicans also putting everything up on the line by just being universally, totally against this? I mean, I’m thinking about November. Is it-- can a-- can a party get elected just by saying no? Is-- Is that a successful campaign tactic?

ALEXANDER: No-- no, it’s not. It is not what we’ve done. I mean, a hundred and seventy-three times, and I had my staff count them in the congressional record. Republicans went to the floor of the Senate and offered our step-by-step plan to reduce cost,including small-business health plans, buying insurance across state lines, stopping junk lawsuits against doctors, reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. That’s a different direction. What the President is trying to do is to expand a health care system that everybo-- body knows is unaffordable. What we want to do is reduce the cost of the health care system. And I’m willing to put it to a vote. I hope we don’t have to for the country. I mean, the most important words the President may have uttered in the summit were "that’s what elections are for." And he also said last year that the health care debate’s not just about health care, it’s a proxy for the larger issue of the role of government in American lives. And we think he’s right about that.

SCHIEFFER: Senator, you have said, I believe, that it would be catastrophic for the Democrats if this legislation passes. From just the standpoint of straight politics, why wouldn’t it be a good idea for Republicans to let it pass?

ALEXANDER: Well, if-- if-- if we were completely irresponsible that-- that’s what we would do. I think it’s a political kamikaze mission for the-- for-- for the Democrats to insist on this. I believe if they jam this through-- remember, no big piece of social legislation, Pat Monahan used to say this, the late Democratic Senator, no big piece of social legislation’s ever been jammed through just by a partisan vote. I mean, Lyndon Johnson had the Civil Rights bills written in the Republican leader Everett Dirksen’s office. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid--all had seventy votes. I think, from the day this passes, if it should, there will be an instant, spontaneous campaign to repeal it all across the country. It’ll define every Democratic congressional race in November. And it will be a political wipeout for the Democratic Party. That’ll be bad for the country but it will change the leadership of the country.

SCHIEFFER: Just quickly. Robert Gibbs said next Sunday we’ll all be sitting here talking about how health care reform passed. Do you agree with that?

ALEXANDER: I hope he’s wrong. And I hope that the first part of your show is wrong, too. I hope this is not-- this won’t be the end of health care. If it passes, it’ll define the rest of the year in terms of political contests.

SCHIEFFER: All right.

ALEXANDER: If it fails it’ll just begin a different debate.

UPDATE: John Amato

I guess sushi is in style of GOP because Goober Graham is the latest one to use Japanese analogies:

Graham: Pelosi has House Dems 'liquored up on sake' ready for 'suicide run'

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What do you know... John McCain doesn't have to be on a one of his hundreds of appearances on the cable talking head shows to lie through his teeth. McCain with some help from Lamar Alexander conflates the Senate's filibuster rule with using reconciliation for the fixes in the health care bill that already passed with sixty votes.

As Think Progress pointed out, Senator Byrd refuted this talking point from McCain and Alexander last week -- Sen. Byrd Undermines GOP Talking Point That He Opposes Reconciliation:

Over the last few days, Republicans have repeatedly cited Sen. Robert Byrd’s (D-WV) opposition to passing comprehensive health care reform through the reconciliation process as proof that Democrats are skirting Senate rules to “ram through” unpopular legislation. [...]

But as it turns out, Byrd doesn’t oppose using the reconciliation process to pass a small package of fixes to the Senate health care bill. In a letter to the editor published in Thursday’s Charleston Daily Mail, Byrd writes that it’s appropriate to use reconciliation on a package that reduces the deficit.

“I believed then, as now, that the Senate should debate the health reform bill under regular rules, which it did,” Byrd wrote. “The entire Senate- or House- passed health care bill could not and would not pass muster under the current reconciliation rules, which were established under my watch.” “Yet a bill structured to reduce deficits by, for example, finding savings in Medicare or lowering health care costs, may be consistent with the Budget Act, and appropriately considered under reconciliation.”

So now that “the longest-serving member of the Senate” has endorsed the Democrats’ strategy, will Republicans abandon their campaign against majority rule? It’s unlikely.

Well it's a week later and they're still doing it, so not likely indeed.