I note that Tom Delay never apologized for his shenanigans. While there appears to have been some political gaming, at least we've thought better of it.

Watching the Republicans perform was like watching the Italian or Argentine teams in the most recent World Cup playoffs - one brush past and the player is on the ground writhing in "pain." The problem is that an unfortunate number of voters share the gullibility of the referees and are too quick to pass out penalties.

To Jeff Alworth: You summed it up pretty well, except for your conclusion.

Procedure is extremely important in a democracy. If procedure is not followed then trust is diminished if not destroyed.

Trust is the currency of the realm.

The hammering of the gavel is key.

At the hammering of the gavel it was 213 to 215 to send the bill back to committee to strike the offending language (ambiguous in the best light) to make it explicit that illegal aliens can't get welfare.

In the example you cited, the gavel never came down (vote held open).

If, as you say, illegal aliens were never allowed to get welfare, under the Democratic language, what was the big deal to change the language to satisfy Republican and (a minority of) Democratic concern?

On the video you present (thanks) the viewer can't see the board that said 213-215 at the time the gavel was struck.

How important is process to you?

What would you feel like if your issue was frustrated because the other side didn't honor the process to be followed beforehand?

A significant number if not outright majority of rank and file Democrats don't want illegal aliens to get welfare. So are you O.K. with the Democratic leadership flouting the rules?

I appreciate the apology made, but an apology can only go so far when there is a refusal to undo the behavior which gave rise to the apology.

But Jeff, at least you didn't sweep it under the rug, as all the major news media did.

You deserve credit.

Now only if the House Democratic Leadership understood that when you apologize, actions speak louder than words.

Jeff:
Possibly so, that's politics. Republicans certainly wanted the moment remembered.

But also, once the Leadership put the grip on their members, and stamped "Leadership" on the vote, the deal was done.

Before the "grip" it appears it was "an individual conscious" vote.

But no, leadership decided it was a party loyalty vote, so a few newbies quickly got with the program.

Why did that have to be a loyalty vote?

And why did they decide to pull party rank at the moment the gavel came down.

Think ahead next time, and don't jerk the Republicans around that way.

That's why the apology was given.

And now Republicans have an issue, if they can make it stick, and I bet they try and succeed...Time will tell how much.

Paul: I was indifferent because I had mixed feelings. The prescription drug bill has helped seniors afford their medications, but at a huge cost to the the budget that will only go up, and it was sold as being less expensive than it really was.

But as I recall that was a bi-partisan bill.

It was Republicans against the bill who got screwed, not Democrats who were generally for the measure.

Conference committee? Not equivalent to fudging a vote, although I can understand why Democrats were steamed.

Hopefully, tit for tat doesn't spiral into something more dangerous to an orderly, democratic process that builds comity in the U. S. House of Represenitives.

After all, didn't Democrats promise to be better than the Republicans were?

Apparently, not this time.

je writes: "After all, didn't Democrats promise to be better than the Republicans were?

<h2>Apparently, not this time."</h2>

Well, duh! The Dems past words are different than their current actions.

But, hey, let's be fair. It is not like the Republican's deeds matched their words, either. Once in power, they dumped their words for their actions, until their base walked away, and they lost big time. (the party of limited government? bwaaaahaaahaaaa!)

So now it is the Dems turn at holding power, and they are behaving just as badly. Is it any surprise, given that power corrupts absolutely?

Only the koolaid drinkers would deny the obvious. The Dems are hardly any different than the Reps. Of couse, the koolaid drinkers will come out and refute the unrefutable.

I monitored the siutation pretty closely and had have drawn some conlusions. First of all the republicans caused more trouble then should have been made. I do believe that the mistake on the health insurance vote was a mistake. Thats what happens when you have a Speaker Pro Tempe, some dont know the rules as well as others and make mistakes. I do beleive that the House Leadership didnt do a good enough job of taking control of the problems. For example while the voting machines were down the Leadership didnt take a big vote while as the republicans caucus correctly pointed out they could still vote. I think that the ball was dropped by all sides and that come Septamber I hope the democratic leadership wont drop the ball. We can whine about all we want about the stall tactics used by the republicans but the Majority Leadership better start figuring out how to get their agenda through even with the stall tactics.

Oh, no! Democrats are doomed in 2008. As soon as Republicans explain that a particular procedural rule that makes no difference in the outcome may not have been followed to the letter on one occassion out of hundreds, the nation will mobilize behind the Republican party.

After all, nothing matters to the average voter as much as slavish devotion to the minutiae of parliamentary procedure.

To Bert Lowry:

It's a shame you have that attitude, though, not to be unexpected.

Process matters, and I don't think you would prattle on, if your rights were being violated.

Mr. Lowry:"if it's not my rights, I don't give a s@#t."

Ya, it's just whining when the other side gets screwed.

Our democratic process starts with the rule of law.

"...slavish devotion to the minutia..." Sorry, stealing a vote isn't "minutia".

Bert how long have you been drinking the "might makes right" Kool-Aid? Good thing all Democrats aren't like that.

I saw quite a bit of this because I was monitoring the progress of the energy and FISA bills. The Dem leadership just had a very bad 48 hours due to sloppy floor management. McNulty's gaveling the vote to a close prematurely was just one of several incidents. I have a feeling the leadership will tighten the ship after the recess. Just because the Republicans broke their own rules all the time and altered the House journal frequently doesn't give any license to the Democrats to do the same. And really, they don't need to, since the majority has significant reach and flexibility, and if mistakes happen as they sometimes do, there are remedies. In the McNulty case it would have been to send the bill back to committee for a pro forma vote, and then run it back through the floor on Saturday, since the Republicans never had the votes to begin with.

The real tragedy this weekend was the cave-in by the Senate Democrats on FISA. Here I give a lot of credit to the House leadership, who stood up to the pressure as long as they could, and forced the Republicans into full Whine and Stamp Our Little Feet mode on Saturday since they held the House approval of the Senate bill until after the energy bill was cleared, leaving Roy Blunt fuming that the Republic would be in serious danger because the White House had to wait six more hours to unleash the bureaucratic eavesdropping bloodhounds.

In essence, the White House got away with a bluff. Again. That's much more important than the wrangling about the early gavel and "Enough is enough."

Voters really won't care about this particular procedural snafu, if there even was one. And Republicans aren't going to make much headway fake-crying like spoiled little kids.

<h2>I doubt seriously whether any of you can drop your own allegiances long enough to think about this, but here goes ---we are plagued with a disfunctional Congress on both sides of the aisle. This is the worst collection of skunks I have seen in many many years of American politics. They are so busy trying to cultivate political power and continue their feeding at the public trough that necessary business goes unaddressed and unfinished. Speaks big for term limits! Keeping some of these characters in for 20-35 years is a crime considering what they have done for this country. Unfortunately they have spread much of their poison to their party members who seem incapable of making unbiased judgements on their own. THINK IT OVER!</h2>