There is on YouTube an hilarious video, drawn from C-SPAN2, of Max Baucus on the Senate floor denouncing his Republican colleagues and even more emphatically the Republican leadership for squelching attempts at what he piously describes as bipartisan healthcare reform.
The senior Senator from Montana has obviously had a snootful; he is having considerable difficulty in managing the English language; and he is evidently as mad as a wet hen.
I do not blame Baucus – neither for the excessive imbibing nor for being angry. He is now in a pickle. He was the point man for the Democrats’ healthcare initiative in the Senate, and for perfectly predicable reasons his constituents out in Montana are none too happy with him.
In the meantime, Baucus has been caught in the limelight trying to install his live-in girlfriend Melodee Hanes as a federal district attorney, and evidence has come to light that – some months before his wife of twenty-five years became aware that a divorce was even contemplated – he was meeting with a divorce lawyer, and the lady he now lives with (then a member of his Senate staff and married herself) was in attendance as well.
It is, of course, perfectly possible that this last tidbit is indicative of nothing and that there was no hanky-panky going on. But Baucus’s constituents may have trouble imagining why Melodee Hanes should have been there unless she was – how shall I say? – an interested party.
