As Arizona junior Sen. Jon Kyl's staff puts it, in his segment on Fox News last night, the Senator "explains... the games being played by congressional Democrats...." Actually, the staff got it a bit more accurately when they titled the video "Inside a Game of Chicken" - because it takes two (at least) to play "chicken".
Kyl spends the first part of the interview mocking the Democrats (prodded by host Greta Van Susteren) for having the votes in the House and the Senate before they can "get serious about negotiating". He finally tells Greta that he is - against his usual inclinations - defending the President in holding the meeting earlier this week, and that he understands why the Democrats have to hold these votes before they can negotiate.
He then ruins the possible we-can-compromise moment by reiterating that while the Democrats will be ready to negotiate next week, the Republicans won't budge. "Game of Chicken", indeed.
By the way, Greta did try to get Kyl to budge off his line by noting that, in fairness to the Democrats, the GOP Senators have already written a letter saying they wouldn't budge.
As for the START treaty, Kyl is trying to soften the picture a bit by stressing that there will not be any harm to national security if it does get pushed back (because of the Democrats' tax cut extending delay) to next year.
We welcome your comments about this post. Or, if you have something unrelated on your mind, please e-mail to info-at-arizonaspolitics-dot-com. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment