The Infield Gadfly Rule

Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game against the New York Mets on June 21, 1964. He struck out Jim Hickman, the leadoff batter, three times. Hickman, a lifetime .252 hitter, was the first Met to hit for the cycle, and later had a few good years with the Cubs, but on that June day in 1964, he was a picture of futility. Jim Bunning, it should be noted, went on to amass a total of 2,855 strikeouts and a career ERA of 3.27. He is one of only five pitchers to throw no-hitters in both leagues and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. So far, so good.

After retirement from baseball, Bunning pursued a second career in politics and was elected to serve as the Representative from Kentucky's 4^th District in 1986. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998 at the age of 67. At 67, if they can afford it, most people are thinking about slowing down and enjoying the years they have left without the pressure of deadlines or shirts with collars. By 77, many people cannot remember who played in the Super Bowl last year and a statistically significant percentage cannot remember why they are standing in the backyard at 3:00 in the morning in their underwear holding a turkey baster and a Bible. Senator Bunning is now 78 years old, which by itself does not disqualify him as an intelligent, rational person, but there is a reason that the DMV makes people over 70 come in for an actual driving test.

So recently, Senator Bunning came to the attention of the national media by virtue of his opposition to a $10 billion spending bill which would have, among other things, granted further extension of unemployment benefits to those Americans whose payments were about to expire. Senator Bunning filibustered the bill, ostensibly because it would have to be funded through borrowing. Senator Bunning has nine children (which, for purposes of full disclosure, I must confess I believe to be a criminal act of disregard for the biosphere) and 40 grandchildren, and he doesn't want them to be burdened with paying the mountain of national debt we are continually accumulating, which doesn't sound terribly monstrous as far as reasons for filibusters go. The filibuster, by the way, an interestingly idiosyncratic feature of the U.S. Senate, is apparently intended to allow a significant minority to prevent a modest majority from doing anything. Given the legislation the Senate tends to pass, this is probably not as ridiculous as it might at first seem, but what is interesting about Senator Bunning's use of the filibuster in this instance is, as Sherlock Holmes puts it, "the dog that didn't bark".

Senator Bunning has voted to approve a veritable cornucopia of spending bills in his career in the House and the Senate, although, in fairness, he has probably voted against a few as well, but I am not familiar with him being a consistent crusader against the Federal Government borrowing money. He has supported borrowing fantastical amounts of money to fund wars and things to be used in wars and he has never filibustered a bill reducing taxes because there was no associated reduction in government spending, so a reasonable person could conjecture as to why this particular bill was the one upon which Senator Bunning chose to take a stand. Senator Bunning is known to say things publically which a lot of people find offensive, often including members of his own party. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, there tends to be a relatively consistent theme of nativism and xenophobia to much of the Senator's public musing and one gets the impression he was much more comfortable with the America that existed back in his glory days with the Phillies. Maybe Senator Bunning agrees with his fellow traveler and intellectual luminary Tom Delay (currently awaiting trial on money laundering charges in Texas) that unemployment benefits just make people enjoy being unemployed, or perhaps the Senator has just never been unemployed and doesn't have a frame of reference for the issue, or maybe he thinks it is not the province of government to protect citizens from destitution during times of economic peril; who knows.

Anyway, whether you support or oppose Senator Bunning's position on the recent spending bill, the issue of our nation's profligate spending and incomprehensibly gargantuan debt is real and critical. We currently are in the position of contemplating a lit fuse while sitting astride an explosive heap of financial liability that will surely blast America back to 1929, if not a few thousand years farther, and our elected representatives do nothing but bicker incessantly over changes that only modestly address a small percentage of the real problems. Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neal are the principle architects of this idiotic system, may they both languish in hell, as they forged a pact with the Devil to fund an unprecedented projection of American military power throughout the world at the same time they expanded the social safety net to encompass broader and broader segments of society and gave tax breaks to everyone who could possibly influence a minimum of 76 votes in any election. They did succeed in frightening the Soviet Union so badly that it peed its pants and had to quit the game, and they did spend America out of what was at the time the most severe recession since the 1930's, but they established the pattern of denying the day of reckoning and making it easy on the voters by relieving them of the responsibility of choosing between conflicting priorities, thereby guaranteeing future failures, like the fine kettle of fish we are in now.

Of course, as always, the fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our dead heroes, but in ourselves. We are in charge now, and Senator Bunning's non sequitur filibuster ad hoc assault on the unemployed victims of failed government regulation and Wall Street's orgy of greed is not the answer. Neither is endless war, tax cuts for the super rich, welfare for the banks, nor the vague, unarticulated sense that government is supposed to protect us from all ill fortune from the cradle to the grave. Personally, I would prefer my tax dollars go to feeding poor children, repairing national infrastructure, educating citizens of all ages, basic scientific research, space exploration and environmental preservation, but I am willing to consider supporting any reasonable compromise that allows America to have a continued positive role in world affairs, preserves the dignity of human life in our country and ensures that my toilet keeps flushing. I will work with the Tea Party Party, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, party apparatchiks and even that disgusting bastard Joe Lieberman to find a solution, but hypocrisy and delusion have to be off the table. We are not going to hate and blame our way out of the consequences of our own selfishness and irresponsibility. Senator Bunning can huff and puff all he wants, but intermittently tilting at unassailable windmills is not a coherent program; we need some adults in charge in the nation's Capitol.

Thomas Jefferson was a complex fellow, although admittedly he didn't live in the same world we inhabit now, but I surmise he was a pretty bright dude, and perhaps, of all the Founding Fathers, he was the closest to the voice of modern America that emerges when we allow ourselves a moment of quiet reflection with the TV turned off. Jefferson said that "the public revenues are a portion that each subject gives of his property in order to secure or enjoy the remainder. To fix their revenues in a proper manner, regard should be had both to the necessities of the state and to those of the subject. The real wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the state". I don't think that the real wants of the people have been addressed in this nation for quite some time, perhaps because we have allowed ourselves to lose focus, to be ruled by temporary emotion, or maybe because we are cynical or apathetic, or both, but I don't think this country wants war, racism, high infant mortality, and crappy sewer lines. We do want people to mind their own damn business, we want a sense of security for ourselves and optimism for the prospects of our children, clean drinking water and polite public discourse, and yes, extended unemployment benefits, because we care about our friends, families and fellow citizens. We also want to get out of hock to the Chinese and have a few dollars put away for a rainy day, and I think we are willing to drive smaller cars, open a savings account (at the credit union), recycle, tear up the charge cards and eat more meals at home while listening to our families drone on and on around the dinner table if that's what it takes to set things right. We just have to find some way to choose new leadership without legitimizing extremism and inviting recrimination, and I'll wager there will be a lot of hurt feelings before it's over. The people of Kentucky can certainly start by sending Senator Bunning to the showers and bringing in a closer. The self-righteous hypocrite pitch is often ineffective in these late innings.