Obstruction has consequences

While it surely would have been more useful if he had taken this tack from the start, it's good to see Harry Reid cracking the whip with an announcement that the Senate will have to work right up to January 4, 2011. Predictably the Republicans are whining about how mean he's being to make them, you know, do their job and work on legislation. But this complaint is priceless:

Mr. Kyl said that Mr. Reid’s effort to do too much was inconsiderate of the Senate as an institution and also of senators, staff and their families hoping to celebrate Christmas.

Mr. Kyl added, “ It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out without doing — frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff.”

So after slowing the Senate to a crawl with endless procedural roadblocks for the last two years, now the workload is too ambitious and mean old Harry is disrespecting the sanctimony of Christmas? Didn't notice him complaining that the Jewish members had to work through their high holy days. Not to mention the majority of Americans only get the one day off themselves. And gee whiz, our Congresscreatures are so overworked. I mean they only get a week or so at every federal holiday, the Easter break, the spring break, the summer break and the fall campaign break.

I wonder if anybody has a running count of how many days these folks are actually on the Hill in the course of a year? Taxpayers would likely get a better deal if we only paid them per diem for the days they're actually in session.