Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell was a key legislative aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. From 1989 to 1991, he served as senior advisor to Senator Moynihan. From 1992 to 1993, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, then chaired by Senator Moynihan. From 1993 to 1995, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Finance, once again under Senator Moynihan’s chairmanship. O'Donnell has a deep respect for the history of the U.S. Senate and knows its institutional norms.
In his Rewrite segment on Tuesday, Lawrence O'Donnell heaped much-deserved opprobrium on Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) for their cowardly votes last week to filibuster to death consideration of the Manchin-Toomey background checks amendment.
O'Donnell was particularly incensed at freshman Arizona Senator Jeff Flake after learning of his hand-written letter to Caren Teves that I posted about previously. Key passage:
So this freshman Republican hand-writes a letter telling a grieving
mother that strengthening background checks is ‘something we agree
on.’ And then he walks into the Senate chamber and raises his hand to
vote against strengthening background checks –- even though he had
political cover from the senior Senator from Arizona who was voting for
background checks.Freshman Senator Jeff Flake rewrote himself on the
spot, and voted against background checks. He rewrote this letter on the spot. He voted against Caren Teves. He voted
against the family that he said in his letter “will be in my thoughts
and prayers."Now I have seen Senators do a lot of cowardly things, hypocritical things, but I have never seen anything like this. I have never seen anything like this letter and that vote.
Video replay.
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