Sen Baucus drunk on Senate floor

[spursncowboys]

M5Y9X5ggxzA

[Winehole23]

Fine by me.

[jman3000]

Except he's not. What's funny/sad is you probably believe it.

[jman3000]

It's nice to see what "Rising above the fray" actually looks like. Quite enlightening if I say so myself.

[Winehole23]

Except he's not. What's funny/sad is you probably believe it.Season's greetings, j-man. Long time no see.

[ploto]

Montana Sen. Max Baucus, the lawmaker at the center of the congressional health care reform debate, finds himself in the middle of another squall: He's the subject of an anonymous accusation that he was drunk while speaking on the Senate floor last week — a claim the senator adamantly denies.

In a video posted on YouTube, an animated and angry Baucus excoriates Republican leaders for pressuring senators of their own party to abandon bipartisan consensus on health care. The Senate passed a sweeping health reform measure 60-39 on Christmas Eve along party lines with all Democrats, including Baucus, backing it.

Two days before the vote, Baucus took to the floor after Republican senators invoked the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's name, saying the Massachusetts Democrat who fought so long for health care expansion would never have tried to ram health care legislation through without making sure Republicans were part of the plan.

Looking fatigued after days of managing the health care debate on the Senate floor, Baucus defended Democrats' efforts to craft a bill and attacked Republicans who he said had tried to quash cooperation.

"One of the senators on the floor here said: 'Let's make health care Obama's Waterloo.' They did not want to work with us, that side of the aisle," Baucus said. "They did not want to work with us because they thought it was better to make a political statement: Attack the bill, attack the bill, attack the bill, attack the bill in order to make political points for the 2010 election. That is what they were trying to do."

The next day, an anonymous person using the Internet moniker "SocialistsSteal" posted a five-minute, 39-second video clip of the senator's speech on You Tube headlined, "Senator Max Baucus Drunk/intoxicated on Senate Floor." The clip went viral, linked by a number of conservative Web sites, including the Drudge Report.

SocialistsSteal's profile page describes the poster as a 40-year-old from Carson City, Nev., who supports 2008 presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, and lists "Crusader Against Fascism and Socialism Crap" under occupation.

Baucus' office vehemently denied the charge of intoxication and said it shows how visceral the debate over health care reform has become.

"When his friend of 30 years, Ted Kennedy, with whom he had fought so hard to provide health care to children, was being used as a cheap foil to oppose health care reform, Sen. Baucus gave a passionate defense," Baucus spokesman Ty Matsdorf said in a statement issued Monday.

"Unfortunately, those who want to kill any meaningful reform turned it into an unfounded, untrue, personal-smear Internet rumor. This is beyond the pale, and this type of gutter politics has no place in the public sphere," Matsdorf said.

"It is this type of slander that makes Montanans, and Americans, disgusted with the politics as usual in Washington. And what is even more sad is that such a personal attack would be given any validity at all, let alone being elevated to the status of 'news'."

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20091229/NEWS01/912290309/Baucus+camp++Blog+claims+are++type+of+slander+