Listening to
MPR today I heard
Perry Finelli read a quote from John McCain that I found so insipid, I had to see if he actually said it.
And he did:
- Said McCain, addressing Vitter, "Call it a banana if you want to...to call the process that we require under this legislation amnesty frankly distorts the debate and it’s an unfair interpretation of it."
I stopped admiring Old John a while ago, but for some reason this line really seals my dislike of him. It has nothing to do with the policy they're debating. It's just...is that the best he could do? A banana?
Abramoff ally David Vitter (R-LA; in my mind I can't help but pronounce his name "vittle") wins some English-major points with his reply:
- Vitter sought the last word. “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
Of course, he only gets partial credit for that: first of all, he misquoted the line from
Hamlet. It actually goes, "The lady protests too much, methinks." It's a
common mistake, though pulling "thou" out of thin air seems uniquely pompous. Anyway, my other qualm with Vittle's response is that by mangling the quote, he missed a perfectly good opportunity to refer to McCain as "the lady."
