"Our group seeks to work collaboratively with the Obama administration and Senate leadership to make sure legislation is crafted in a practical way that will solve people's problems," Bayh said in a statement
"Our strong preference would be to work with our committee leaders, to work with leadership, to make sure that our considerations are taken into account in the bills that are formed in the committees before they get to the floor so that it would be a cooperative relationship. We would much prefer that. The difficulty comes when things are just handed down without taking into account the point of view of some of us," Bayh explained.
In an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday morning, Mr. Bayh said the group had not yet come up with a name. "Call us the Practical Caucus, or what have you," Mr. Bayh said.
More: "Leading the new group are Democratic Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Tom Carper of Delaware and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas... [O]thers joining the group are Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mark Udall of Colorado, and Mark Warner of Virginia."
However, Bayh also makes it clear that a group that seeks to accomplish things, which has preferences, considerations and points of view that it wants taken into account in the U.S. Senate, whose members can all be described in at least five ways, and whom are all taken from the Democratic caucus of the U.S. Senate, does not actually have an agenda:
"We literally have no agenda," Bayh shot back. "How can they be threatened by a group that has taken no policy positions?"
Well Senator Bayh, how can you be for a group, and in fact organize a group, that has no agenda? And anyway, if you don't have an agenda, then how was the group even formed? Was it a random lottery of United States citizens that just happened to select 15 people who were all members of the Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate? If the group has no agenda, then how was your press release for the group constructed? Was it a dada production where newspapers were cut up, and words were glued randomly to the page? And if the group has no agenda, then should we expect all future votes from the group members to be completely random in nature?
One of the most difficult things to deal with in politics is just how stupid the discourse can be at times. In this case, I'm not even talking about the difference in values, the mountainous problems the country faces, or the enormous institutions that are difficult to influence. In this case, it is just the stupidity that is irksome. That people constantly claim to have no agenda and no ideology is one of the dumbest claims of all, and Bayh's insistence upon it in this case is an all-time whopper. He just formed a new group, presented the group's purpose and goals, and then claimed the group had no agenda. Aaarrsggghhh!!
What is even worse is just how often stupidity like this actually wins.
