From The Rachel Maddow Show April 27, 2009.
MADDOW: As the Republican Party searches for meaning in the political minority, Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire has taken the paranoid hyperbole baton and sprinting with it. Sen. Gregg is all hot that President Obama‘s healthcare reform might be brought up under Senate budget reconciliation rules.
What does that mean? It means that it could pass with a majority vote rather than allowing the Republicans to require a 60-vote supermajority. The man who was almost Obama‘s commerce secretary said about that decision, quote, “I can understand shaking Hugo Chavez‘s hand, but I can‘t understand embracing his politics.”
Of course, Sen. Gregg himself embraced majority rule, the same South American dictatorial politics of constitutionally-approved majority rules back in 2005, when it was President Bush wanting to use those rules to open up the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge for drilling. At that point, he was all for it. You know, Judd Gregg was about half a hair from being Obama‘s commerce secretary. That is the definition of a near-miss.
