As the intense health care debate currently being waged on Capitol Hill winds down, the traditional collegiality of the Senate appears to be evaporating. Replacing it is a feeling of intense partisanship, which the Washington Post's Ezra Klein calls "heartlessly ferocious."

A particularly heated exchange took place last night. As senators prepared for a major vote on health reform, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma called on Americans to pray that a Democratic colleague would be unable to make it to the floor so that the bill could not reach the needed 60-vote threshold. Coburn, a member of Washington's controversial C Street Christian Bible study group, stepped up to the microphone on the Senate floor and requested a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

Predictably, many took offense to Coburn's remark, which many think was aimed squarely at ailing 92-year-old Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia. When it came his turn to speak, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., lashed out at Coburn for "invoking God's name in prayer for political purposes...to wish misfortune on one of our colleagues." Saying that he was troubled by what Coburn had said, Durbin also called on him to return to the floor to "explain exactly what he meant," an invitation Coburn did not accept.

Coburn's controversial prayer request is the latest in a string of recent incidents that led Gawker to suggest that the Senate was turning into a "reality show."

Last week Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., caused a minor uproar when he refused to grant Connecticut's Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman's request for additional time during a floor speech. Saying he'd never seen such a denial in his 20-plus years in the Senate, Sen. John McCain scolded, "I don't know what's happening here in this body, but I think it's wrong."

On Sunday, Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., delivered what the Washington Post slammed as an "overwrought jeremiad" of a floor speech, in which the freshman senator compared "the Republicans to Nazis on Kristallnacht, lynch mobs of the South, and bloodthirsty crowds of the French Revolution." All of this led Politico to opine over the weekend that the senators were "cooped up" and "cranky" due to the "cabin fever" that had apparently set in after the long hours working on the bill in the snow-covered nation's capital.

In the end, however, the cranky senators voted and Coburn's prayers went unanswered. Sen. Byrd was wheeled into the chamber by an aide shortly before 1 a.m. Monday morning, where he cast his "aye" vote before exuberantly pumping his left fist in the air. The Democratic health care reform bill passed the first of three important cloture votes on a straight partisan vote.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1039

Republican attitudes!

If we can't obstruct any other way we'll just pray something bad overcomes Senator Byrd so he can't vote.

How Humane!

Yeah. That's a bit much.

Kinda like a Dem senator who, in his speech on the Senate floor, said something to the effect that if you don't support the bill, you belong to an Aryan group...lmao

I missed that.
Do you have a link?

I'll see if I can find one.

may take me a bit.

Here we go.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/dec/20/sen-whitehouse-foes-health-care-bill-are-birthers-/

Complete with C Span video.

That is a bit much and uncalled for, but it's not entirely wrong. Nor is it praying to God for something terrible to happen to another Senator.

Perhaps what Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma was doing when he asked, "Americans to pray that a Democratic colleague would be unable to make it to the floor so that the bill could not reach the needed 60-vote threshold," could be considered a call to "fanatics in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups," and others!

Perhaps the fine Senator Whitehouse was not exactly wrong.

He definitely didn't ask for Americans to pray for God to smite a colleague.

No. He didn't.

I just don't care for his implications.

just because I don't agree with the bill in it's entirety, doesn't lump me into any of the groups or fanatics he mentioned.

He should have just taken the victory, shut his mouth and left well enough alone.

But, no. He had to go out on the floor, seemingly forgetting that CSpan was recording, and run his mouth. Making the Dems look even worse than they already do.

The sniping coming from the Senate is ridiculous.

Yeah, he shouldn't have said all those who don't support it.

Stll Coburns comments are far worse and unforgiving.
They may even demonstrate that Whitehouse's comments weren't entirely wrong.

The only problem I see with that is the fact that Coburn didn't actually " call out " Byrd with his comments.

Dems inferred that he was talking about Byrd....but Coburn never indicated that he was. He could have been referring to any one of the 60 Democrats.

I won't try to make apologies for his comments. They were, indeed, out of line. But, in my opinion, Whithouse was just as guilty of a misplacement of words and inferences.

I think there is a grand-canyon standing between the two comments!

That is nothing more than perception.

When looked at based on the words alone, and not on the insinuations made by others, while Coburn's may have been in seriously bad taste considering Byrd's age and condition, Whitehouse's comments were just as bad if taken in context.

I will not forgive Coburn his comments anymore than I will Whitehouse for his.

I think Coburns comments were a living example that Whitehouse's comment was at least partially justified!

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

Come on!!! That is a bit much.

How does anyone know what Senator Colburn was asking for in prayer? That is insinuating, which I have usually found to be wrong…especially from someone with an opposite view.

If he was wanting the vote to wait until a later time, perhaps he was praying that someone might oversleep or forget in order to have more time…

How do they know what was on his mind??? Did he mention Sen. Byrd at all????

This is exactly why I find both of their comments to be pretty much equal.

so what's the spin when bush said God personally told him to invade Iraq?

maybe someone or something did tell George W., devil works in mysterious ways.

What does that have to do with this topic??