Tag Archives: Tom Coburn

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Vets get long-needed help from government

It can be stated clearly: Tom Coburn’s greatest public service accomplishment occurred the day he retired from the U.S. Senate.

The Oklahoma Republican — for reasons that remain a mystery to many observers — continually blocked legislation aimed at helping returning veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder that tragically led to suicide.

Coburn is gone from the Senate. So, what did his former colleagues do? They approved a bill — in a 99-0 vote! — that seeks to improve suicide prevention efforts at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It was a stunning display of bipartisan cooperation on an issue that clearly should transcend partisan differences.

As the New York Times noted in an editorial: “The bill calls for regular independent evaluations of the V.A.’s suicide prevention and mental health programs to ensure the most effective approaches are used in its hospitals and clinics. Other provisions include a pilot program to match returning veterans with colleagues whom they can confide in about mental health concerns, and a website to make it easier for veterans and their families to find help. Another provision would help psychiatrists who work for the V.A. repay medical school debt, which could ease the chronic shortage of mental health professionals.”

And yet … Sen. Coburn — using the Senate’s procedural trickery that allows a single senator to block legislation at will — kept this legislation from getting a vote on the floor of the upper congressional chamber.

What’s more, Tom Coburn’s other profession — besides blocking legislation in the Senate — is as a physician. It’s astonishing, therefore, that he would take such an obstructionist view on this issue.

The Senate has turned an important corner and America’s veterans are better served as a result.

 

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Political foes can become friends

These kinds of stories give me hope that all may not be lost in U.S. politics.

Former first lady Barbara Bush says she “loves Bill Clinton.” She might not agree with him politically, but she is truly fond of the 42nd president of the United States, who in 1992 defeated the 41st president — Barbara’s husband, George.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/195946-barbara-bush-i-love-bill-clinton

Democrat President Harry Truman detested his successor, Republican Dwight Eisenhower. They reportedly grew closer as the nation mourned the assassination of Ike’s successor, John F. Kennedy.

GOP President Gerald Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter waged a fierce campaign in 1976. Carter won, but the new president and his immediate predecessor forged a warm friendship that lasted until Ford’s death.

Carter never developed that kind of relationship with Ronald Reagan, who beat him in 1980, nor did Reagan form a bond with Walter Mondale, whom he clobbered four years later in a landslide re-election.

George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s friendship seems to be real. Mrs. Bush talks about her husband becoming the father Clinton never had. She says President Clinton visits the Bushes annually. “We don’t talk politics,” Mrs. Bush says.

You hear about these kind of inter-party friendships from time to time. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, had a warm friendship with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. Talk about coming from differing ideologies, parties, lifestyles, cultures … you name it. Yet they were big-time pals.

One of President Barack Obama’s closest friends in the Senate today is Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. You can list all the differences there, too, and wonder how these men — and their wives — have become so close.

Too little of this kind of camaraderie exists today, with partisans on either side viewing the other guy as the enemy, rather than just a political adversary.

Take a lesson, folks? Given the nastiness of the campaign her husband waged against Bill Clinton, there’s reason to believe you can make nice with your foes.

One word of advice, however: Don’t ask the 41st president his feelings about H. Ross Perot, the third man in that 1992 campaign. His feelings for the Texas billionaire aren’t nearly so magnanimous.

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Sen./Dr. Coburn to leave the Senate

The U.S. Senate is losing one of its more intriguing members early next year.

I’ll miss Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn in ways that I still need to define.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/17/coburn_to_leave_senate_in_early_2015_121275.html

Sen. Coburn is leaving to continue his ongoing battle against prostate cancer. His departure in January 2015 will set off a campaign to replace him in a special election. Don’t look for that seat to flip from Republican to Democrat, given that Oklahoma hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1994.

I’m intrigued by the notion that Coburn is (a) one of the Senate’s most conservative members and (b) one of President Obama’s best friends in the Senate.

How can that be? Aren’t the two parties at bitter odds with each other? Well, apparently Sen. and Mrs. Coburn are quite close to President and Mrs. Obama, owing to the time the men served together in the Senate. I’ve heard over the years that Coburn took young Barack Obama under his wing after the Illinois Democrat was elected in 2004. He showed him the ropes, introduced him around the place, got him acquainted with some of the key players.

Coburn and Obama have been fighting tooth and nail ever since, but they’ve managed to maintain their friendship. It harkens back to the old days on Capitol Hill when political adversaries could avoid becoming enemies.

Coburn, a physician by training, knows the health hazards associated with the disease he is battling.

I wish him well as he continues that fight and hope the relationship he has managed to maintain with a key Democrat — Barack Obama — isn’t lost on his Senate colleagues who’ll stay on to continue their service.

Godspeed, Sen. Coburn.

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Impeachment is near? He must be delusional

What in the name of all that is holy is U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., talking about?

Coburn said this week that the U.S. House of Representatives may be close to impeaching President Obama. The president’s policies, said Coburn, have moved him close to the legal requirements needed for impeachment.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/22/coburn-obama-a-friend-but-his-actions-nearing-grounds-for-impeachment/

As has been the case with some of the lunacy spouted by Republican members of Congress on this subject, Coburn offered no specific allegation — let alone evidence — of any “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Obama administration has committed.

Perhaps just as strange as the impeachment talk has become is the source of the latest mutterings, from Tom Coburn, who calls himself a “personal friend” of the president. Indeed, I recall learning once that when Barack Obama entered the Senate in 2005, the grizzled veteran of the place — Sen. Coburn — took him under his wing and showed him the ropes.

Now this kind of talk?

Impeachment never — not ever — should become a political blood sport. And yet the open talk of this activity is emanating from the fruitcake wing of the Republican majority in the House of Reps. One GOP lawmaker, Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan, recently declared that a House vote to impeach the president of the United States would be a “dream come true.”

What utter crap.

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Dr. Coburn is right about shutdown effect

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn is an Oklahoma Republican who joins his GOP colleagues in hating the Affordable Care Act.

But the man also understands the consequences of shutting down the federal government to make a political point about ending what’s known as Obamacare.

Don’t do it, Sen. Coburn warns.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/313845-coburn-government-shutdown-would-destroy-the-gop

A government shutdown would destroy the Republican Party, he told the Washington Examiner.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has this idea to quit operating the federal government if it results in getting rid of Obamacare. He’s been joined by some of the party firebrands, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Such a shutdown could occur later this year as the White House and congressional Republicans lock horns in their ongoing battle over federal spending.

Someone ought to remind Lee, Cruz and some of the other political pistols on the right that Congress enacted the ACA, which then withstood a challenge in the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in June 2012 that the law is constitutional and it should stand.

Yet the foes persist time and again trying to get rid of a law they contend constitutes a federal overreach.

And now they’re threatening to shut the government down to make their point?

Quick. Put out a call to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who also led a government shutdown in the 1990s. The shutdown helped doom Gingrich’s speakership.

What’s that saying about the consequences of ignoring the lessons of history?