The Other McCain

The latest news:

The House on Monday approved bipartisan legislation to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and reduce long-term budget deficits, endorsing the agreement President Obama struck with Republican leaders. . . .
The bill now heads for a Tuesday vote in the Senate . . .
The vote was 269-161, as Republicans largely carried the measure over the opposition of a majority of the Democratic Caucus. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) backed the bill, as did Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), but neither leader made a public effort to win Democratic support. . . .

We will have the roll call momentarily.

UPDATE: While awaiting the roll call, we will note the Lonely Conservative’s observation that this is “the largest debt ceiling increase in the history of the United States.”

Yeah, what a triumph for those Tea Party “terrorists,” huh? “We got nothing,” as Norah says — but who is this “we”?

UPDATE II: Fredo denies using the “T-word”:

Vice President Joe Biden tells CBS News that published reports that he compared Tea Party-linked lawmakers to “terrorists” during a closed-door meeting Monday are “absolutely not true.”
“I did not use the terrorism word,” Biden told CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Scott Pelley.

If Joe Biden says it, buddy, you can take that to the bank!

UPDATE III: Wait — this is the roll call? This? “To make a technical amendment to the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002”? The roll call on this gargantuan monstrosity is recorded as a vote on “a technical amendment”?

Please tell me I’ve got the wrong roll call, because this seems like some kind of sick joke.

UPDATE IV: Informed friends tell me that this is indeed the roll call, the measure having been brought to a vote in the House as a “technical amendment” to a Senate bill, in order to expedite passage once the Senate votes on it.

So . . . 66 Republicans voted “no” and 95 Democrats voted “aye,” which makes it the Great Bipartisan Screw-Over of 2011.

Remember that we are prepared to meet all your “bipartisan compromise” lubrication needs.

UPDATE V: The New York Times:

On the Senate floor on Monday, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said: “People on the right are upset. People on the left are upset. People in the middle are upset.”
But he called it a “remarkable agreement which will protect the long-term health of our economy.”

And let’s call out a few names of the radical Tea Party extremists who voted for it in the House: James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) . . .

Yep, just like Joe Biden said: “Terrorists”!

UPDATE VI: Ed Driscoll on Obama and the “terrorist” vote.

UPDATE VII: Rounding up the “calm, rational rhetoric,” Jimmie Bise Jr. reminds us of the Missouri Democrat who said Republicans had allowed “a small number of extremists to take the House of Representatives and the economy of the world as hostages.”

That was Rep. William Clay — who voted for the final bill!