In the midst of a 30-hour Republican-backed debate in the U.S. Senate, Iowa Democrat Senator Tom Harkin says the G-O-P is playing a game of hypocrisy and double-standards in what he calls a “gab-a-thon.” Republicans are angered Democrats are holding up four of President Bush’s judicial nominees, but Harkin says Republicans held up 68 of President Clinton’s nominees a few years ago.Harkin says Republicans are trying to deflect the public view away from their inability to “get anything done around here.” He says Democrats are ready to work on several remedies to cure the nation’s ailing economy, what Harkin describes as the “worst economy since Herbert Hoover.”Harkin was seen on C-Span last night holding a sign that read “I’ll be home watching The Bachelor” as Republicans marched into the chambers. At the White House this morning, President Bush accused Democrat senators of playing “ugly politics” by holding up some of his court nominees. Harkin says the four nominees are “outside the mainstream” and are not the real issue, which he says is about unemployment, health care or a higher minimum wage. Senator Grassley slept on a couch in his office last night and says Democrats are using tactics that violate the Constitution. Harkin disagrees, saying when Republicans halted then-President Clinton’s nominees in committee, they called it a “hold,” not a filibuster. Harkin says the G-O-P is playing “word games” and “semantics.”
