Republican Exodus from EPW Hearing

If you can't beat them, leave them

Twelve senators asked questions at this mornings hearings on the Kerry-Boxer bill. By the time they got to Senator Whitehouse (D, RI), number 10, all the Republicans had left the hearing. (He noted this, saying to the panelist: "The fact that every single one of our Republican colleagues has departed ... shows how difficult" the process is going to be. (You can read a full run down of the Q & A session in this earlier post, here.) Daniel Stone, on Newsweek's The Gaggle, was forced to conclude the following:

Timing can often be unpredictable in committee hearings and most members keep strict schedules, so several empty seats on their own are not terribly newsworthy. But zero Republicans present to hear four cabinet secretaries shines light on the depth of the partisan disconnect on a climate-and-energy bill.

I'm no expert on parliamentary niceties, but it did seem a bit rude. The rest of Mr. Stone's analysis is here.