I’m told that Sen. Cornyn did make a point about Byrd’s argument about “free speech” on the floor today: “The distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia has been in the Senate a long time. Much of his service he is justly proud of. But one of the dangers of being in the Senate for a long time is that you go on record making statements which have the potential of contradicting one’s current statements. Indeed, that has been the case when it comes to the senior Senator from West Virginia.
“For example, the very procedure which he now decries as nuking free speech, he himself championed in 1977, in 1979, in 1980, in 1987. Hardly can it be true that today trying to reinstate majority rule as he himself did on those four occasions on the dates of the years mentioned, hardly can that be nuking free speech. In fairness, he ought to concede what we are doing is nothing radical. Indeed, it is doing the same thing he himself did four times earlier.”