Comity is nice, but let’s not have any illusions about who’s running the show these days. These comments from Tom Coburn seem sure to attract attention:

While discussing his policy disagreements with Pelosi Coburn said “she’s a nice lady,” which brought hisses and hoots from the crowd. But Coburn flatly rejected the crowd’s animosity towards the liberal Speaker.
“Come on now. She is nice – how many of you all have met her? She’s a nice person,” Coburn said as he went on to lecture the crowd about civility.
“Just because somebody disagrees with you dodn’t (sic) mean they’re not a good person,” Coburn said. “I’ve been in the Senate for five years and I’ve taken a lot of that, because I’ve been on the small side –- both in the Republican Party and the Democrat Party.”
Myths of Fox News
“What we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what’s going on and make a determination yourself,” Coburn added and then again warned the crowd against the myths perpetrated on FOX News.
“So don’t catch yourself being biased by FOX News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don’t know what they don’t know,” Coburn said.

I’m glad that Coburn gets along well enough with Pelosi to think of her as a nice lady. But with all due respect to one of the Right’s favorite senators, I think a lot of folks in Congress are bad people, or at least power-mad jackasses.

I don’t doubt that the world, and indeed the halls of Congress, have plenty of Democrats who are good people. Back when I was a tadpole reporter at Congressional Quarterly, no lawmaker was more patient about answering questions from a green and nervous rookie than New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler. (Perhaps it was because he couldn’t outrun me.) In my wire-service days, few lawmakers were more easygoing, straightforward, or generous with their time than Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Bill Pascrell of New Jersey.

But from where I sit, the legislation they have enacted and seek to enact is really, really harmful.

And would anyone dispute that more than a few are uninformed, ignorant, arrogant, and unworthy of the offices they hold? Phil Hare seems irritated that anyone would even raise the question of whether the health-care bill is constitutional. John Conyers thinks the health-care bill is justified under the “Good and Welfare Clause.” (Don’t worry, he only chairs the Judiciary Committee.) Charlie Rangel doesn’t seem to think it’s all that important that the guy who chairs the panel that writes tax policy pays all of his taxes. Baron Hill seems to think he’s a tough guy telling some college student she can’t record his town-hall meeting.

This isn’t partisan; I’m not fond of David Vitter staying in the Senate — didn’t he violate the law? — and Nathan Deal quitting Congress early to shut down an ethics probe smells like last month’s unrefrigerated seafood. If the Republicans who know John Ensign best are telling the truth, they describe a man who has grown “narcissistic and reckless – a detached, self-righteous figure with almost no regard for those who helped send him to Washington or keep him there.”

We hear a lot of talk about work horses and show horses on Capitol Hill, but the whole place is starting to resemble the Augean stables. Coburn’s a fundamentally decent guy, who clearly wants everyone to see the best in every member of Congress, on both sides of the aisle. But a lot of these folks have earned their public scorn.