Congressional quarterly reports on the phantom signature
CQ was reporting on something interesting regarding the situation with Senator Johnson and his continued recuperation. Apparently he's being allowed to sign of on meetings he isn't attending as he continues his convalescence:
Sen. Tim Johnson wasn’t at Monday’s meeting of Iraq War spending conferees, but his signature was.Read it all here.
and...
“When they passed the signature sheets around on the conference report, he had already signed,” said an aide who attended the meeting.
How Johnson’s signature got there remains something of a mystery.
Johnson spokeswoman Julianne Fisher claimed no knowledge of the signature’s existence, even after the conference had closed. “He’ll sign it by the time he needs to sign it,” she wrote in an e-mail.
Comments
When any of you have a health problem, we expect you all to quit your jobs, to give up your health insurance and to stare bankruptcy straight in the face. Even if you expect to recover, just wave the white flag anyway and give up your careers and your financial security.
I understand that because you are cowards and quitters you can't understand it when others persevere, but there are some - including Senator Johnson - who don't give up. Tenacity is a good quality in a U.S. Senator.
I wish you the best in your recovery Tim!
Is this a phantom story? I have searched high and low on the CQ website and haven't been able to locate the WHOLE story.
I am very much interested in who the staffer is that saw this alleged signature.
I can't find the story either. In the future could you please link to the actual story instead of the front page of the site that has said story. I've had this problem in the past too.
Thanks.
I'm no Tim Johnson fan but, let's try and keep this in perspective. SD Republicans have no beef with a sitting incapacitated Senator inasmuch as Karl Mundt pretty much set the bar for such a situation. Mundt held office for, I believe, a couple years without being able to act. That was by the rules and so is Johnson's situation.
Lighten up.
Ridiculous comparison? Maybe. My point is that South Dakota deserves a full-time, fully-functional senator. And please don't bring up Sen. Mundt. That was wrong then, just as this is wrong now.
I feel wholeheartedly for what Sen. Johnson and his family have been through, and I do wish him a full recovery.
But enough is enough. The cover-ups and question-dodging has got to stop. What happened to the transparency that libs usually scream for? Why aren't the reporters at the Argus digging into this story like they usually do when a Republican is involved? What happened to the founding premise of the fourth estate?
The message to Sen. Johnson needs to be loud and resounding... South Dakota wants to see and hear you. Your staff is doing you no favors. It's turning into a public relations nightmare.
Powers used to work for Rounds, and now he's doing the Governor's dirty work by trying to drag Tim through the mud so that squeaky clean Rounds can keep the blood off of his hands. He sets up the stories and lets the anonymous posters claim that the Argus Leaders is biased. It's the same tactic John Lauck and Jason VanBeek used in the 2004 senate race and they're trying to do it again here.
All of this is designed to soften up Tim for a race against Rounds. And PP used to have his check signed by the Governor (not to mention the anonymous posters on this blog....). If Rounds wants to pick a fight with Johnson, you'd think he'd at least be man enough to do it himself, and not have his lackeys doing it anonymously.
And lackey? (You don't know me very well, do you?) If I was as you speak, I'm sure I'd be under much less stress in my life, and at the same time a lot nicer to some of those who claim the same political affiliation.
Regardless, as far as I know, the Gov is not running. As far as anything I've heard, he's not telling anyone he's running. (So god forbid, we might consider taking him at his word until a shred of evidence might exist to the contrary.)
And how is my quoting a story that appeared yesterday in CQ dragging anyone through the mud?
No doubt if this was being done by a Republican the press would be all over it.
South Dakota deserves a full time Senator!
What is his condition? Prognosis? If he wanted privacy he should have been a lawyer in Vermillion instead of a US SENATOR! HELLO, IS ANYONE LISTENING. WE DO NOT KNOW THE MENTAL AND PHYSICAL CONDITION OF OUR SENIOR US SENATOR AND NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE (because we all respect his privacy and wish him well-gosh).
This is beyond silly, it's sad. And drop the Karl M. stuff, we are in the information age...information, get it. The world and PP are at our finger tips but the medical condition or arguable our most powerful state political figure is unknown after all this time.
Signed,
A member of the GOP who voted for Johnson over Thune in 04.
If Johnson was a Republican, the Argus would have had three full Sunday editions devoted to running him out of office by now.
Right Randall???
But, hiding behind the sympathy and liberalism has been something the Dems have been capitalizing on.
The sympathy vote will probably decide the next US Senate election in SD, and that's just wrong.
Nice try on the Mundt dodge but, no sale. We didn’t know Mundt’s condition not because there was no Internet nor because that was the dark ages. We didn’t know it because it was kept secret, as Johnson’s is. There is no difference between the two situations – both were (and are) played for political purposes.
pp,
Of course Rounds is running for the Senate. Every move he makes is predicated on the basis of how it will affect his prospects in ’08. Now, will he pull back or accelerate depending on events? Of course. But, please – right now he’s behaving as a candidate. That he declares himself or not is beside the point.
7:09 - Of course Rounds IS NOT running for the Senate. I can't think of ANYTHING that he has done that would indicate otherwise.
And, as to your ignorance of Rounds setting himself up for a run at the Senate, well, that's simply your ignorance.
Let's hear and see you Sen. Tim Johnson not your staff!
This from "PP".
Obviously not sharpest knife in the drawer, is he...
I have no inside dope on what Rounds will do. But, do the math – he’s a very popular termed out Republican Governor in a very Republican state. He doesn’t want to be in the House and Herseth Sandlin is too strong to unseat there anyway. The only step left is the US Senate. He’s the only Governor I know of who stayed at the White House during the recent national Governor’s conference. When asked if Bush talked to him about running for Senate (as Bush did with Thune) Rounds ducked the question, said he and the President talked about a lot of things. Rounds doesn’t say he’s not planning for a run, doesn’t say he will not run. He says he likes his job – that hardly precludes him from running.
As pp knows (or should know) many campaigns get started long before they are announced as starting. I can’t think of any reason to think Rounds is not preparing to run. I think he’s setting up for a run and will stand down only if a robust Johnson decides to run again or if Rounds’ polling (and you know his people are polling) shows he cannot beat Herseth Sandlin in the event Johnson retires.
I don't claim infallibility. But, at least I’m willing to make an argument for my position. I don't see anyone making the case for Rounds returning full time to the insurance biz.
If there was a story on this on 4-23 by J. Allen (and I don't doubt there was), and if that story no longer exists (disappeared, was pulled, what have you), isn't that just more of the same-o-same-o coverup etc that we have been seeing regarding Johnson's ability to serve?
i.e. staged pictures, widening the doors to his office, hiring staff, collecting campaign funds, saying he's working from his hospital/rehab room, etc. But no actual, factual, news.