Here:
Rep. Bill Thomas, one of the most powerful committee chairmen in Congress, told a somber House of Representatives on Wednesday that he exercised "poor judgment" last week when he called for the Capitol Police to help remove Democrats from a room where they were meeting.
Thomas' comments amounted to the act of contrition that fellow Republicans had sought in the wake of his role in a partisan meltdown last week in the Ways and Means Committee. But it fell short of the full-throated apology that Democrats clamored for, and Thomas defended another of his controversial actions on Friday, a decision to call House security officials to the committee's main meeting room.
And the real issue is abuse of power, of which Thomas made no mention
"Never before in our time in Congress have we seen such a blatant abuse of power by a committee chairman," Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., wrote all House members on Tuesday. "We were not breaking any rules of the House. We were meeting together, in an empty room commonly used by Republican and Democratic members alike, to develop our response to" the pension bill.
Our fruitcake Republicans... From the White House on down... All we get is denial, blame-shifting, finger-pointing, and non-apology apologies.
It's good that Thomas shed tears at the podium though. I'd like to see more Republicans get in touch with their inner child like that. [Old timers: remember when the SCLM whacked Ed Muskie for similar behavior? And that was in the days when we had a free press!]
NOTE: Troll prophylactic and for those who came in late:
In the lexicon, "Fruitcake" is a demotic measure of diminished mental capacity, not a taxon in a sexual or gender-related classification scheme.
Usage example: "Those winger fruitcakes are nuttier than Mussolini."
UPDATE: Added clarifying language above.