| Last week, Texas Sen. John Cornyn joined Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in New York to met with leaders of the very Wall Street banks President Obama is pushing to regulate further. Cornyn and McConnell's trip was easy to criticize. In reality, it appeared to be much more a fundraising expedition than a policy discussion. Over the weekend, President Obama weighed in on the two senators' pow-wow with Wall Street. "The Senate Republican Leader, he paid a visit to Wall Street a week or two ago. He took the chairman of their campaign committee. He met with some of the movers and shakers up there. I don't know exactly what was discussed. All I can tell you is when he came back, he promptly announced he would opposed the financial regulatory reform."
Cornyn responded today to Politico: "The president, frankly, was demeaning himself and his office by making political attacks against Sen. McConnell and me when what we were trying to do was learn more about a complex topic from people who actually know something about it."
Cornyn has consistently put his job as NRSC chair above his duties as a senator. His trip with McConnell to Wall Street is not anything new; it is just another instance in which Cornyn has put partisan politics above actually getting something done. Obama is right to criticize him. For John Cornyn, one of Washington's most hyper-partisan Republican, to criticize anyone about politicizing anything is a great hypocrisy. That's exactly how he has risen within the Senate Republican leadership. |
