Whoops!

Badlands Blue excoriates John Thune for contemplating voting against cloture on the Farm Bill.  Whoops.  Thune voted for cloture, with the Democrats and against the Bush administration, on the cloture vote (which ended up failing).  In a related story Tim Johnson makes the implausible claim that Democrats are opposing extra amendments because they think only germane amendments should be attached to the bill. 

Johnson disagreed. Only germane amendments have a right to be debated and voted on, he said.

"If every time you get a bill, medical malpractice and immigration law and everything in between is going to be considered, that obviously is a recipe for inaction," Johnson said.

Yet non-germane amendments are common in Congress, especially in the Senate.  I suspect Sen. Johnson will stick to his position until the next time it suits his party to attach a non-germane amendment to a particular bill.  For example, perhaps Sen. Johnson will object to the Democratic tactic of attaching their vetoed Labor-HHS spending bill to defense spending in an attempt to force Bush to sign into law spending he disagrees with in order to get the defense spending he wants.  After all, how is Labor-HHS spending germane to defense spending?  Should these not each be judged on individual merits?  But, I do not object to the Democrat's tactic.  This sort of thing happens all the time in fights between Congress and the President, especially when there is divided government.  But I am not the one complaining about non-germaneness.