In honor of Mother's Day...

The family values crowd in the House of Representatives voted against a proclamation honoring "Mother's Day". Seriously.

"It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."

By voting against it?"

Yup. The Republicans in the house, led by their man Boehner (sadly, not pronounced "boner"), voted for Mother's Day before they voted against it. It's going to be a long, long summer and fall for the Republicans. They're already 0-2 in races held in strongly Republican electoral districts (welcome aboard Rep. Bill Foster, who won former House Speaker Denny Hastert's seat and Rep. Don Cazayoux, who won in a district that has been held by Republicans for thirty years). The NRCC, short on cash and common sense, and reeling from yet another scandal involving one of their own, claimed victory in both races. As Nipsy Russell said in "Wildcats", "Rrrrriiiiiiggggghhhhhttttt......."

So...wishing all of you who are mothers a very happy and relaxing day tomorrow...let us all be thankful we do not have sons (or daughters) who fight, yell and needle each other at every opportunity!