BY KAREN WEBB

Remember when U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn was trying to help former Sen. John Ensign, his fellow member of the Bible study group called “The Family” in DC? He said he couldn’t say anything about it because of his being a doctor and a Baptist deacon.

Assuming Ensign was in need of an OB-GYN, medically speaking, he might have a portion of a legal leg to stand on, but as far I know Baptist deacons do not come under the definition of “privilege” with respect to communication privacy.

This week, when speaking to the New York Young Republicans, Coburn did all Southern Baptist deacons proud when he was the personification of “comity, saying, “There’s no comity with Harry Reid. I think he’s an absolute A–hole.”

“Absolute,” he said – no imperfection in his A–holeness.

Tom is feeling pressure and maybe a bit of jealousy. There is a usurper of his usual power-hunger, control-freak bossiness since that other example of “comity,” Ted Cruz, came to the Senate. Of course, Ted is also Southern Baptist, but he is a PK [Preacher’s Kid].

Gone are the days when even his fellow Repubs like senior Texas Sen. John Cornyn referred to him lovingly as the “fly in the soup.” When senators from both sides of the aisle took their legislation to Comity Coburn – first to get his Okie-Dokie before sending it to a committee so as to maybe nip a Comity Coburn “hold” in the bud, to speed things up.

Sen. Olympia Snowe said he was easier to deal with if you worked with him. He could be the Senate’s “gadfly” or the Senate’s “scorpion” and just hold your bill until it was dead.

He said he wasn’t trying to block legislation, he was trying to make it better, which is why in December 2007, according to his own office, he was holding 95 different pieces of legislation all by his little comity-driven self.

He could hold up big things and little things. He blocked two resolutions honoring Rachel Cason on the 100th anniversary of her birth because her book, Silent Spring, was “junk science” and “was the catalyst in the deadly worldwide stigmatization against insecticides, especially DDT.”

Tom loves that DDT, which is pretty strange for an OB-GYN. My OB-GYN didn’t want me anywhere near the stuff.

When they aired Schindler’s List on network television on a Sunday evening in 1997, he was concerned for the children.

“They were exposed to the violence of multiple gunshot head wounds, vile language, full frontal nudity and irresponsible sexual activity.”

Of course, there was no act of Congress requiring the showing of it to anyone.

Remember we must never show war as it really is or else they might not volunteer for the next one.

Young Republicans, remember when demanding comity from fellow workers, it is all right and definitely not considered “vile language” to call them A–holes.

– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer

Caricature by DonkeyHotey http://www.flickr.com/people/donkeyhotey/