Bunning in the NYT

A nice piece by Mark Leibovich in the New York Times on the Bunning semi-fiasco (hat tip: Bluegrass Politics)...

One of the entrenched narratives in American politics is the case of the guy who refuses to quit, even though a lot of people on his own team want him gone.

While the Democrats are preoccupied with Senator Roland W. Burris and his ties to a tainted Illinois governor, the Republicans are trying to rid themselves of Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, the former baseball star who clearly has little use for some colleagues and party leaders, and who keeps exhibiting what one senator calls “behavior issues.”

Key Republicans are gently (or not gently enough) trying to dissuade Mr. Bunning from seeking re-election in 2010 out of concern that his paltry fund-raising, declining approval ratings and irascible conduct have made him something between vulnerable and unelectable.

But in recent weeks, Mr. Bunning has shown no sign of stepping aside and delivered a string of incendiary pronouncements that have fed an impression that he is, to go with a baseball metaphor, a bit of a screwball....

As a general rule, Mr. Bunning tries to limit his references to his Hall of Fame pitching career. He is sensitive about being pigeonholed as just “a great baseball man” (as a Democratic colleague, Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, mocked him last year in a verbal brawl on the Senate floor).

I guess I'd rather be that than a great former member of the KKK.

But when asked in a brief hallway interview on Tuesday whether he was feeling betrayed by some Republican teammates, Mr. Bunning unleashed a high hard one.

“When you’ve dealt with Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra and Stan Musial,” he said, “the people I’m dealing with now are kind of down the scale.”

Elected to the Senate in 1998 after six terms in the House, Mr. Bunning, 77, is one of the Senate’s most fiscally conservative members. His focus on economic issues — he sits on the Senate Banking, Budget and Finance Committees — would seemingly make him a high-profile voice on some of pressing issues of the day. But much of the attention he draws is over his demeanor, not his positions....

Whatever his personal crankiness, it's sure nice to have a fiscal conservative or two in Congress!