On Hardball this evening, Chris Matthews dug up the video to prove that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wasn’t being totally truthful when he complained that he’d never seen anything like when Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) denied Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) more time to speak — in fact, McCain himself has done it.
Yesterday, McCain vehemently protested when his friend was denied an extra moment to finish his speech, claiming that it had never happened before and damaged the comity of the Senate. (Franken said he had been instructed by the leadership to hold people to their time limits, as the presiding officer.)
“I’ve been around here 20-some years. First time I’ve ever seen a member denied an extra minute or two to finish his remarks,” McCain said indignantly. “And I must say that I don’t know what’s happening here in this body. But I think it’s wrong.”
But as Think Progress pointed out, McCain certainly had seen it happen before — and in fact had perpetrated it in 2002, when he lodged an objection and thus denied extra time to then-Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) during debate on the Iraq War.
Matthews tonight provided the video. “And now John McCain says this has never happened before, he’s never seen anything like it,” Matthews observed wryly, “when in fact he did it.”
