Jim Bunning Not the First to Use Congressional Elevators as Shield

Senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky), coiner of awesome new GOP slogans, pulled a pretty weak move this morning when he fled for the elevators to avoid talking to ABC News cameras. According to Jonathan Karl and producer Z. Byron Wolf, Bunning also flipped them the bird before the cameras were rolling.

Still, I like to believe that what unites us is greater than what divides us. To that end, I’d like to point out that, at least when it comes to fleeing reporters, Congress has managed some bipartisan action.

First, here’s the clip from this morning. Kudos to Karl for keeping his foot in there for two door-closings, but I would have gone for the hat-trick:

This clip put me in mind of an attempted interview of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl) by Fox News’ Griff Jenkins. You may remember Grayson from such stories-of-the-microsecond as “Republicans want you to die quickly” and “K Street Whore.“

While Grayson is nominally less belligerent, and tries the “do you have an appointment” gambit first, this interview ends pretty much the same way Bunning’s does.

People on the right and the left might not agree on much, but I’m sure we all wish that politicians would spend less time avoiding questions they don’t want to hear, and more time thinking of good answers to them.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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