(Via Jen Rubin) Let’s review (I almost did this using an extended metaphor of a fencing match, but I didn’t want actual fencers wincing):

• Sen. John Kerry is the Democratic point man in Foreign Relations for this administration’s messed-up Honduras policy.  He is, in fact, the Foreign Relations chair… which tells you how seriously the Democrats take this committee (i.e., they don’t).
• Sen. Jim DeMint is the Republican determined to wreck Sen. Kerry’s day – both on this administration’s messed-up Honduras policy, and on general principles.
• This administration has a messed-up Honduras policy.
• DeMint therefore slaps a couple of Senatorial holds on some State Department appointments until the administration stops messing up on Honduras policy.
• Kerry responds by denying DeMint the plane that he’d need to go down to Honduras and see for himself how messed up our Honduras policy is.  This is one of those steps that prudent Senate chairs usually don’t take, because it makes it easier for it to happen again, and nobody controls Congress forever.
• DeMint talks to Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell.
• McConnell talks to the Pentagon.
• The Pentagon is, of course, filled with people who didn’t come back from Vietnam and promptly announce that we were worse than the Mongol Horde.  Which is to say, people not like Kerry.
• The Pentagon gives Kerry the Hawaiian good-luck symbol, and DeMint a plane.  DeMint may now go to Honduras and see how messed up our policy is down there.
• DeMint then links this mess to the State Department.
• The State Department promptly disavows themselves of this mess.
• So: Kerry establishes a precedent, doesn’t accomplish his goal of keeping our messed-up Honduras policy off the radar, and doesn’t even get the State Department backing him up.  For a Democrat, that takes skill.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what one motivated Senator can do to mess up another Senator’s day.

Moe Lane

PS: Bear this in mind when the reconciliation question comes up regarding the Democrats’ messed-up health care rationing bill.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.