Classy Republican Senator scuttles Armed Services Hearing

WASHINGTON — With a few simple words – “I would have to object” — Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina derailed a Senate Armed Services hearing today in which generals had traveled from Korea and Hawaii to testify about the Pentagon’s needs for the next year.

Burr, joining his GOP colleagues’ outrage at the new health reform law, used an obscure Senate rule to prevent the Armed Services committee from meeting this afternoon – even though he said he personally wanted the hearing to occur.

Republicans are angry over the signing Tuesday of the health reform law that President Barack Obama and Democrats have been working toward for the past year.

They have pledged to “repeal and replace” the law, as their slogan goes, and GOP House members are calling on state attorneys general to file lawsuits challenging the law’s constitutionality.

In the meantime, Republicans are using parliamentary tactics to slow the Senate’s workings, and Burr’s action put him in the midst of the dust-up. He is running for re-election and has said he’ll make repealing the health overhaul a central tenet of his platform.

Wednesday was the second day Republican senators have blocked committees from conducting afternoon hearings.