I suspect because our Congress is far too staid and proper. This from the Australian, describing today’s question time in the Aussie Parliament:
Alexander Downer sought to detail the humanitarian aid being offered to Iraq by Australia. This was always going to be provocative given bombing had just begun and the Foreign Minister was peppered with abuse.
Downer has for months held his tongue, refusing to allow his churlish streak to be exposed by Labor’s taunting. But the Foreign Minister, who appeared drawn and could barely speak for a sore throat, eventually cracked.
“You’re supposed to be the leader of a political party,” he screamed at Simon Crean. “You’re behaving like a child in primary school.” The outburst provoked further mayhem in the House, and Downer taunted: “I’m shaking my head in desperate sorrow for you, you pitiful creature.”
Can you just imagine someone like, oh, I don’t know, John McCain, blowing off at Tom Daschle like this? (I can imagine it…but it will never happen.) Oh, and editorially, the Australian is offended:
It might have been mildly amusing, until you reflected on what was at stake. Neither side was blameless but the dearth of grace and decorum in the federal parliament at such a historical moment was stomach-churning.
Not hardly. It is such things of which history is made. Nobody remembers milquetoasts.
(Via Pej.)