The video: Unaware that a C-SPAN microphone was picking up his comments, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) told a colleague that the Senate's lame-duck session is "all rigged." (Watch video below.) Bennet added: "The whole conversation's rigged.... The fact that we don’t get to a discussion before the break about what we're going to do in lame duck — is just rigged." A spokesman said Bennet was talking about the Senate's "broken system that is rigged to prevent progress," notably the power of lobbyists and the filibuster.
The reaction: Bennet's use "of 'rigged' will make for colorful interpretations internet-wide," says Jim Newell in Gawker, but I'm sure many other Democrats agree with his complaint. The party rushed "guns-blazing" into the lame-duck session with "soaring rhetoric" about tax cuts, ending "Don't ask, don't tell," and passing the DREAM Act, but apparently no real plan to get any of that past GOP obstruction. Bennet's "moment of inadvertent public honesty" is refreshing, says David Harsanyi in Townhall, but, really, why should "a bunch of rejected, disgruntled, and disconnected politicians" get to vote on anything? Watch the clip: