Senator Byrd

Q: What do you get when you combine a 90 year old grandpa with the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee???

A: Robert Byrd...

From CQ.com

Byrd has enthusiastically pushed his panel to do its work regardless of what the endgame might look like.

This follows a rough patch for the Senate chairman, when questions arose about his ability to continue running such a powerful committee — he is 90 and has been briefly hospitalized three times this year. Most of that whispering ended when Byrd asserted himself on the war spending debate.

Regardless, now, with the committee fully immersed in its work, Byrd appears to be thoroughly enjoying himself, particularly at committee business meetings.

He announces his arrival with exclamations like “Make way for liberty!” He occasionally punctuates colleagues’ statements with a “Yeah, man” or “Hear, hear.”

At a June 26 meeting, he seemed to be playing the role of a sports arena announcer, calling out the arrival of tardy colleagues, entertaining the crowd in the cavernous committee room in the Dirksen Building.

“Diaaanne, oh Dianne,” he called out when Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., entered the room.

“Tom Harkin has arrriiived,” he informed the audience moments later, when the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee chairman entered.

With that, the markup began.