Sullivan refuses to accept his share of the blame for Sullivan Shutdown

Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is campaigning for reelection, refuses to admit that he is part of the problem in Washington, D.C.

It’s obvious that while Sullivan and the rest of the Republicans like to complain about the “Schumer Shutdown,” it’s also the “Sullivan shutdown.”

Anyone assigning blame for the Sullivan Shutdown would have to start with the reality that the Republicans control the Congress and the White House. They refuse to compromise and want the Democrats to surrender.

Compromise works both ways. Extending the Obamacare subsidies for a year, which would help tens of thousands of Alaskans, while opening the government is a good compromise to end the Sullivan Shutdown.

Sullivan says the Democrats have to accept the Sullivan point of view and surrender all of their political leverage before negotiating on Obamacare subsidies. The Republicans want to dictate the result.

Remember that the Senate could have voted weeks ago to open the government by abandoning the filibuster. To pretend as Sullivan does, that the Senate is paralyzed, is false.

Sullivan claims that the Democrats are 100 percent responsible for the Sullivan shutdown, while Sullivan and rest of the Republicans are helpless bystanders, unable to do anything at all.

To hear Sullivan tell it, he is Colonel Courageous, while the Democrats are all cowards.

He posted a talking selfie the other day in front of a Capitol painting, a campaign video in which he whined at government expense. I don’t know the painting or why Sullivan thought that posting himself in that position made him look good.

Perhaps a reader will let me know.

A reader said the painting is “Henry Clay in the U.S. Senate,” showing the “Great Compromiser” in the final months of his life.

Sullivan was complaining about why Democrats opposed a bill to pay certain federal workers—those that Sullivan and other Republicans think are worth paying for political purposes.

Here is what Sullivan said:

“Well that was sad. It looks like all the Democrats are voting, I’m walking off the Senate floor here, all the Democrats are voting to not pay our brave military, our brave TSA officials, our air traffic controllers. They’re not gonna pay them. They’re forced to work and they’re not gonna pay ‘em. Really sad day here in the Senate. My colleagues did not show any courage,” he complained.

Note that Sullivan does not say that air traffic controllers are brave. Or the hundreds of thousands of other federal employees forced to work without pay during the Sullivan Shutdown.

Sullivan wants to portray Democrats as wanting to keep select “brave” federal employees working without pay, along with the legions of federal employees who Sullivan regards as non-brave.

It’s easy to see through the pandering.

Sen. Dan Sullivan posed in front of this painting for a talking selfie in which he said the Democrats have shown no political courage in trying to end the government shutdown and have refused to compromise.