What happened to Benton yesterday?

As I was watching the Majority Coalition Caucus sell out the GOP yesterday as citizens were shoved aside in favor of illegal aliens and the GOP once again caved to the democrats, I was waiting for Sen. Don Benton to stand up and rain fire and brimstone upon those who would engage in this rank stupidity.

I was waiting to see the man grab the microphone and condemn those who would screw the middle class once again by going along with the democrats, once again, as they engaged in worthless political expedience.... once again... in a forlorn hope that it would equate to more votes this November.

Instead?

Silence.  And then I found out he had arranged to have himself be counted as excused along with 3 of his closest political allies.

Not that he couldn't have voted, you understand... but that he didn't want to.

I put out a facebook post on it:

Here's the list of MCC members who sold us out on the Dream Act bill:

Bailey, Becker, Dammeier, Fain, Hill, King, Litzow, O'Ban, Parlette, Schoesler, Sheldon, Tom.

Four others: Benton, Roach, Baumgartner and Holmquist were too chicken to vote.

God, how I loathe them.

Voting no:

Angel, Braun, Brown, Dansel, Ericksen, Hewitt, Honeyford, Padden, Pearson, Ann Rivers

Sen. Benton has some close allies in Olympia.  But few are closer than Sen. Pam Roach, Sen. Janea Holmquist-Newbury, or Sen. Michael Baumgartner.

So, what happened?  Where were these people?  Why weren't they there?

How come no one not closely affiliated with Benton was excused?

And in real terms, "excused" just means that it was announced before the vote was held that these 4 weren't going to be voting.  Period.

There's no excuse for this.  None.  And disappointment doesn't begin to cover what I call "cowardice."

Don't "Obama" the issues.  Not on my watch.