I’m not ashamed to say that I have an enormous man-crush on Senator Tom Coburn. When you read how he laid the lumber to Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership, maybe you’ll get a little puppy love for him, too.

The decision by Senate leaders to kick off the new Congress with an earmark-laden omnibus lands bill makes a mockery of voters’ hopes for change. This package represents some of the worst aspects of congressional incompetence and parochialism. Congress should spend the next few weeks holding hearings on an economic stimulus package and identifying areas of the budget to cut to pay for that proposal. Instead, the Senate is set to resume business as usual…

Oh, my. And he wasn’t done. He took to the floor of the Senate, channeled his inner Braveheart and called out every last one of them.

The reason we have a 9-percent approval rating is because we are not trusted. We are addicts. We are self-indulgent addicts over our power.

My query to the body and to the American people is, will you hold us accountable? You have to do an intervention with us, each one of us, every time we are home: Are you being a good steward with the limited dollars we have? Are you making choices that may not look good for you as a politician but are truly the best choice for the country? Are you putting yourself second and our country first? Are you acting as a statesman or are you acting as somebody who wants to get reelected?

The real paradox is, with trust comes confidence. With that confidence comes the involvement and support of the very people we actually do represent.

We have a choice. I hope the introduction of this bill does not portend that we will not take President-elect Obama’s lead and offer the American people real hope, real change, that we will get away from our addicted self-indulgence to look good at home and start making the hard, tough decisions that will right our ship and put our country first. Anything less than that says the people who took their oath today and those of us who have taken it before, we violate it. We raise our hand and put one on the Bible and say we will uphold it, but then when it comes to the first tough choice, look good at home or do what is in the long-term best interests of the country, we swivel, we back down, and we opt for the short term, the self-aggrandizement, and the stroke on our own back. We are better than that. The people in this body are better than that.

You want to know what speaking truth to power looks like? That’s pretty darned close to it, right there. Given what Nancy Pelosi and the craven horde in the House did today to make Congress less accountable to us, less transparent, and less open to free and vigorous debate, Coburn’s speech is a shot right across the bow of our Democratic Overlords.

I’m surprised that he didn’t paint half his face blue and wave a claymore around his head.

Oh, did I mention that Senator Coburn’s daughter is a professional opera singer who has performed to rave reviews and a knockout? Yes, that does elevate his Awesome Quotient.

UPDATE: My friend Paula at It’s Only Words asked me on Twitter if there were any videos of Sarah about. As it happens, there are. I’ve put a couple or three below the fold, including one of her hitting an unbelievably crystal clear high F.

Sarah in Rosetti’s “Tancredi”. No video, just audio. Still, very good.

And a duet with Placido Domingo from Handel’s “Tamerlano”.

Here’s the high F, from the Mad Scene in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”. It’s a rehearsal video, so it’s just her and a piano. Still…wow.