Don’t blame the House for not voting or the Democrats for blocking the bill to end the clock changing.

So close, yet so far: after the Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act by unanimous consent in March, it was up to the House to hold a vote on the bill. It never did.

It went to the House, so easy-peasy, right?

“I think it just caught us all by surprise that the Senate actually produced something and sent it to us,” said Aguilar. “Usually bills go the other way.”

Uh-oh, now the House has to do something.

“While I have yet to decide whether I support a permanent switch to Standard or Daylight Saving Time, it’s time we stop changing our clocks,” said Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the chairman of the committee, at that hearing.

Have you ever seen a better example of an “If-By-Whiskey” answer by a politician?

Noah “Soggy” Sweat Jr. was a state representative in Mississippi giving a speech in 1952 addressing the prohibition of whiskey. 

My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, this is how I feel about whiskey:

If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.

Soggy so eloquently argues both sides, it’s hard to believe that this really happened.  A speech like that should be given by Harold Hill in The Music Man.  Which, coincidentally, opened on Broadway five years after that speech.

Frank Pallone, the Representative from New Jersey, took his If-by-whiskey stance, and we are left to change our clocks for at least another year.  If Congress can’t handle a soft ball issue like this, why do we trust them with important things?