Baucus denounces allegations as 'smear'

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was the focus of scrutiny among Internet bloggers throughout the weekend, as footage of him giving a speech on the Senate floor was posted on YouTube amid allegations that the senator was drunk. (See link to video at left.)

The Drudge Report, one of the most popular sites on the Internet, linked to the video with a headline that read: “Drunk with power? Top Dem slurs on Senate floor.”

The speech is from last Tuesday and appears to be time-stamped at just after 4:30 p.m. EST. It shows Sen. Baucus responding to a complaint from Republican Sen. Roger Wicker from Arizona during the debate over health-care reform.

On Monday, Sen. Baucus’ office denounced the suggestion that Baucus was drunk on the Senate floor as an “untrue, personal smear,” according to the Billings Gazette.

“This is beyond the pale, and this type of gutter politics has no place in the public sphere,” Baucus spokesman Ty Matsdorf told the Gazette.

A conservative Web site called newsbusters.org also hinted at a drinking-related issue: “How can one explain this incredibly bizarre performance by Max Baucus on the Senate floor? Was Baucus so intoxicated by the sound of his own voice that he went off the deep end? Or perhaps he was so drunk with power over shaping the Senate health care bill that it explains his strange rant.”

Meanwhile, a least one liberal Web site, The Washington Independent, was taking Baucus’s side in the matter — well, sort of. Columnist David Weigel said the allegation that Baucus was drunk was “completely baseless” and said the story was silly because “Baucus talks like this all the time.”

Weigel’s headline? “BREAKING: Max Baucus mumbles occasionally.”

In full, Matsdorf’s defense of Baucus was as follows:

“Unfortunately, those who want to kill any meaningful reform turned (Baucus’ speech) into an unfounded, untrue personal smear (and) Internet rumor. It is this type of slander that makes Montanans, and Americans, disgusted with the politics as usual in Washington. And what is even more sad is that such a personal attack would be given any validity at all, let alone being elevated to the status of ‘news.’”