Three People Didn’t Vote On The G.I. Bill

Here is the roll call.

Ted Kennedy - who just got out of the hospital
Tom Coburn
John McCain

¾ of the Senate voted for the bill. All the votes against the bill were Republicans.

Coburn is notorious for being against the Government spending any money on anything, angering his fellow Republicans. (He angers Democrats by being socially somewhat to the right of Jesse Helms, rather infamously alleging that lesbian gang rape was a regular occurrence in southwestern Oklahoma middle schools.) But he knows he can't vote against this expenditure of money and expect to survive it in a state with (at least) four active military bases, and he can't bring his "I've got mine, screw the rest of you" penny-pinching Club for Growth heart to vote for it, so he chickened out.

Ted Kennedy is resting in Hyannisport, and John McCain was at a fundraiser in Silicon Valley. Both Obama and Clinton were present and voted for the bill. Jim Inhofe voted for the bill, at least once it became clear it would surpass the filibuster margin of 60 votes. Coburn can't even do that.

(Via Oliver Willis.)