Sen. Jim Bunning, the former major league pitcher turned conservative Republican from Kentucky, was intent on throwing as many curve balls at the American public as he could in the name of fiscal responsibility.

For a few days, Mr. Bunning, who is retiring at the end of the year, stood between 400,000 jobless people and a timely extension of their dwindling unemployment benefits. By blocking a vote in the Senate on a stopgap funding bill, he reminded folks why they don't like deficit hawks like him who were silent through eight years of profligate spending under President George W. Bush.

After pressure from all sides, Mr. Bunning finally relented Tuesday and allowed the funding bill to go forward. The Senate passed it, 78-19, and President Barack Obama signed it.

During his grandstanding, Mr. Bunning said he was offended by the willingness of senators, even his fellow Republicans, to add to the deficit. He was willing to ignore the needs of even 4,300 Kentuckians to make his point that the $10 billion measure was unacceptable without a way to pay for it.

It was a high-stakes maneuver that lacked the blessing of his party or its leadership because of the political fallout. By staging a one-man blockade that frustrated both his fellow Republicans and the Democratic majority, Mr. Bunning became a poster child for the political bickering that goes on in Washington while people suffer.

During the senator's theatrics Americans United for Change, a Democratic advocacy group, ran television ads in Kentucky that captured the sentiment around the nation: "Jim Bunning was the meanest, dirtiest pitcher in Major League Baseball in the 1960s." It was accompanied by footage of the batters he injured along the way.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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