Watch The Birdy! No -- The Other Birdy!
With all the economic mess jeopardizing all of us in this country, Obama White House has busied itself painting a big target on Rush Limbaugh's rather ample ass. The Libertarians have the White House's number:
"Instead of solving our economic problems by reducing spending during a recession and granting tax relief to job creators, Obama has instead chosen to kick mud at a radio entertainer," said (L.P. spoker Donnie) Ferguson. "That's not change or hope. It's a tired old political trick pulled out when you're making problems worse.""Libertarians may not always agree with Limbaugh, but you don't have to agree with him to see the White House is latching onto his celebrity hoping Americans will pay attention to that and not the economic damage Obama is causing," said Ferguson.
"While the White House is busying whining about an entertainer and Republicans are busy inserting their wasteful earmarks into the budget, Libertarians are busy cutting spending and creating jobs in their private businesses. It's clear the Libertarian Party is the only party with an agenda for renewal, not waste or petty spats," said Ferguson.
Meanwhile, the Libertarians might focus on putting out candidates who aren't big honking turkeys. But, the reality is, they're a political party like any other, pandering in their own ways -- just like the "party of small government," the Republicans, the party which brings us six of the top porkers in the Senate.
I watched Limbaugh's CPAC speech on youtube the other day, and I thought it was pretty good (especially the first 10 or 20 minutes). He is an excellent orator, and he almost convinced me to start calling myself a conservative again.
Pseudonym at March 4, 2009 10:44 AM
Let me play devil's advocate here for a minute. Currently, Republicans have zero influence in Congress. You can argue that they should have done something about the earmark process when they were in the majority, and that's true. However, it's also in the past. In the here and now, Republicans can't stop it. They can't even slow it down a little.
So, given that those are the rules of the game, why should Republican congressmen not play? If they don't, they will get no credit for heroic action; rather, they will simply be regarded as chumps, and in the next election their Democratic opponents will chide them for not "bringing home the bacon". There's a significant populist component now, and to take an anti-populist stance at a time when your party has no power to enforce it on the whole body, is political suicide. There are lots of conservatives looking at the current situation and seeing that they themselves are chumps for continuing to pay their mortgages and not dodging taxes. Demanding that one's own representative refrain from earmarks doesn't feel noble right now. It feels stupid.
Cousin Dave at March 4, 2009 1:19 PM
One reason is to avoid blame when it all comes crashing down -- to be able to honestly say "Look, I voted against it."
Sometimes, doing the right thing does feel stupid. Wasting even more money, even if it's for your home district, isn't going to help.
Pseudonym at March 4, 2009 4:44 PM
Pseudonym, point taken. What bothers me is that in Washington these days, there seems to be almost an inverse correlation between responsibility and blame. I can make a good case that our current mess was largely due to malfeasance on the part of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, yet it looks like they are both going to skate. On the other side of the aisle, Ted Stevens is still very popular in both his home state and Washington. His recent conviction is probably going to be thrown out on appeal due to blatant misconduct by the prosecution, and I'm not entirely convinced that was an accident.
Under these conditions, I can see how a decent politician might conclude that refusing earmarks would not only constitute political suicide, but it would do so to no larger effect.
Cousin Dave at March 5, 2009 8:18 AM
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