Republicans half-hearted in "earning" back the majority
House Minority Leader John Boehner's op-ed in the RNC magazine Rising Tide (HT: WMD) details the House Republicans' strategy for "earning" back the majority. It includes strategies like "Be Proactive", "Define the Contrasts", "Hold Democrats Accountable" and "Seize the Opportunity".
Boehner's strategy comes across as half-hearted when one reads of the lack of support House Republicans gave their colleagues Jeff Flake and John Campbell in debating the most egregious of the 1,300 earmarks placed in the defense appropriations bill (see: Robert Novak's 'House of Corruption?').
Novak even goes on to detail how two former Republican chairmen were complicit in assisting John Murtha in the pork barrel spending sham (emphasis added):
Related: Boehner: House Republicans Declare War on Secret Earmarks & Wasteful Spending
Boehner's strategy comes across as half-hearted when one reads of the lack of support House Republicans gave their colleagues Jeff Flake and John Campbell in debating the most egregious of the 1,300 earmarks placed in the defense appropriations bill (see: Robert Novak's 'House of Corruption?').
Novak even goes on to detail how two former Republican chairmen were complicit in assisting John Murtha in the pork barrel spending sham (emphasis added):
...Republicans split so that motions by Flake and Campbell lost overwhelmingly. House Minority Leader John Boehner voted against most earmarks but did not make it a party issue as the rest of the GOP leadership backed Murtha. Two former Republican chairmen of the Appropriations Committee -- Jerry Lewis of California and Bill Young of Florida -- eagerly joined the debate on Murtha's side. Lewis, one of the House members under investigation by the Justice Department, defended one of his own earmarks and treated Flake with sneering contempt for wasting the House's time...This is a 'circuitous' path at best to "earn back the majority".
Related: Boehner: House Republicans Declare War on Secret Earmarks & Wasteful Spending
Posted by Porkopolis at 8/14/2007 09:38:00 AM
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2 Comments:
How do you besmirch anyone because porker Republicans - who everyone knows are porkers - happen to keep doing what they've been doing for 14 years? Novak is always up Flake's ass (who is a reformed earmarker himself) so I don't take much of what he writes seriously, especially when he uses Lewis and Young to blast the GOP (because they exemplify the GOP... okay). Let's keep our eye on the ball here. Boehner led the way on earmark reform. It's funny that the guy who uses those reforms to throw up some amendments gets more credit sometimes than the guy who led the way on the reforms in the first place.
Buckeye Beauford:
It is for the very reason that Boehner recently declared a war on secret earmarks and wasteful spending that he and the Republican party have to hold themselves up to a higher standard if they want to win back the majority.
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