MUTH’S TRUTHS

As you’ll recall, there was a vacancy on the House Appropriations Committee - the committee which spends all the money. Conservatives have been lobbying hard for the Republican leadership (I know, a classic oxymoron) to appoint anti-earmark champion Rep. Jeff Flake to fill the position. Well, the decision was made yesterday. From the Washington Post…

Anti-earmark crusader Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) lost his bid for a seat on the House Appropriations Committee Thursday, and the conservative blogosphere is not happy about it.

This Red State post was typical of the reaction. Under the heading, “House Republicans Aren’t Serious About Earmark Reform,” blogger Bluey wrote, “Just when it appeared House Republicans had turned the corner on earmark reform, party leaders did the unthinkable.”

The seat instead went to Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner (R), a former Appropriations staffer who beat a field that included Flake, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) and a host of other aspirants that included one genuinely vulnerable GOP member, Rep. Dave Reichert (Wash.).

“We cannot let the Steering Committee get away with this sham,” Bluey writes, counseling readers to call members of the panel that made the Appropriations pick to express their unhappiness…

(W)hen he got the slot, Bonner said, “The current earmark process has become a symbol of a broken Washington. I sought this seat on the Appropriations Committee because I believe the time for change and reform — especially of the appropriations process and the much scrutinized subject of earmarks — is now.”

The blogs aren’t buying it. Club for Growth blogger Andrew Roth complains that Bonner did poorly on the group’s “RePORK Card,” scoring about as well as some liberal Democrats.

Republican leaders know that Flake is a cause célèbre in the blogosphere. They knew passing him over would prompt a backlash. But while they want to keep hammering away on the earmarks issue, they simply were not going to reward Flake for what they perceive to be insufficient loyalty to the team.

House Republicans’ unwillingness to commit to a party-wide moratorium on earmarks demonstrated that their crusade does have its limits, and yesterday’s move reaffirmed that fact.

House Republican leaders haven’t learned a damn thing from their electoral losses last year. Passing over the opportunity to appoint a true and fearless fiscal conservative who was not afraid to take on the culture of pork barrel politics head on shows their collective wheels are turning, but the hampster’s dead. No wonder I left the Republican Party.

By the way, John McCain, for all his other faults, has been a mensch on the anti-pork issue. So this would be a good time for him to assert some leadership as the party’s presidential nominee to knock some heads together and get the dolts on the Steering Committee to reverse this dumb and insulting decision and put Flake on the committee after all. That would go a LONG way toward showing conservatives that he’s not just all talk and no action when it comes to promoting conservatism.

I’ll be sitting here holding my breath waiting…

Posted on February 15th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: National