Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Arizona's twin embarrassments, "Senator Sore Loser," John McCain and "Senator Obstruction," Jon Kyl, really outdid themselves recently in a bit of faux outrage over earmarks in the Omnibus spending bill from 2008.
Senator Sore Loser clearly has not worked through the seven stages of grief over his fellow American citizens resoundingly rejecting him and his ideas at the polls last November. He is still in the anger stage where he seems to have been practically all of his life.
As Joe Sudbay reported at AmericaBlog News Flash: John McCain is an angry man. (Oh wait, we all knew that):
"Angry McCain is back, but it's not like angry McCain really ever left. He's mad at Obama. Some reporters and pundits probably thought McCain would return to the Senate as a statesman. As if. McCain doesn't have that capacity. The only way McCain gets news these days is to have a tantrum. And, he had one yesterday on the Senate floor:
The anti-earmark legislator didn’t mince words on Monday, delivering a harsher speech than the prepared text that was posted on his Senate website.
Mocking the White House for failing to speak out against earmarks such as a $1.7 million fund for pig odor research in Iowa, McCain said, “So much for the promise of change, Mr. President. So much for the promise of change.”
Best line from his "diatribe" was:
“If it sounds like I’m angry, it’s because I am.”
"We know. We've always known. It's predictable and is just so easy to mock."
Keith Olbermann fleshes out the details of Senator Sore Loser's faux outrage in this clip:
First, the Omnibus spending bill was negotiated by Democrats and Republicans in December – before Obama became president. The $7.7 billion in earmarks in the bill is less than 2% of total federal spending.
Second, the $7.7 billion is down by a half billion dollars from the agreement negotiated in December.
Third, the Obama campaign promised to limit earmarks to the level of earmark spending in 1994 – which was $7.8 billion. Promise delivered.
Fourth, in 2006, the final year in a series of GOP earmark orgies, the total amount of earmarks was $29 billion. Seems the kettle is calling the pot black.
Finally, Obama is currently negotiating earmark reform legislation with Congress that he plans to announce around the time of signing this Omnibus spending bill, following through on his campaign promise to reform the earmark process.
Moreover, three of the top five and six of the top ten earmarkers are Republicans. 40% of the earmark requests came from Republicans, but in total dollar amounts requested, the amount is nearly equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. So who the hell are they to lecture Democrats about earmarks?
While Senator Sore Loser does not make earmark requests of his own, he does vote for them when he wants to, and he has supported specific earmark requests in the past. He also does not take his own evil twin, Senator Obstruction, to task for his earmark requests.
In an interview on Fixed News Sunday, Chris Wallace suddenly grew a pair when he confronted Senator Obstruction with his own hypocrisy on earmarks:
WALLACE: Part of your party's problem, Senator Kyl, and I think you'd agree with this, is that the GOP has lost credibility on the issue of spending restraint.
For instance, Congress is in the process of passing a $410 billion spending bill to basically pay for the government over the course of the next year, with almost 9,000 earmarks in it, but 40 percent of those earmarks are Republican earmarks.
And we're putting up on the screen, Senator, your earmarks, a long list of them, according to the Taxpayers for Common Sense, totaling $118 million.
Question — I think it's a fair one — who are you to lecture the Democrats on spending?
KYL: Well, first of all, I don't see on the screen what you're talking about. I can defend everything that I have recommended in the budget, and I would suggest that they're not earmarks under the definition, because we have a specific definition.
Senator Obstruction's definition, of course, is that if a Democrat requested funding for a project it is an evil earmark, but if a Republican requested funding for a project it is not. Got that? It is a simple double-standard that even Chris Wallace can understand. Of course, Chris Wallace did not pursue his line of questioning with an equally tough follow-up question pointing out the rank hypocrisy of Senator Obstruction's response.
Perhaps by some miracle of miracles one of our local political reporters in Arizona will suddenly grow a pair and confront Senator Obstruction about his earmarks. They might even confront Senator Sore Loser and "Captain Earmark," Rep. Jeff Flake, about why they do not call out Senator Obstruction for his earmarks and hold him to the same standard as they do everyone else.
I am familiar with the brief to which you are referring. Kyl is also a lawyer. What he did was not perjury, but misrepresentation of fact to the court by inserting a colloquy into tbe Congressional Record that never occurred to support his legal argument. He invented facts. The court could have sanctioned him for his lack of candor to the court and referred the matter to the District of Columbia Bar for further proceedings for his violation of the code of ethics. The court did not do so because of “comity” between coequal branches of government.
That said, I do point out that Kyl is an extraordinary liar in my posts and will continue to do so. The man is an embarrassment to the legal profession, and to this state in the political arena.
By my definition, lying to the Supreme Court is perjury; by my definition, Jon Kyl should have went to jail. Any time Jon Kyl is even mentioned, you should preface it with how he is the type of guy who lies to the Supreme Court. It will make you feel good, I swear.