How Republicans Govern

While the media is fascinated with Rev. Wright, and while the GOP is happily pursuing every avenue of keeping the media's attention on Wright and away from George Bush, Iraq and the last 8 years of utter incompetency, John McCain's inability to tell the same story twice has went relatively unnoticed.

Besides wanting to stay in Iraq forever, McCain has also made numerous remarks about how he would handle budgetary matters as president. As routine readers will note, I have no qualms about laughing at Republican talk of fiscal responsibility and small government. Their whole platform of small government and fiscal conservatism is but a joke because once they get in office they do the exact opposite of everything they proclaim to believe. Well here we have a perfect example of how John McCain falls perfectly inline with the Republican facade of conservatism.

In July of 2007 candidate McCain said he would change how the government deals with spending budgets:

...if elected President I'm going to change the way we deal with spending in Washington. The presidency has many powers. One of the most useful is the veto pen. ...Give me the pen, and I'll veto every single pork barrel bill Congress sends me, and if they keep sending them to me, I'll use the bully pulpit to make the people who are wasting your money famous.

He's going to veto every single pork barrel bill Congress sends him. We all know that can't possibly be true. The Straight Talking Express is blowing smoke, but the so-called conservatives eat it up. As the old saying goes, one person's trash is another person's treasure, the same proves true for pork spending. What one person or Fantasy World Republican might call pork another reality based person calls an earmark. For instance, after Think Progress along with many very attentive bloggers pointed out that military aid to Israel is a line-item earmark (aka pork) McCain backtracked and said he would not veto aid to Israel.

Then on April 24 of this year McCain again Straight Talked himself in circles and said that he would determine spending cuts on a needs basis.

I can assure them that the earmarks that they have received, which have been few and far between because they are not represented by powerful lobbyists and special interests in Washington, that we will judge any expenditure of the American people’s tax dollars on the basis of need.

That's a far cry from vetoing every earmarked bill congress sends him. Nevertheless, circle jerk Republicans and so-called conservatives eat it up.

And yesterday the Maverick tells the American people that it's not necessarily pork earmarks that he opposes, it's the process.

McCain praised the woman’s treatment and later said some earmarks were clearly worthy.

“It’s the process I object to,” McCain told reporters. “We need to start over from scratch.” […]

“When you earmark in the middle of the night you have no budgetary constraints,” he said.

All within a years time McCain has went from pledging to veto any bill containing earmarks to only vetoing bills that don't have aid to Israel, to judging earmarks on a needs basis, to not being opposed to pork at all just the process. It would not have taken nearly a year for McCain to finally come around to telling us how he would really govern if the media establishment had done it's job. Barack Obama is held to words he never said, words other people spout but John McCain isn't once held to his own.

This is how Republicans govern. Time and time again I write about it. There are no bigger recipients of welfare than members of congress. And no congress did more to expand that welfare than the Republican-controlled congress of 1995-2007. Not one time did President Bush, the epitome of modern conservatism, ever veto a single bill while the Republicans were in control. Instead Bush increased the size and scope of the federal government more so than any president since 1932. Not even as much of a whimper from the GOP during this time. Never, not in one single instance, did Bush call for a restraint on spending. In fact, he turned the largest surplus in history into the largest deficit in history. Here, again, we have another Republican sweet talking conservative principles of fiscal responsibility and small government ideas on a campaign trail. And this time we have that Republican candidate openly admitting that his pledge to veto every single earmark isn't even close to being true. The attention, luckily for the GOP, by the MSM is instead focused on words another candidate never said. Latest polls show us that the American people are more concerned about McCain's ties to Bush than Obama's ties to a crazy preacher. None of that gets through to the MSM and the GOP is hoping, praying that no one catches on.

h/t Think Progress

*Update:

New CNN poll has Bush as the most unpopular president in modern American history. Fantasy World Republicans will say this only proves that Bush is a true leader because he doesn't listen to what the polls say. But not listening to what polls say has nothing to do with leading. Not to mention I would be interested in hearing one, just one, successful policy objective in Bush's two terms. Any takers?