Fox News Steals Another Obama Idea on Earmarks

Last updated on February 9th, 2013 at 03:54 pm

GOP Victory is Adopting President Obama's Ideas for Their Own!

Fox News Denies Reality to Sell GOP as Driving Obama Regarding Earmarks

This morning on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends”, the erstwhile “news” brothers and sisters at RNC PAC/Fox News are pretending that President Obama is the earmark bogey man and that they will be the driving force in getting him to support banning earmarks. This would be a great sale of baloney if only reading people the country wide didn’t already know that the President has been attempting to get earmarks killed for oh, ever since he was a Senator.

And a Senator is kinda more important than being a Representative in the House, just like being President is actually more important than making up phony narratives for Fox PAC, but still, who are we to ruin the Great GOPPER Dream of 2010? Kill the earmarks, gentlemen!

And please, while you are at it, start with your districts! Yes, go home and tell your constituents that the reason you’re not bringing home the bacon is because you are a revirginized fiscal conservative, and that you would have rejected all of that pork last year if only that evil socialist didn’t force you to take it!

Here’s the Republican PAC’s objective take on the earmark situation courtesy of Media Matters, special props for their school boy excitement that “something will finally get done!” as if it were not the Republicans who had been blocking things from getting done for the past two years. So cute!

Did ya’ miss the narrative? Huh? Did ya’? How could you!? We report and you decide! It was right there in text on the screen for you, you flippin’ goofball! The Republicans are rushing in as the Cavalry of Fiscal Conservatism to Save America! Captains America are played by the white guys and they drive the African American president who likes to spend, spend, spend to their side, thereby saving the world, no, the universe!

Media Matters reports: ” Carlson stated during the November 16 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends: “The big onus will fall on the president, because let’s say that this bill comes to his desk to ban earmarks. Will he veto it, or will he sign it? That will be the interesting test.” Fox & Friends suggests Obama’s support for earmark reform came after McConnell’s newfound support of it.”

Yes, yes, yes! The White Man Calvary is saving the country! Without them, where would Obama be? Perhaps a nice man, no, we aren’t birthers today (that was before the election, you slowpoke!) – today we are playing the reasonable people who think the President is a nice guy, but just not that bright when it comes to money. Money is sort of a white man thing, since you know, the white guys have had it longer and know what to do with it! No insult intended here, of course.

In order to believe this fantasy, one must be ever so careful to never go beyond the reaches of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, lest one trip over reality!

Media Matters reports a brief recounting of reality, which all GOP PAC viewers had best ignore since it is funded by George Soros, the evil empire man funding Sarah Palin’s advisers. Oh, wait, I was supposed to leave that part out. OK, well, please ignore the following:

“On October 15, 2008, Obama stated: “Earmarks account for 0.5 percent of the total federal budget. There’s no doubt that the system needs reform and there are a lot of screwy things that we end up spending money on, and they need to be eliminated. But it’s not going to solve the problem” of reducing the deficit.”

Ouch. But, but the Republicans are making a Big Show of this, President Obama! Don’t ruin the show with facts about the deficit! After all, only a Republican knows how to drive the deficit up after a surplus and hand over trillions of dollars of unpaid for debt to the next guy and then put on the Big Show about being fiscally responsible!

“During the September 26, 2008, presidential debate, Obama said: “[A]bsolutely, we need earmark reform. And when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely. But the fact is that eliminating earmarks alone is not a recipe for how we’re going to get the middle class back on track.””

Again with the reality thing, Mr President? Reality is so boring. George Soros, George Soros, George Soros! Na-na, na-na! Please join me in collectively sticking your tongue out in what we call “debate”!

“In March 2009, Obama called for ending earmark abuses.” And called on CONGRESS to act, “Now I’m calling on Congress to enact these reforms as the appropriation process moves forward this year. Neither I nor the American people will accept anything less.”

Well, so, this is still the Republicans moment, right? I mean, they’re sort of driving him. Well, OK, they’re hopping on his bus, but still. At least they get to ride in the front.

“Obama dedicated his November 13 weekly address to earmark reform, saying:
As a Senator, I helped eliminate anonymous earmarks and created new measures of transparency so Americans can better follow how their tax dollars are being spent. As President, time and again, I’ve called for new limitations on earmarks. We’ve reduced the cost of earmarks by over $3 billion. And we’ve put in place higher standards of transparency by putting as much information as possible on earmarks.gov. In fact, this week, we updated the site with more information about where last year’s earmarks were actually spent, and made it easier to look up Members of Congress and the earmarks they fought for.””

Why, you can’t have put earmarks on the web, that was our idea! I mean, we were gonna, if we got elected. We just never got around to it under Bush and besides, the interwebs can be confusing. It’s about the narrative, not the DOING, Mr President! George Soros, George Soros, George Soros! Na-na, na-na!

“In a November 16 article, The Washington Post reported that “Obama also has supported an earmark moratorium and has encountered similar resistance from veteran Democratic lawmakers, who like McConnell are former appropriators.”
Obama commends “McConnell’s decision to join me and members of both parties who support cracking down on wasteful earmark spending.”

Er, flip flop McConnell? Isn’t he a Republican? Can we move on? This so doesn’t fit with our narrative.

Just to be safe, should we check out the scale of money going to Republicans versus Democrats in 2009 when Democrats were in power, which would usually indicate they would get more money? Um, darn it, I’m not seeing Republicans turning down millions of earmarks. Oh, reality, why have you forsaken me? Shhhh, petulant reality, we are all to believe that Republicans will get responsible now that they are in power, which is sort of like a teenager promising they wouldn’t drive drunk if only you would trust them first.

While nuance does not a good sound bite make, good policy it does. Doing away with earmarks all together during a recession is probably not a wise idea. Please, reality, you are such a flippin’ downer! Cut to the White Guy Cavalry saving the day!

Gosh, if I didn’t know better, I’d think the GOP has a hard time with the backseat of the bus, especially when their driver is not white or Republican. How else to explain the GOP adopting President Obama’s ideas as their own and then claiming victory for driving the President to their side? When just days before they were doing the pretend governing, and voting no on their own ideas, now they claim the President’s ideas as their own! Dizzy, I am!

Go, Cavalry! Save the day from your House of Little Power Representatives!

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Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here. Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump. Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Connect with Sarah on Post,  Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.

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