Pat's whining earmark hypocrisy

He used bureaucratic tactics to screw around with the Homeland Security legislation, but now that Democrats are releasing their list of earmark requests, our classy representative in Congress has flipped a daring 180, refusing to release his own!

Rahm Emanuel and others released a detailed list of their earmark requests, but not our Pat. And as cowardly as always, he had his spokesman Aaron Latham make the typically whiny excuses: “We release information on requests when the Appropriations Committee completes the bill-drafting process and there is something tangible and in print."

He tried for a harder hit here: “The Democrats took it on the chin last week — and this week, they’re trying to play political rope-a-dope. It’s interesting that they want to rehash a fight they’ve already lost."

I think the person who lost a political fight (rope-a-dope or not) was dear old Pat. See Congressman Tim Ryan take him on in this great video I posted over the weekend (below) If you didn't read it then, you really should at least check out the last minute.

You know, our wonderfully contradictory Pat said nothing about earmarks when Republicans were in power, but now that Democrats are in charge, he's all over it. More here from The Hill:

Some of last week’s most outspoken critics of Democrats’ earmark proposal aren’t so open about their own requests. Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) were among the leaders of the effort to criticize Democrats for keeping earmarks secret and refusing to allow the projects to be challenged on the floor.

“Let’s have a way to evaluate those earmarks. Our constituents deserve to know before that vote takes place rather than after that bill comes out of conference committee,” Blackburn said.

But they had already turned down requests from newspaper reporters in their home states for a list of the earmarks they were requesting.

. . .

A McHenry spokesman echoed Blackburn’s claims and said his boss didn’t release his earmark request because of a “long-standing” practice among the North Carolina delegation to “avoid confusion.”

Yeah, right. To avoid "confusion." That's even funnier than the rope-a-dope line.

So, not only did our Pat say nothing about Republican earmarks last year and the year before. He's refusing to discuss his own earmarks right now.

Posted in slightly different form at NC Politico, BlueNC, and Scrutiny Hooligans.