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Monday, March 26, 2007
Disgusting use of pork
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President Bush, speaking of the shameless Democrats and a few Republicans who sent the Senate a porked-up troop funding bill with a surrender timetable on Iraq:
“They set rigid restrictions that would require an army of lawyers to interpret. They set an arbitrary date for withdrawal with no regard for conditions on the ground. And they tacked on billions in pet projects that have nothing to do with winning the war on terror. This bill has too much pork, too many conditions and an artificial timetable for withdrawal. As I’ve made clear for weeks I will veto it if it comes to my desk.”
The two Georgia House members who would have been defeated in 2008 had they voted with Speaker Nancy Pelosi — Jim Marshall of Macon and John Barrow of Savannah — voted no. U.S. Reps. David Scott of Atlanta and Sanford Bishop of Columbus — voted yes. Both were once thought to be moderates, but Scott has moved to the left, recognizing that he’s most vulnerable to a primary challenge in a safe Democratic district that runs around the west side of Atlanta.
Bishop, likewise, is more vulnerable from the left than the right, even though his Southwest Georgia district is largely rural and it’s conservative on defense and security issues. But it’s one, too, that’s heavily agricultural. Bishop, who refers to himself as “the peanut congressman,” was among those who put $74 million into the Iraq funding bill to cover storage fees for peanut growers. Shameful. Paying farmers to sell out the country at war by consenting to the imposition of a pull-out timetable is a disgusting use of political pork.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta, a bellwether of the party’s anti-war fringe, voted against the bill because he wants the troops out of Iraq yesterday. The left so overplays its hand. With Lewis and Pelosi in the lead, it will again on Iraq.
