All Too Cozy

Republican US Senators Tom Coburn and vanquished Presidential candidate John McCain came out Tuesday in high dudgeon to denounce some of the wasteful stimulus spending, but in so doing, they missed the forest for the trees and showed how incredibly weak the poor old GOP is and how the old line media has ossified. What should be a scandal of Teapot Dome proportions is barely remarked upon as a few Republican semi-stalwarts mention that two firms Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's campaign pollster runs, received nearly six million stimulus dollars (snatched from honest taxpayers) to preserve three (3), count them- three jobs. McCain and Coburn said that this outrage was an "inefficient" use of Federal funds. Hundreds of jobs could (should) have been created, not three jobs saved for that amount, so in so far as the statement went, the Senators were right. It is a poor and inefficient way to squander taxpayer dollars, but it also  should be emphasized by  Republicans with real backbone that this must be seen as an emolument that reeks of Chicago-style cronyism. That so few Republicans even trotted out for a whimper when they should roar, that public accountability groups that crucify Republicans  for much less are silent, and that the dinosaur media yawns is itself as great a scandal. Republicans and journalists should be shouting "corruption" but are too dazzled by Obama's prestidigitation to notice (or a cynic might argue, some of the Republicans are quiet because they could be caught in the same net). In what could be a penitentiary matter over payoffs or a hidden quid pro quo to retire Obama's Secretary of State Clinton's campaign debt to Penn or even through improper diversion of funds, rise to the level of an impeachable offense,  bringing a cacophony of protest, the silence is deafening.