DeMint "Whips" McConnell

I don't see a whole lot of incentive for the Elderly Campbell Soup Kid in either direction.  If he doesn't fight an earmark "ban" now, he'll get yelled at for violating it wholesale later; if he does fight it now....he'll get yelled at for violating it now.  Either way he gets yelled at - unless he "converts" to "DeMintism," I suppose.

-Me, six days ago

I guess Mitchie The Squid found his incentive....

....which is another way of saying that he thinks DeMint has the votes to pass the "Earmarks suck, don't they?" strawpoll.

But that's not the whole explanation, as Eeyore explains:

Beyond that, though, I think his hand was forced this weekend when not only did Boehner and Cantor come out in support of an earmark ban but even Obama talked up earmark reform in his weekly address. Siding against the new Speaker and his class of tea partiers would have been tough enough for McConnell, but ending up on the wrong side of the issue from The One? Unthinkable.

Speaking of Obama earmark reform talk, it must have only been coming out one side of his buttermouth:

White House senior advisor David Axelrod made it clear on Sunday that President Obama has made no commitment to vetoing spending bills that contain earmarks despite calls from fiscal hawks for the president to make that pledge.

Axelrod suggested it may be too late in the year for the president to refuse his signature on bills that contain pork.

“Obviously, this is very late in the game in terms of budgeting and keeping the functions of government operating,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “One of the problems is that these things come embedded in bills that have to be signed.”

IOW, Barry O has lots of "going away presents" to dispense in order to head the incoming House GOP majority off at the budget pass.  Anybody who's startled or stunned by that, stand on your head.

But it does make you shake your head in amazement that he would dispatch the 'stache to send that signal while slinging the feces about earmark reform under twenty-four hours before.  Both sets of propaganda WERE broadcast and WERE recorded and CAN and WILL be compared.  I know Lucifer is hopelessly in love with the sound of his voice, but how can anybody be convinced that such transparent double-tonguedness is going to be politically helpful?

And then it comes back to me: He still thinks he's got the old '08 magic.

No wonder more and more Donks are concluding that this doofus doesn't know what the bleep he's doing.

Exit question: "You want earmarks with that, Mister?"