With his affirmative vote for the no government left behind spending package, Rep. Charlie Melancon showed not only that he is a fraudulent hypocrite but that he essentially has given up any realistic chance of claiming a Senate seat in 2010.
Melancon regularly touts his membership in the “Blue Dog” coalition, now serving as its co-director of communication, meaning his House website hosts the group’s site. The site proclaims the group of Democrats is deeply committed to fiscal stability in national policy, supplies all sorts of news releases concerning the group’s articulated desires for fiscal responsibility, less deficit spending, and the like, and even has a debt calculator on its home page informing that the U.S. national debt is ready to hit $10 trillion and how each member of the public now owes over $30,000 to paying it off.
Yet as did almost every single member of the caucus, Melancon laid down his principles to vote for the spending package that will increase that debt by 10 percent, tripling this year’s annual deficit. This reveals what Melancon tries to desperately hide, that he is nothing more than a tax-and-spend liberal, by distracting his right-of-center constituency in the Blue Dog rhetoric.
Either that, or he’s just stupid or ignorant. Melancon attempted to justify his vote by saying, “To do nothing is to assure that the economy will collapse and the recovery period will be extended,” which shows he knows nothing about history involving the Great Depression, where the exact same approach President Barack Obama is taking with the bill made the situation worse and extended economic recovery years beyond what was necessary.
(To make a bad week worse, Melancon also found time to look like an idiot when he complained about talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s quote “I hope he fails” that referred to Obama’s policy plans. Instead, Melancon mischaracterized the quote out of its context, criticizing Limbaugh for something he didn’t say, that he hoped Obama would fail the country on the economic recovery issue. Which means he needs to give a good talking to whichever staffer monitors Limbaugh’s program for getting that wrong.)
But more than making a wrong choice for his constituents and his country, Melancon also completed the hat trick by putting himself on the wrong side of this issue if he has any ambitions to challenge Sen. David Vitter for his seat next year. Vitter was one of the leading opponents to the bill in the Senate, and anecdotal evidence is that a solid majority in Louisiana agree with him on that. If 18 months from now, as is likely a result of this bill, the economy is still in recession or worse, Vitter would annihilate him on this issue. Meaning that if a year from now conditions are like this, Melancon may have short-circuited his entire candidacy on this and therefore decide not to run. And it may cast such a pall over him that he may have a hard time fighting off a quality Republican challenger to his current position.
Melancon, electorally lucky in the past, may have staked his entire political future on this vote. He had better hope his luck continues.
6 comments:
I wrote to melancon just this morning to point out that rather than a Blue Dog, he's just a dog, bent over before obama. I had hoped he would better refelct the wishes of the state but that's not in the cards-nor is any success at higher elective office in Louisiana. Hope he runs against Vitter...
I wrote to RNC Chairman Michael Steele to see if we can locate and finance a viable candidate to defeat Comrade Melancon in 2010. He has obviously strayed far from representing the majority of his constituents. Considering our District is 55% registered Republican, it should not be that problematical.
Yes, need to focus now on finding someone to challenge Melancon in 2010. Should be someone from Lafourche or Terrebonne Parish--maybe Parish President of Sherrif from one of those.
Umm - you may be right about Melancon, but if you think for a second that what David Vitter did is based on principles, then you're the idiot. Go look at his bills that he has introduced so far this session. Hardly any policy substance among them - mostly just inflammatory rhetoric.
"Go look at his bills that he has introduced so far this session."
You mean like, for instance, restoring $271 million dollars from missile defense cut by Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee? I suppose in Lefty logic, that is "just inflammatory rhetoric," because all problems are caused by Bush, everyone who hated us only hated us because of Bush, never mind attacks against our embassies in East Africa, the WTC, and our troops protecting food distributors in Somalia while Clinton was in office. The cowboy Bush isn't in office anymore, so there's no need for defense against, I don't know, Iran or North Korea, right? But wait a moment...Iran is still pursuing nuclear enrichment and North Korea is still testing missiles.
How can that be with the most merciful B.O. in office? Why just the other day at his revival he promised to heal a woman of her homeless condition and give a home to a lady living in her car because she'd been offered a home but didn't want to have to pay for it. How can it be that people don't love B.O. because you think they should? After all when it comes to deciding which bipartisan ideas to advance into policy, he won, and he'll trump us on that. How can anyone not love him, because he won?
i'm all for a good time but buying hookers like Vitter did is just too much for me. Don't know much about Melancon but would like a non-hypocrite, D or R, to unseat "Mr. Hypocrite" Vitter
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