Earlier today National Journal released its latest poll of the opinions of Beltway insiders.   According to the National Journal news story about the new poll, entitled “Insiders: GOP Would Be Better Off With Romney for 2012,” many GOP insiders think Romney is a much better candidate than Rick Perry.  What National Journal failed to inform its readers is that at least 30 of the 141 GOP operatives polled — nearly 25 percent of the GOP sample — currently work for Romney or worked for his 2008 presidential campaign.  Only one insider was readily identified in a Google search as being a member of Team Perry.

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As the battle over earmarks heats up again in Congress, Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) wants us to know his flag is firmly planted in the pro-earmarking camp. Like his colleague Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sen. Bennett claims to have a far better understanding of his state’s needs than an “unelected bureaucrat” in Washington, D.C.

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Mere days after House Republicans finally put their fiscal house in order and enacted a year-long moratorium on earmarks, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) took to the airwaves to decry the irresponsible actions of…House Republicans.  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but in Sen. Inhofe’s world, one taxpayer’s dollar is another lawmaker’s party favor.

“The inconvenient truth is that we do have a problem with earmarks in America,” he warned Monday from the Senate floor.  “But it’s not congressional earmarks.”  Sen. Inhofe believes the real crime is so-called presidential earmarking, perpetrated by “unelected bureaucrats” throughout the federal government who recklessly throw money away with no supervision or accountability.  He may well be right.  But where do those bureaucrats get the authority to spend the money in the first place?

According to Sen. Inhofe, the authority for unelected bureaucrats to waste money on “presidential earmarks” comes directly from – you guessed it – Congress.

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It was never about abortion.  For Sen. Ben Nelson, a devout appropriator, it was all about the benjamins.  In exchange for a “compromise” that forces federal taxpayers to fund abortion, the supposedly pro-life senator from Nebraska will receive a permanent earmark to pay for all future Medicaid increases in his state.  In short, taxpayers across America are now on the hook for abortions in New York and Medicaid cost overruns in Nebraska.  Somewhere Sen. Landrieu is cursing herself for being such a cheap, early date.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued his war of words against the bill.  Unfortunately for the vast majority of Americans who overwhelmingly oppose the government-run health care plan and the future generations who will have to pay for it, actions speak louder than words, and in that department Sen. McConnell has come up woefully short yet again.

Recall that from the outset, Sen. McConnell and his merry band of lieutenants settled on a “messaging” strategy with regard to the health care bill.  Under this strategy, Sen. McConnell used feckless amendments and nothing else to demonstrate that the bill was bad, as if voters across the country hadn’t already demanded that he kill the bill.  While Sen. McConnell fiddled, Reid happily chipped away at dissent within his own ranks and adopted amendment after amendment after amendment that bought Reid extra time and improved the bill in the eyes of his holdouts.

Today is the culmination of Sen. McConnell’s strategy.  And before anyone is tempted to absolve him of any blame, recall the following hagiographic article that was placed and circulated by Sen. McConnell’s press staff nearly two weeks ago: Skillful McConnell leads GOP opposition to health bill.

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From the diaries by Erick. What he said!

Instead of using every trick in the book to defeat Sen. Harry Reid’s government-run health plan, Senate GOP leadership is idly sitting by while Democrats tweak the bill to buy off votes.  Instead of doing everything in its power to block a bill that is solidly opposed by more voters than not, Senate GOP leadership is allowing Sen. Reid to process amendments and move the trains as if this bill, the largest government takeover of the private sector in American history, represented nothing out of the ordinary.  With each passing amendment, Democrats become closer and closer to buying off the all-important 60th vote.

To fully grasp the near-criminal ineffectiveness of the party’s current strategy, just peruse the following news stories and ask yourself, “Do narratives like these increase or decrease the likelihood of Senate approval of government-run health care?”

• AP:  “The 61-39 roll call Thursday by which the Senate adopted an amendment to safeguard coverage of mammograms and preventive screening tests for women under a revamped health care system.”

• Reuters:  “U.S. Senate bolsters preventive care for women”

• Bloomberg:  Senate Approves Plan to Boost U.S. Mammogram Testing

Top GOP leaders have mistakenly convinced themselves that the key to defeating the bill is to process a number of Republican “messaging” amendments while letting Democrats offer whatever amendments are necessary to buy 60 votes.

There are three fatal problems with this strategy: 1) leadership insists on pushing its own too-clever-by-half “message” instead of listening to the clear message faxed, e-mailed and phoned to every elected official in Washington (“KILL THE BILL!”), 2) as evidenced by the articles above, the current “messaging strategy” is an abysmal failure, and 3) by allowing amendments to be processed at no cost to the majority party, GOP leaders are merely greasing the skids for government-run health care.

In the movie “Braveheart,” William Wallace tells Robert the Bruce, a noble who had the desire but not the guts to do the right thing, “Men don’t follow titles; they follow courage.” It would be refreshing to see more of the latter from those with the former in the United States Senate.

Promoted from the diaries.

Kettle, meet Pot. Or, as he’s known in South Carolina, Adam Fogle.  In a poorly sourced and potentially libelous attack on a professor at Clemson University , little-known blogger Adam Fogle demonstrates once again that Hell hath no wrath like a paid hack scorned.

At PalmettoScoop.com, a thinly trafficked blog that follows South Carolina Politics, Fogle this morning accused Clemson professor James David Woodard of taking bribes in exchange for praising Sen. Jim DeMint and bashing Sen. Lindsey Graham.  “Professor May Be Running ‘Quotes for Hire’ Racket at Clemson University,” Fogle blared.  Woodard co-authored a book with Sen. DeMint and previously served as a consultant for several South Carolina lawmakers, including DeMint in 1998, Lindsey Graham in 1994, and Rep. Gresham Barrett in 2002.  Something must be amiss when a so-called conservative like Fogel frets that academia is just too darn supportive of conservatives.

Fogle’s proof of Woodard’s guilt in a seedy “pay-to-say” consists of the fact that…Woodard used to work as a consultant for DeMint.  In 1998.  But how would that explain Woodard’s attacks on Graham?  “[W]hen Graham stopped paying [Woodard] as a consultant, Woodard suddenly became his biggest and harshest critic,” answers Fogle.  Unfortunately for Fogel, Woodard’s praise for DeMint continued long after his work for him ended, suggesting that Woodard’s real crime against Graham isn’t that he’s on the take; it’s that he didn’t stay bought.  And staying bought is something Adam Fogle knows a lot about.

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From the diaries by Erick.

“The president was clearly frustrated with what was going on, but there was little he could do at this late hour. He went up to take a nap, saying he was beat. He looked it. I’d never seen him more exhausted. His hair was out of place and shaggy. His face looked drained and pale. Most alarming of all, he was wearing Crocs.”

So reads former presidential speechwriter Matt Latimer’s tongue-in-cheek description of President Bush hours before giving a national address to explain his Treasury secretary’s plan to save the country’s economy and banking sector from total collapse.  Crocs cracks aside, that the president had no idea how the financial plan actually worked is even more disturbing.  “Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?” Bush asked.  Good question.  Unfortunately, many of the former aides named in Latimer’s book have proven themselves far more likely to attack the book and its author than provide any real answers.

Released last week by Crown Publishing, Speech-Less details the rise of a native of Flint, Michigan (the inspiration for Michael Moore’s Roger and Me)  to the floor of a national political convention, to the halls of Congress, to the Pentagon, and, finally, to the Oval Office.  Latimer pulls no punches.  And although less than half the book centers around his time in the White House, the bulk of the rage directed toward the book has come from former White House staffers aghast at the audacity of someone airing their antics.

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