Thursday, June 28, 2007

GOP Sen. on WH Earmarks: "Hypocrisy? No, Duplicity"

An article in The Hill this morning quotes GOP Sen. Larry Craig (ID), responding to a question about whether President Bush was being hypocritical for requesting hundreds of earmarks even while criticizing them and vowing to cut the number of earmarks in half this year:

"Hypocrisy? No, but one might call that duplicity."

According to the article, Rep. David Obey estimates that Bush had requested over 800 earmarks in the Energy-Water appropriations bill alone. Nevertheless, Bush has promised to veto it, on account of "the excess spending in this bill." Is that what Sen. Craig meant by 'duplicity'?