Playing Both Ends Against the Middle

From The Pilot: October 25, 2009

Last week, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr took part in an Alexander County ceremony celebrating a $2 million federal grant for a new fire station.
"This is a great thing for this county," Republican Burr said as he posed for pictures. "We're not accustomed to federal dollars in that magnitude finding their way to North Carolina."
Yes, well. Fact is, that $2 million would never have found its way to North Carolina at all if it weren't for last February's $787 billion economic stimulus bill, pushed forward by the Obama administration -- and voted against by Sen. Burr!
"In typical Washington fashion," Burr publicly and vociferously complained at the time, "we have thrown together a hastily written bill with little public input, little debate and very little thought about the long-term consequence of what we are passing. By spending nearly a trillion dollars on projects that expand the government but provide little to no stimulus, we are ensuring a massive debt for our grandchildren."

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee lost no time in jumping on the recent contradiction, declaring that Burr wins "the gold medal in hypocrisy for trying to have it both ways," and it is hard to dispute that. After all, as committee spokesman Eric Schultz said, "This is somebody who, every chance he got, opposed the very funding that he went and had the photo-op about." Burr is up for re-election next year. His office tried to brush the matter aside, replying: "Sen. Burr was invited to the grant presentation by the Alexander County Commissioners and was happy to be there to recognize the community and the fire department for their work in securing this highly competitive grant."
That, of course, purposely misses the point.
It is one thing to come out in bitter opposition to a federal spending bill designed to kick-start the U.S. economy in hopes of helping blunt the effects of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Many members of the Senate and House, most of them Republicans, did just that.
But then to turn around a few months later and seek to gain a political bounce from the trickling-down to the local level of some of that federal money you tried to prevent from flowing in the first place?
Yep, "hypocrisy" is the word.