Virginia Foxx Gets Woozy on the Perfume of Her Own Righteousness

Madam Virginia Foxx has regaled us with another hee-lariously self-serving public message about her own born-again religion RE "Congressional earmarks," and she is showing the strain of maintaining (now) two wholly conflicting narratives about Life in These United States During the Regime of the Littlest Angel.

To wit, this strangely revealing paragraph of hers: "Our historically strong economy showed signs of slowing at the end of 2007 and in January employers trimmed payrolls for the first time in 52 months. The specter of a bump in the economic road has Congress buzzing -- and rightly so -- about an economic stimulus package."

Translation: "Our economy is wonderful, rewarding those who are right with God. Therefore, we immediately need an economic stimulus package passed by Congress."

But Foxx's admission that something has gone screwy under the ministrations of George W. Bush & Friends (that little bump in the road) IS progress of a kind. Foxx has never before admitted that the Republican management of the economy was less than divinely inspired.

Her explanation of a "slowing" but somehow still "strong economy"? Those dastardly Congressional earmarks. Earmarks. I kid you not. Virginia Foxx wants to blame the recession on earmarks. Not on a two-front war, one front of which was entirely a neo-con fantasy. Not on a vastly expanded Federal entitlement (Medicare Part D) passed by the Republicans. Not on the wholesale militarization of our entire society by a philosophy of preemptive bullying.

In the process of blaming earmarks, she leaves out one key fact: earmarks reached a high of 15,000 items in 2005, after ten years of Republican control in Congress. They were actually down in number this year to around 9,000 under the Democrats. An improvement, if not a definitive turn-around. Foxx doesn't mention that.

Watching her parse the economy while holding onto her "conservative" ideology is akin to watching someone try to paddle a boat with only a starboard oar.