Evan Bayh: The face of rotted Washington

[IndianaGreen]

Monday, Nov 30, 2009 03:31 PST

The face of rotted Washington

By Glenn Greenwald

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh -- who was one of the most vocal cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, talks excitedly about punishing, and even bombing, Iran, and is now demanding full-scale escalation in Afghanistan -- was on Fox News yesterday and highlighted what a fraud most so-called "fiscal conservatives" and "deficit hawks" like him really are:

WALLACE: Senator Bayh, you brought up the question of cost, and the administration has put the cost -- and this is kind of astonishing to, I think, a lot of people -- $1 million per soldier per year, so if you sent 30,000 soldiers, that would be a $30 billion price tag.

Now, some top Democrats are talking about the idea -- the new idea of a war tax to pay for the escalation in Afghanistan. Good idea?

BAYH: No, I don't think it's a good idea, not at this point, Chris. First of all, you need to provide for the nation's security regardless of your financial situation, and there's no bigger deficit hawk in Congress than I am.

I think we need to start coming to grips with this. We're going to have a big vote coming up on the debt ceiling. I don't think we should vote to raise the debt ceiling until we have a strategy in place to get our deficits down.

So we've got to take the fiscal situation seriously, but, number one, national security comes first.

Number two, we've got to look at cutting spending in other parts of the budget before we even talk about raising taxes.

It's impossible to find a more perfectly representative face for the rotted Washington establishment than Evan Bayh. He is the pure expression of virtually every attribute that makes the Beltway so dysfunctional, deceitful and corrupt.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/30/bayh/index.html

[caraher]

1. I hate that kind of violence to the language

"Deficit hawk" should mean that you oppose spending money the government has not raised. Taxes raise money for the government. Therefore, if you advocate spending money on something and are a true "deficit hawk" shouldn't you support a tax to pay for it?

Instead, it appears that (like many Hoosiers) he's just a different species of bird - the anti-tax loon.

[jtylerpittman]

2. "like many hossisers"

? we went for obama

[caraher]

3. ummm... true. But so what?

"Many" doesn't imply a Democrat can't win. I'm just talking about people of both major parties who tend to focus on taxes as an issue divorced from the question of services. Regardless of presidential choice, there's no shortage of people who only see the money they pay and never consider that they may get something in return.

also... "hossisers?" I wouldn't even mention it except your putting it in quotes makes it seem like I spelled it that way...

[Voltaire]

4. A bigger phony there never has been

We need to primary his ass. But not many Hoosier Democrats believe it can be done. Makes me crazy.

[IndianaGreen]

5. All we have to do is NOT vote for him

either in the primary or in the election. He hasn't earned our votes. He has earned our scorn!