Rep. Jack Kingston (R.-Ga.) is throwing gasoline on the fire. After taking heat on
The American Spectator and
Club for Growth blogs, he's fighting back.
Yesterday afternoon, The American Spectator's Dave Holman
questioned Kingston's rationale for spending the taxpayers' money as a member of the House Appropriations Committee. (Kingston was
answering a constituent's question via MailTube about government spending, which set off the controversy.)
To make matters worse for Kingston, the
Club for Growth joined the chorus today. (The constituent asking the question of Kingston actually referenced the Club.)
Most members of Congress would probably try to put out the flames after coming under attack from their own side. But not Jack Kingston.
Posted on his blog today is a nearly 1,000-word rebuttal that makes the case that change is happening, albeit slowly, with the appropriations process.
The truth is, Kingston will always be in the line of fire as long as
wears three hats as 1) a member of the conservative Republican Study Committee, 2) a member of leadership, and 3) a member of the Appropriations Committee. But the best thing about Kingston is that
he's an optimist, even when he's taking heat from the right. You've got to give him credit for that.
UPDATE -- June 30, 10:58 a.m.: It gets more interesting.
Dave Holman at The American Spectator responds to Kingston's post.
UPDATE -- 5:12 p.m.: This fire won't die, and at this point, I'm not sure Kingston's team really wants it to go away. He's getting a ton of free publicity (remarkably,
K-Lo at NRO even paid attention to us petty right-wing bloggers).
The
new post on Kingston's blog mentions his critics at the
Club for Growth and
The American Spectator by name (something "spokesblogger" David All had avoided in an
earlier missive). It also praises
Jason Pye, the chairman of Georgia's Libertarian Party, who got Kingston into the mess in the first place.
Not content with giving Kingston the last word,
The Spectator's Holman remarked:
You can dress up a legislator all you want: in nice suits, with funny give-and-takes with Stephen Colbert, a genial presentation, video features, and more. Which is great, and even entertaining at times. But at the end of the day, it's a lot of work to obscure a mediocre conservative record -- like putting lipstick on a pig.
I'll give the
last word in this debate to my friend Danny Glover at National Journal's Beltway Blogroll. And so ends this debate.
