Now John Cornyn Has Given Me Tired Head

John Cornyn says he hates a $1 trillion spending bill because it’s full of earmarks. He’s gone on record as saying he will vote against this bill because of its pork factor.

But there’s one problem: In this bill, which is full of earmarks he purportedly hates, are 48 earmarks he requested, to the tune of $103 million.

So does Cornyn hate earmarks, or just earmarks that are not his? Fair question, unless I’m oversimplifying it. ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked the Texas senator about his insistence on hating earmarks when he has a bunch in there himself, at a presser where Cornyn was railing against the porky bill.

Cornyn insisted that his opposition to the bill was all about a dislike of “sweetheart deals cut behind closed doors,” wasteful spending and business as usual. He said he opposed earmarks.

Karl then asked, “Senator, were you wrong when you put these earmarks in before?”

Cornyn said earmarks were a symptom of wasteful spending, something something something else that sounded like stuff he already said but didn’t answer the question.  And then basically Cornyn made my brain explode.

“So I think — I think that’s to me the context. And we’ve said very clearly — we voted for an earmark moratorium. We will abide by that, and we will reject any earmarks requested by us or anyone else, because that’s what the American people told us they want.”

So doesn’t it seem like a lot of work and potential embarrassment to put a bunch of earmarks in with the express intent of voting against them later?