Environment

Small Government Conservatives. Yeah Right.

Dana Milbank -- yes, Dana Milbank -- wrote an excellent piece enumerating the small government conservatives who are currently demanding more government funding and resources to fight the (heretofore deregulated) oil spill.

About 10:30 Monday morning, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), an ardent foe of big government, posted a blog item on his campaign Web site about the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "I strongly believe BP is spread too thin," he wrote. [...]

About an hour later came word from the Pentagon that Alabama, Florida and Mississippi -- all three governed by men who once considered themselves limited-government conservatives -- want the federal government to mobilize (at taxpayer expense, of course) more National Guard troops to aid in the cleanup.

That followed an earlier request by the small-government governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal (R), who issued a statement saying he had called the Obama administration "to outline the state's needs" and to ask "for additional resources." Said Jindal: "These resources are critical."

Jindal, eh? This is the same Bobby Jindal who thought it was fudging hilarious to even consider having the government provide more funding for volcano monitoring. And now he suddenly wants lots of federal government handouts. Money and resources that are -- how do they put it? -- redistributed from other places. My money. Your money. But I thought things like this should be left up to the states. Tenth Amendment and all that happy crappy. What gives, Republicans?

h/t Katrina