CLARITY

Captain Ed, commenting on the failed Coburn Amendment in which Senator Coburn was trying to redirect some pork spending towards New Orleans in place of "looking" for money elsewhere. (You may read this as tax increase.)

What did we get? Fifteen votes out of a hundred. Twleve votes out of 55 Republicans. Of the GOP presidential hopefuls, only George Allen supported Coburn. The rest either couldn't be bothered to show up (McCain) or outright voted against it (Frist, Coleman, Reed, Dole).

We worked our butts off to get a GOP majority in both houses of Comgress for better fiscal management -- and yet in one simple test, only 12 of them vote to support their supposed party platform.

So now we have GOP majorities and capture the White House but can't cut pork, can't confirm conservative attorneys on the Supreme Court, and open up new entitlement programs worth billions of dollars for prescription medication?

Talk about a moment of clarity.