Cynical Nation

Ronaldus Magnus was "the Gipper" to those of us who loved him (and who didn't, really?) but now we need a cool nickname for John McCain and the handful of other legislators who actually want to do something about Congress's obscene spending practices -- other than increase it, that is.

The Dipper? The Stripper? The Gripper? The Zipper? The Flipper? None of those seem quite right for McCain (although I may have come up with some reasonable monikers for Bill Clinton and John Kerry with those last two, respectively) so I guess I'll have to settle for "The Clipper" for now. (Cuz get it? He likes to "clip" pork-barrel spending from the budget. See?) All right, that's hella lame. Just forget it.

Anyway, Robert Novak has some good news in his latest column about fiscal conservatives standing up to out-of-control congressional spending -- and occasionally even winning. Here's my favorite bit (emphasis mine.)

In the Senate, McCain's crusade against earmarks has a new fighter in Coburn (who McCain says has supplanted him as the Senate's Miss Congeniality). On Wednesday, Coburn offered an amendment to eliminate 19 earmarks from the emergency appropriations bill and came just shy of defeating a $700 million railroad relocation in Mississippi.

On Thursday, Coburn proposed to eliminate $15 million for "seafood promotion strategy." McCain told the Senate: "Let me save the American taxpayers $125 million right now by telling all Americans now to eat seafood. Eat seafood. It is good for you." When Coburn rejected Cochran's call for a voice vote, the normally calm Appropriations chairman in a fury made a non-debatable tabling motion to kill Coburn's proposal. The astounding outcome was a 51-44 bipartisan victory for Coburn and McCain, following years of failure in such initiatives.