Missed opportunities

I think earmarks are a problem in that the horsetrading around them for votes is at the root why it takes so damn long to get anything done on the Hill. But in terms of the cost, at this point, they're the least of our problems. Still, the GOPers made much hay with the spending bill and I still don't understand why the Democrats didn't capitalize on this point:

The non-partisan Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) offered a damning statistic, finding that 28 of the 35 senators who opposed the $410 billion spending bill had earmarks of their own within the bill, but the Obama team didn't make any hay from the TCS numbers ... thus missing a chance to undercut some of their critics.

Maybe they wanted to appear to be above the fray, but simply pointing out the hypocrisy could have shut down the whole narrative early on in the game.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]