QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Many Republican members of Congress must be asking themselves, ‘Is Nancy Pelosi the best fiscal conservative this Congress has to offer?'” – Tim Chapman, Townhall.com. The revolt continues. And let’s be up-front: pork-busting, however admirable and important, doesn’t cut it. I have one test for Bush’s fiscal realism: will he postpone or scale down his budget-busting Medicare drug benefit?

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “You make out as though a vote for Kerry in 2004 was a vote for competent, sober, middle-of-the-road government. Hogwash. It was a vote for Shrum, Kos, and Chirac. If George W. Bush’s reelection confirmed his worst impulses, a Kerry victory would have proven just as exhilarating to those elements of the Left now talking about “Occupied New Orleans.” That’s why many of us supported the President. Perhaps we conservatives are guilty of loving Bush not too wisely but too well, and I’d say you’ve a very well-furnished room in that glass house.”

Ouch. I’ll take my lumps. But this is yet another variation on the Dems-Would-Be-Worse theme. Ask yourself: if Kerry were president and the Congress were still controlled by the Republicans, would we be more fiscally responsible or less?