Our favorite misrepresenting representative, Terry Lee – er – Lee Terry, voted against earmark reforms and budget rules that he said, not one day earlier, that he supported:

Last fall , the House adopted comprehensive earmark reforms that required the sponsors of all earmarks to be publicly disclosed. I am pleased to see many of the provisions authored by the Republican Majority last year are included in this bill.

This actually isn’t true, but Lee Terry would like you to believe it is. If public disclosure of earmark sponsors was in the rules of the 109th Congress, there would be no reason why it would be included explicitly in the package, since the rules of the 109th Congress were already included.

There are budget-saving provisions in H. Res 6 which are small victories. It is my hope that we will be able to come together , across the aisle , to balance the budget by 2012 and strengthen fiscal responsibility and accountability in order to regain the public’s trust in Congress.

Those “budget-saving provisions” were included in the same portion of the rules package as the earmark reforms. Terry praised both of these on the House floor and in the quoted press release. He then went out and voted against them.

Perhaps House Minority Leader John Boehner, who has contributed over $20,000 to Lee Terry over the years, reminded Terry to get in line? Or Minority Whip Roy Blunt, who has contributed $13,000? Let’s not forget the $10,000 Tom DeLay’s PAC contributed to Lee Terry in 2002 and 2004. Forgive me if I’m not taking Lee Terry very seriously when he grandstands on the House floor about ethics. You can’t associate yourself this closely with the most corrupt House leadership in recent memory and pretend that you are innocent. And when you send out a press release saying you support earmark reforms, and then later that same day vote against the reforms, you deserve to be called exactly what you are: a liar.