Did You Know...

Making pledges is easy. Keeping them? Not so much. Just ask Mr. Hope and Change. The new GOP pledge is fine as far as it goes — especially the upfront acknowledgment that government’s powers derive from the consent of the governed, not from the penumbras emanating from the fingertips of all President Obama’s czars.

But actions speak louder than words. And no action bespoke of the gap between conservative rhetoric and reality louder than the hysterical votes of 91 Republicans who voted with Chicken Little Democrats under the Republican Bush administration to pass the TARP all-purpose banking/auto suppliers/life insurance/AIG bailout.

For a depressing look at how so many supposedly limited government Republicans caved in the face of panic fomented by naked-emperor financial bureaucrats, see my liveblog of the Crap Sandwich vote on October 3, 2008.

Here is the roll call vote from that day.

Print and save it. It’s a useful reminder of which Republicans stood by their principles — and which ones abandoned their fine pledges to uphold the Constitution, laws of the United States, and free-market principles in the heat of battle.

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Words that will live in infamy: “This is not a time for ideological purity.”