THE EARMARK

You’ve probably read that the both the House and Senate passed credit card reform legislation this week — and by sweeping margins. The House vote was 361-64, which was impressive enough, until you compare it to the Senate, which voted 90-5.

In fact the margin was so wide in the Senate, it had a lot of folks wondering who out there didn’t think it was a good idea to eliminate double-cycle billing and predatory rate hikes on the most vulnerable Americans. Heck, even Sen. Tom Coburn (R-NRA) voted in favor of the bill– albeit only after amending it to usher handguns into national parks.

Well here are the dissenters to the bill, along with some possible motivations:

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)- Oddly enough, Alexander objected to Coburn’s gun amendment, saying even Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush wouldn’t have approved. He was the only Republican to do so. That said, he didn’t like the credit card part either.

Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ)- Wants to preserve Americans’ rights to get junk mail stating that they’re pre-approved for credit cards if they act today!

Sens. Tim Johnson (D-SD) and John Thune (R-SD)- So we’ve all heard of credit card giant Citibank, right? But did you realize that, since 1981, the “Citi” in reference has been Sioux Falls, South Dakota? Seriously.

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT)- Trying to test how far you can push Utah voters before they punish a Republican politician.

We should also mention that South Dakota wasn’t the only state to lack a single “aye” vote. Both of West Virginia’s senators missed the vote altogether. But to be fair, the senior senator, Robert C. Byrd, was receiving treatment at a local hospital, while the junior senator, Jay Rockefeller, was getting a payday loan at a Wheeling check-cashing store.

For a while, it looked like the United State Senate might be left without a member of the vaunted Kennedy clan for the first time since 1953, when JFK was sworn in as the junior senator from Massachusetts.

After all, although he is courageously battling brain cancer, it’s hard to imagine that Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) will be in office much longer. JFK’s daughter Caroline Kennedy’s bid to become a U.S. Senator from New York famously went down in flames, Ted’s son Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) continues to pass up opportunities to run for the Upper Chamber, and we wouldn’t expect too much from RFK’s daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D-MD).

But enter a dark horse! It appears that after weeks of rumors, Chris Kennedy, a Democrat from Chicago and the son of RFK, is definitely in the race for Barack Obama’s old Senate Illinois Senate seat.

Kennedy has a local real estate empire, kind words from Mayor Richard Daley, and of course that helpful last name.

But don’t get too excited! Because before he can be sworn in as the latest in that long tradition of Kennedys in the Senate, he faces an incredibly difficult battle against a formidable foe …

Roland Burris.

But now Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has thrown in a new charge: that Obama is a secret … well, we’ll let you decide.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday called President Obama’s national security address “a big flowery campaign speech” that lacked specifics and put politics over security.

OK, so McConnell was technically calling Obama’s speech flowery, not the man himself.

But still, words have meanings. How long will it be before we seeing leading Republicans describing Vice President Joe Biden as “limp-wristed” (look for Jim Bunning to lead that charge), ripping White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel as “spritelike,” or attacking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as “effeminate?”

Mission accomplished. Because early this morning, Biden arrived in an exotic locale where he can stay out of the limelight, relax, work on his tan … fabulous Bosnia!

Many diplomats and experts consider Bosnia the least stable part of the Balkans whose troubles could potentially slow the region’s common desire to integrate into the Europe Union.

U.S. officials hope Biden’s Bosnia visit, ahead of trips to Serbia and Kosovo, will show support for a country where economic and political woes have worsened in recent months.

“The fact that the vice president is going is evidence that we are looking to demonstrate intensified U.S. engagement in the region, starting with Bosnia,” a senior U.S. government official, declining to be named, told reporters before the trip.

After Bosnia, they’re making him go to Serbia and Kosovo!

And did you catch that? The “senior U.S. government official” responsible for this whole extended punishment refused to be named … any guesses on who that might be?

(By the way, there are certain lows to which we will not stoop in our political comedy. You’ll have to do that yourself. Insert your own Hillary Clinton/Bosnian sniper fire joke here.)

After a year of economists blathering that wage disparities, cheap foreign labor, and a worldwide recession were to blame for the demise of America’s small businesses, RNC Chairman Michael Steele has finally cut through all the intellectual elitism and identified the real culprit:

Gay marriage.

Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday…

“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

You’ve gotta hand it to Steele. Nothing says big tent party quite like “you just cost me money.”

Politics Daily’s Tommy Christopher was all over this story when it broke, and points out that gay marriages wouldn’t be the only ones that “just cost Steele money.” By the chairman’s logic, straight marriages already do!

You see, Steele appears to be referring to the healthcare costs that businesses are obligated to subsidize for their employees under our current system. A pro-business solution to this problem would be eliminating all employer burdens in the healthcare system and switch to single-payer care as many of our western allies have already done.

Unfortunately single-payer health care seems like a pipe dream at this stage, due to vociferous opposition by interest groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Moneyed Hospital CEOs and some guy named Michael Steele, who had this to say while running for U.S. Senate in 2006:

Who pays for universal health insurance? Who pays for socialized medicine? I don’t need government dictating to me when I go to the doctor, which doctor I go to, how much is going to be paid for my health care. That’s not the America I want to live in.

No, the America that this 2006 Senate candidate wants to live in is one where small businesses are obligated to subsidize healthcare costs for their employees and their spouses. Sounds like he has some issues to work out with the guy who addressed the Georgia Republicans on Saturday.

Ever since David Souter announced his resignation, news reporters have been racing across Washington, trying to figure out whom President Obama will nominate to fill a soon-to-be-vacant Supreme Court seat.

Apparently they should hang out at more NRA meetings. Or at least ones where RNC Chairman Michael Steele is the guest speaker…

Addressing the National Rifle Association, Steele warned that “liberal Democrats could control every lever of every branch of government” if Obama picks a “young, activist, left-wing justice…

“Sounds like instead of another Judge Roberts, the President is looking to put Doctor Phil on the Court.”

In our judgment, Steele is overestimating Obama’s affinity for Dr. Phil. While it’s true that both the president and the TV psychologist have ridden Oprah’s coattails to considerable fame and power, Obama has actually made reference to Dr. Phil in the past– and it wasn’t exactly to nominate him to the Supreme Court.

We refer to Obama’s scolding of then-opponent John McCain last July, when McCain henchman and recesssion architect Phil Gramm announced that the nation was experiencing a “mental recession” and that America had become “a nation of whiners.”

Obama’s retort to McCain? “Well, you know, America already has one Dr. Phil. We don’t need another one when it comes to the economy.”

If Obama doesn’t think the economy needs a Dr. Phil, we can’t imagine he’d think the Supreme Court does. Anyway, we’re surprised Michael Steele, as Republican-in-chief, hadn’t heard this remark. Now why could that be?

Oh that’s right! He was jockeying to be McCain’s running mate at the time.

Politicians have a complex relationship with the social networking fad-of-the-moment, Twitter.

On the one hand you have the tech-savvy younger generation, who have used the microblogging service to do everything from launch a gubernatorial campaign (Gavin Newsom) to declare their heterosexuality (Charlie Crist).

On the other hand, you have a bumbling older generation who either has no idea what Twitter is (Jim Bunning) or suddenly remembers that they invented the whole technology and enlists a staffer to “tweet” for them (John McCain).

This week, Capitol Hill daily newspaper The Hill made an allegation that Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) was a member of that latter group– letting aides “ghost-tweet” for him when he’s too busy to post e-chestnuts like: “U can’t get swine flu fr eating pork. Eatup. Regardless of epidemic.”

Big mistake, The Hill. If you remember nothing else for the remainder of your earthly days, remember that Chuck Grassley always files his own Twitter entries…

Sen. Chuck Grassley doesn’t appreciate when his Twitters are questioned, so when The Hill’s Michael O’Brien raised the possibility that a stand-in was Tweeting for the Iowa Republican, Grassley struck back.

It all started when a Tuesday posting on The Hill’s Twitter Room asked, “What have they done with the real Chuck Grassley?”

The post noted that Grassley’s latest Tweet had spelled words out and had the proper punctuation, which broke from Grassley Twitter tradition.

Hours later, Grassley fired back on Twitter: “To the Hill reporter who thought I didn’t input my own AM Tweet today. Well believe me I did. My Bb is always w me.”

So let the record stand. Whether he’s rocking out to Pink Floyd or having sex with Sen. Kent Conrad’s wife, Sen. Grassley is always on Twitter.

(Of course why we’re even reporting this is up for debate, because we assume all our readers already subscribe to Grassley’s feed.)