I actually respect people like Ron Paul. I don’t agree with his economic theories or positions – but he’s a man who has a viewpoint, and he’s going to stick with it. He voted against the war based on that principle, he voted against bailouts and stimulus.

Again, I believe he was wrong – but I can respect a guy who holds onto his principles.

The other 90-odd percent of the members of Congress/Senate/Pundacracy of Republicans I don’t respect. How can I respect someone like Mike Huckabee who outright lies about the intention of the “don’t use education funds in the stimulus bill to build churches” is to “make sure students could never talk openly and honestly about their faith ” (Swampland) – when this is language that’s been in bills for 40 years to prevent, well, people from building churches with federal dollars, not to prevent them from talking about faith or bringing bibles to their dorm or any other boogymen.

I can’t respect people who invent pork projects that don’t exist, like the false “salt mouse” protection plan that doesn’t exist (Media Matters), or who make up false claims of “government ordering your doctor around” such as the claims made by Dr. Betsy McCaughey (Beta Culture 11).

If it was a serious, principled stand against spending government money, fine. But combine that with the flat out lying about what is (or isn’t) in the stimulus bill, the hypocrisy of “spending money on a war financed by huge deficits is A-OK, but spending money to fix roads/schools/etc is stealing money from future generations that will actually *use* the roads/schools/etc” has nothing to do with principle.

It’s all about “winning.” It’s small, it’s petty. And, to be honest, I don’t see it going very far. You can only play obstructionist and liar for so long before you are caught, and people get angry about it.

They’ll trust a person who really believes what they’re saying. But a liar? Not for long.