The GOP breaks its 'Pledge to America'

By Dana Milbank
WashPost
Thursday, September 23, 2010

It took the Republicans just three minutes to violate their Pledge to America.

In a lumber yard near Dulles International Airport Thursday morning, House Republicans handed out copies of their pledge, which, among other things, promises to rein in an "arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites."

Yet moments after taking the stage to face the cameras, Republican leaders appointed themselves arrogant elites. They compared themselves to the founding fathers and likened their actions at Tart Lumber Co. to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told the reporters he would speak slowly and with clarity, "just as John Hancock boldly signed his name to the Declaration of Independence so even Britain's King George could read it."

McCarthy, who led the pledge initiative, piled on the sentimentality, declaring: "We pledge to uphold the model for our country our founders envisioned, a grander America, the exception among the nations of the earth, where promise of liberty refreshes the hopes of mankind!"

(More here.)