Agreed (I actually exhaled loudly when I read that on Saturday), though he did start to walk it back a little bit in his interview on This Week yesterday.

His father puts earmarks for his Congressional district in appropriations bills and then votes against the bill. So, as he says, he has never voted in favor of these earmarks, but he admits that he is trying to get some of the money that his constituents send to Washington back.

I'd prefer no earmarks, but if he fights for what I think he is going to fight for in regard to the rest of the budget, I am fine with it.

There is nothing "selling out" about saying you will represent your district constituents and will do what is best for them. That is why we have representation. And not all earmarks are bad. The government does have some legitimate spending needs, and there can be debate about where those dollars flow. Every senator and representative should be open to consider directing that flow into his or her own district.

A good example is defense spending. Say there is a real need to fund a new defense logistics facility. Now say the facility could be built in California or Kentucky. Would it be a problem for Rand Paul to lobby his colleagues to spend the money on Kentucky?

So I don't think Paul's statement should be interpreted as opening the floodgates for pork. I just think he is recognizing that one aspect of his job will be to represent the interests of his constituents and do his best to fairly direct some money that needs to be spent into his own state.

I'm not an attorney, so perhaps I don't understand the finer legal distinction, but I don't have any problems with Paul's statement here. Congress spends money. That's one of their enumerated responsibilities. I think that it's perfectly acceptable to have elected representatives advocating for their constituencies, as long as it's done in a transparent manner. Perhaps that's also known as "earmarking".

I think however, most people who are against this type of thing are against the deals that are anonymously inserted (as Paul says) in the middle of the night to grease the political skids.

So long as these expenditures are fully debated in the Committees and on the floor if need be, then let them be sought and used. It's the earmarks that aren't discovered until 6-weeks after the President signs the bill that seem and without any annotation with respect to who actually asked for and received the earmark - at least to me - to be the problem.

Speaking as a Missouri voter, this is exactly what a LOT of us who voted for Roy Blunt expected. He should still be on his knees thanking God for Robin Carnahan this year. We had no other choice this year, but next time we will weed him out also. Too bad he can't take a page out of Paul's book and represent his constituents on this, his last, term.

I have found over decades of close contact with career pols (including not a few US Senators), that many, regardless of their party or how successful they may have been politically, can be quite ignorant indeed of a host of basic facts and skills which average American adults routinely master in order to safely navigate the shoals of modern life. While most of these wily old pols know the difficult House and Senate procedural and voting rules backwards and forwards, and can successfully attach a fat, constituent-aiding earmark to a vital bill at the very last minute, and hide forever its true beneficiary, many of them have "people" who think and do for them most of what most American think and do for themselves.

You'd be gobsmacked to know how many of these same sly old politicians can't: jump off a dead car battery; do their own income taxes; know how to check transmission fluid; put a moderately sharp & consistent edge on a hunting knife; wire a simple residential light fixture; or light a life-saving fire armed with a few matches, a forest of tinder-dry wood and that hunting knife. It's a stereotype, but nonetheless not far off the mark, about how clueless these solons often are about our Constitutional Amendments...even the very Bill of Rights itself.

And yet, knowing all this as I do, and with my expectations about career politicians so low that an earthworm couldn't find wiggle room beneath them, after reading Ms. Rugy's post, I'm sitting here with my jaw agape at the prospect that Roy Blunt could have somehow entirely missed the last year of American national politics.

How? HOW?! How is it possible that this man is so thick? I mean, he had to have campaigned in St. Louis, which has a very strong, vocal and active Tea Party. How could he have gone through that campaign, and that election, and the enormous amount of post-election analysis and fallout, and still have made such condescending and dismissive remarks about the Tea Party electees and their hopes and dreams for reining in government spending?

I truly don't have an explanation. But this Mitch McConnell-style let-the-experts-handle-this-stuff-Sonny attitude must be nipped in the bud, even if it means that dread term which terrifies old-time GOPers, and which journalist pretend to be shocked by the prospect of - "party infighting".

So while I can't understand how it is Roy Blunt is so ignorant of the well-expressed will of the voters who just elected him, I can suggest a quick remedy for those same Missouri voters: AN IMMEDIATE RECALL ELECTION. Assuming Mizzou law provides such civilized recourse, some credible talk and action toward making it come to pass will almost certainly have a salutary effect on Mr. Blunt's shocking ignorance and shameful arrogance.

What say ye, Missouri?