Mike Castle Flip Flops on Stimulus Funds
Flip Flop. Anybody remember when you couldn’t fire up the news without hearing this about John Kerry? And even though that charge was mostly untrue about Kerry, Flip Flop is a good description of Mike Castle’s position towards Delaware stimulus projects. He votes against them, then shows up to take credit for them.
He put out a press release back in January announcing the award of $495,297 in federal funds for food and shelter programs in Delaware and another $4.7 million for homeless assistance programs in New Castle and Wilmington. And when asked about this (the NJ article seems to be behind their archive wall now), Castle sent out his spokesperson to re-write the provenance of those appropriations — claiming that these funds came out of the regular appropriations process.
That is, of course, untrue. HUD notes that the Continuum of Care funding comes from ARRA monies, while the Emergency Food and Shelter grant comes from FEMA ARRA monies.
So maybe in honor of the Olympics, Mike Castle has invented a new flip flop move — vote against a program, take credit for the benefits of the program, then pretend that all of these new benefits are from the normal appropriations. Maybe you guys can help me give this new move a name.
And let’s remember last week’s NJ article on Castle’s flip flop on the wastewater project that he is delightfully posing with the stunt check for:
Voting against the money but taking credit for getting the projects funded is a real Flip Flop.
And I’m hoping that someone starts asking Mike Castle how effective he thinks he can be if he goes to the Senate to say one thing and come back here to tell us something else all together.
(Many Thanks to Rob Tornoe who gave me permission to post up his excellent cartoon here. He is the Best Cartoonist in Delaware and his work appears weekly in all of the Dover Post Papers locally, including the Community News.)
Tags: DE-Sen, Mike Castle, Republican Hypocrisy
I like the cartoon, but I would like it better if it didn’t have “John Kerry” in the caption. We get the reference, but the cartoon is supposed to be about Castle. No need to demonize Kerry to make the point.
Tornoe rocks though.
I get why he used Kerry ( who ran a terrible campaign) as a shorthand reference for flippity floppery.
Saying “I was for it before I was against it” was enough of a reference for me. That was a stupid and funny thing Kerry said. As a catchphrase it is fair game.
But pairing up Kerry’s flip flop on war funding with Castle’s lifetime hypocrisy is a GOP-style false equivalence that I found a little uncomfortable.
I think we should call it “pulling a Castle.”
Isn’t “Castling” a move in chess that changes positions in a way that covers your ass?
I don’t know, I need to ask the chess experts.
Quick answer on Twitter:
So, basically it’s a special defensive move where you change positions. Perfect!
Castling — nice LG!
It usually places the king (or queen) in a safer position and gets a rook into more productive play.
So maybe in this instance Castle is the king and one of his spinners trying to pretend that the ARRA money really is the rook.
Yeah, so he isn’t flip-flopping, he was just Castling. I love that I was comment rescued in 10 minutes by the Democratic party. I fear I have now peaked…
DEM HQ is now circulating this blog post with a comment rescue no less and NOT ONE MENTION OF COONS is in the content….WTF??? Too Funny. Way to make my good cop – bad cop ‘gentleman’s contract point.
From the inbox ~
Comment rescue:
Comment by liberalgeek on 16 February 2010 at 3:20 pm:
Isn’t “Castling” a move in chess that changes positions in a way that covers your ass?
Mike Castle Flip Flops on Stimulus Funds
Delaware Liberal
February 16th, 2010 • Related • Filed Under
Filed Under: Featured • Local
Tags: DE-Sen • Mike Castle • Republican Hypocrisy
By cassandra_m
This move was invented in the 1500’s
Did Mike Castle invent it personally?
Hey Nancy — neither my post or LG’s response mentioned Chris Coons, so why should the DelDems email?
Yeah, so he isn’t flip-flopping, he was just Castling.
I hope Tornoe is furiously working on the new cartoon.
Yeah, the email from HQ (the one quoted above) was a simple reprint of our post and comment. However, there was an earlier email that was an announcement of a Tim Kaine conference call. That email did not mention Coons, only Castle.
It is worthwhile noting that the Kaine call was a national call, not a local one, so perhaps it wouldn’t be appropriate to name all of the challengers of the trash and pose Republicans.
I think a post about Coons doesn’t necessarily need to mention Castle or vice versa. Neither does a press release. One of the problems we saw with Coons’s fundraising email is that he mentioned “all Republicans” but not Castle specifically.
Why did the Governor and our two senators allow him to be present??????
Maybe they knew how often we’d be able to use the picture and call him a hypocrite, TT.
Why did the Governor and our two senators allow him to be present??????
I dunno. Habit perhaps. Or maybe Carper invited him.
More to the point, why didn’t Castle know it was bad form to show up? Either he is completely out of touch, or he is pretty effing cynical.