Dick Lugar is an unwavering advocate of U.S. leadership in the world, strong national security, free-trade and economic growth.This fifth generation Hoosier is the U.S. Senate's most senior Republican and longest serving Member of Congress in Indiana history.
He is the Republican leader of the Foreign Relations Committee and a member and former chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 and won a sixth term in 2006 with 87 percent of the vote, his fourth consecutive victory by a two-thirds majority.
http://lugar.senate.gov/bio/
VS: Well, that's very interesting and all that, but this man who followed in the footsteps of the late conservative GOP icon Senator Jesse Helms is acting like an addled old man and a pansy to boot. Which is how I've seen him all along, except I had to add the "old man" bit recently.
This GOP turncoat spouted off to the media that he would vote to oppose House-passed spending cuts!
Then the duplicitous jerk got cold feet, and said he would vote for the cuts, a centerpiece in the conservative GOP drive for fiscal sanity in Washington. He apologized for the "confusion", and commented, "I'm sorry if I misled people."
No confusion, Senator. You sold out the GOP, the Tea Party, and yourself.
Question: WWJD? What would Jesse do? Helms was head of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee when I knew him, and before Lugar took the reins. Jesse never switched a vote. He was a straight arrow, an implacable patriot and conservative. He knew where he stood, and so did everyone else.
Lugar is nothing more than a windvane -- a disappointing successor to the shining legacy of Jesse Helms.
Now here's rest of the story:
By Alexander Bolton / THE HILL 03/08/11
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who faces a Tea Party-backed challenge in his 2012 primary, has withdrawn his stated opposition to House-passed spending cuts.
Lugar said Tuesday afternoon that he made a mistake when he told reporters earlier in the day that he would oppose H.R. 1, the House GOP plan to cut an additional $57 billion from the 2011 budget.
“I’m going to vote with the Republicans on the issue when H.R. 1 comes up,” Lugar said. “If it’s strictly an affirmative vote, I will be for H.R. 1 because all the Republicans will be voting for H.R. 1.”
Lugar said he does not like the “formulation” of the spending cuts passed by the House and would like Congress to go even further to cut the deficit.
“My own feeling would be that we probably need to have more extensive savings than $58 or $61 billion,” he said.
Slightly more than an hour earlier in the day, Lugar told reporters that he would oppose the House bill as he walked into a weekly lunch meeting with Republican colleagues.
Lugar apologized for the confusion.
“I’m sorry if I misled people,” he said. “I’m going to vote for the Republican resolution, which is as clearly as I can say it.”
Lugar said he misunderstood the question because of the chaos of the press scrum that chased him to the door of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Room.
“I couldn’t figure out what the question was, I simply did not understand what everyone was all shouting and jumping around about,” he said. “Nevertheless I have indicated to the Republican Whip that I will vote, whenever the vote is — this afternoon or tomorrow — with the entire Republican group on H.R. 1.”
A Republican senator who attended the lunch meeting said leaders made a strong argument for all members of the caucus to support the House bill. The GOP lawmaker said Lugar did not speak up during that discussion and no comments were directed at him specifically.
As Lugar entered the weekly caucus lunch, he indicated he would oppose the House bill, saying, “I’m opposed to it."
Lugar had previously raised concerns about the bill during a television appearance last month.
When CNN host Candy Crowley asked Lugar if he could support the House-passed spending cuts, he said: “No, I would not support the entirety of the House bill, but I think the basic problem presently is there’s very little time.”
Lugar said he worried about a possible government shutdown.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/148097-republican-sen-lugar-to-oppose-house-gop-spending-cuts
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