The House GOP announced today that Rep. Jo Bonner (not to be confused with GOP Leader Boehner) will be appointed to fill a seat on the Appropriations Committee. From an email from Leader Boehner's office this afternoon:

Jo Bonner fully supports the GOP efforts to put a moratorium on earmarking and the reforms Republicans have unilaterally adopted.

This announcement contrasts sharply with some stunning comments appearing today in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch made by a Missouri Democrat who is apparently stuck in the 1990s. “I intend on asking for more and a higher dollar amount,” said Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis. “This is a return on the taxpayers’ investment,” added Clay, expressing a view widely shared in the Capitol.

From Rep. Bonner's "Funding Opportunities -> Appropriations Page":

"One of my many goals in Congress is to ensure the people of south Alabama get a significant return on their investment in the federal government (taxes). I am here to offer assistance in helping — where appropriate — to return to the people of the First District the tax dollars they send to Washington."

(emphasis in Bonner's text added).

Come on guys. Doesn't anybody here know how to play this game? Jeff Flake was ready, willing, and able to serve on Appropriations and would have sent a genuine message that the GOP was serious about reform.

For more on why this was a cop-out, see Rob Bluey at Redstate...

Just got off a blogger conference call with Senator McCain. My friend Rob Bluey beat me to the punch with the first earmark question, and Senator McCain reiterated the statement he made at CPAC that we "will veto any bill that has earmarks in it."

I followed up later in the call and asked the Senator whether he believes that a unilateral earmark moratorium would be a winning election strategy for House and Senate Republicans. His response:

"I think that if we had a moratorium on earmarks it would be one of the most energizing things for our base they could hear. I think they'd be overjoyed... [The Bridge To Nowhere] is more famous than the Brooklyn Bridge."

Senator McCain took pains to be clear that he was not demanding action from Congress, saying "I'm not telling them what to do, I'm telling them what I would do... I'm trying to lead them in telling them that the earmark spending ... has reduced [the base's] enthusiasm."

As my partner-in-crime would say: Indeed.

He concluded by mentioning that Jeb Hensarling and others are currently working on another earmark reform proposal that he would support fully, so hopefully we'll be hearing more about that soon...

Update: More from Rob Bluey, Jim Geraghty, Ed Morrissey