Non-Hypocrite Senate Republican Located, Loch Ness Monster Next?

Maybe the Higgs Boson will be discovered too along with the Grand Unifying Theory and that place where socks go in the dryer.  In any case, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch for a brief, shining moment, was not a complete hypocrite.  They do exist, according to TPM's Brian Beutler:

Republican Senators whose earmark requests pepper the much-maligned omnibus spending bill are having a really hard time explaining how they went from requesting earmarks earlier this year to decrying the legislation... because of all the earmarks. But never let it be said that those requests were baked into the spending package before the anti-pork wave hit in November.

After the Republican caucus voted to impose an earmark moratorium last month, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) -- who's likely to face a primary challenge from the right in 2012 -- asked Senate appropriators to strip his earmarks from the omnibus.

"I did," Hatch confirmed to me this afternoon after a Senate vote, "because I decided I voted for the moratorium, and I thought 'well, I need to do that.'"

Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, a logical thought from a Republican in the Senate.  I voted against earmarks, therefore I should take my earmarks out of this spending bill.  Print this blog post up and frame it, kids.  You may never see its like again.

On Wednesday morning, in a tense exchange with reporters at a press conference, Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and John Cornyn (R-TX) swatted away tough questions about the tension between their positions on the bill, and the fact that the bill is loaded up with their earmark requests.

This afternoon, I asked Thune, a likely GOP presidential candidate, why he didn't do what Hatch did.

"I guess I hadn't thought about doing it," he confessed. "The resolution that we passed applied to the next two years, it didn't apply to this budget year [but] we are where we are now, the bill's on the floor, but I think that we have an opportunity to strip earmarks out on the floor, we will. And we may get that opportunity." 

See, that's normal for Senators in both parties, actually.  And here it's news that a Senate Republican is not a complete lying sack of horse manure.  America, breathe easier between your chronic bouts of despair.