Michael Goldfarb is Well Informed

Noting that the Progressive Policy Institute is holding a panel on the defense budget with Rep. John Spratt (D- S.C.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, former McCain campaign mouthpiece Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard remarks, “Translation: Only defense has to worry about spending discipline,” under the headline “Progressives for Spending Discipline.”

Counting Spratt — whom The Washington Times calls House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “centrist counterweight” — and the think tank of the Democratic Leadership Council as “progressives” is like discovering a hotbed of conservativism at an Arlen Specter speech to the Concord Coalition, but I digress.

Goldfarb’s bit of ideological invective would have more bite if some longtime Republican senator hadn’t introduced a bill today designed to rein in weapons procurement costs. Or if certain Bush administration-holdover defense secretaries didn’t publicly recognize that “