You hypocritical bastards you!

The Tea Party: "Cut spending!" "Keynes was full of shit!" "We need austerity!" "The stimulus failed!"

The Tea Party now: "Jacking up military spending is great!" "It creates jobs!"

Via Andrew Leonard: "The Rise of Tea Party Keynesianism
Spending money on defense is good because it creates jobs and stimulates the economy -- wait, what?! "

Anyway, spending on the military is, by definition, different from all other kinds of government spending, mainly because it satisfies a strong constitutional mandate to provide for the national defense. The fact that it puts people to work is a perk, a side benefit, a two-for-one drink special.

This line of thinking is by no means unique to Tea Party extremists. It has long been part of the core platform of the Republican Party, a fact that we saw underlined anew at the tail end of the debt ceiling debate, when some of the most vociferous deficit hawks in the GOP suddenly got cold feet about the possibility that a debt reduction plan might also slice away at the Pentagon budget.

I know that defense is a sacred cow on the right, but I can't help but wonder how no one in the Tea Party sees any cognitive dissonance between their stance vis-a-vis the stimulus package, etc. and this new push for increased defense spending as a "job creator."

I am not, by the way suggesting that defense contractors do not employ people. They surely do, and a job is a job. What I am suggesting is that many Tea Partiers are either not very smart, or they don't give a shit if their arguments are hypocritical.