As part of its effort to "shore up" the backing of social conservatives, House Republicans today "issued a contract today to pay former Solicitor General Paul Clement $575 an hour, up to $500,000 to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act," San Francisco Chronicle's Carolyn Lochhead insisted in the paper's Politics Blog.
"Republicans claim they will take the money out of the Justice Department's budget, as if that will hold taxpayers harmless. But a cost is a cost and taxpayers will pay it either way. Any funds removed from DOJ are funds removed from other work," Lochhead groused.
This from the same reporter who approved of Obama's fiscal year 2012 budget proposal as "centrist."
Yet nowhere in her four paragraph April 19 blog entry did Lochhead note that the reason the Republican House of Representatives is hiring a lawyer to defend DOMA in federal court is because the Obama administration in February announced it will no longer defend the popular bipartisanly-supported law in court.
Lochhead also failed to remind readers that although the Obama administration insists DOMA is unconstitutional, it is still enforcing the law's federal implications on tax, including tax and immigration implications of failing to recognize same-sex marriages.
