Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That could accurately describe Republicans' relationship to the liberal media on budget matters.
While the mainstream media often raise a clamor about GOP plans to cut back on arts funding -- see this article from yesterday's Washington Post -- it seems any move to do the opposite will also face scorn.
Take ABCNews.com's "The Blotter" and its take on Rep. John Mica's (R-Fla.) proposal to expand funding the National Art Gallery:
Just as Republicans in Congress have been calling for an aggressive crackdown on federal spending, one powerful House leader has declared that his desire to expand the National Gallery of Art -- at an estimated cost of $270 million -- has become his singular, top priority on Capitol Hill.
Rep. John Mica, the Florida Republican who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, has spent years pushing legislation to evict the Federal Trade Commission from its stately historic building on Pennsylvania Avenue in the heart of Washington, D.C., to make space for the art gallery expansion. Even after taking the helm of a committee that helps set the nation's policy on everything from air safety to mass transit to highway construction, Mica has maintained his laser focus on winning approval for this pet project.
"I have no other priority for the balance of my tenure in Congress," Mica said at a House subcommittee meeting in March.
Of course Mica is an aggressive proponent of other pork projects such as an Obama-favored costly high-speed rail project that Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) nixed earlier this year.
That doesn't necessarily mean Mica's going to get his way, especially in a Republican House full of Tea Party freshmen who are skeptical of congressional pet projects.
