Of Wine and Whiners

We read in Althouse some manufactured Talking Points Memo rage after Congressman Paul Ryan's (R-WI) tablemate ordered a bottle of $300-plus wine. Ryan had a glass and insisted on paying his share. Please note this prevents Ryan from being indebted to this acquaintance, you'll be a step ahead of the game. (The Leftie and her Enraged Ovaries do not mention Pelosi One and the $100,000.00-plus liquor bill she racked up.)

Althouse notes:

TPM should be ashamed of itself passing along this embarrassing story and for the way it presented this material. In the middle of the piece, TPM informs us of Congressional ethics rules barring expensive gifts from lobbyists. I was thinking: Oh, maybe this is a serious problem. But if you keep reading, much further down, you see that Ryan paid for the meal with his own credit card, and TPM saw the receipt. Ridiculous! What hackery from the once-respectable Talking Points Memo!

Why is this so surprising? My mom listens to Rush Limbaugh religiously, so one day, when I read Josh of TPM babbling about how good he was to complain about Bush putting troops into Afghanistan, since righties were complaining about US involvement in Kosovo, I wrote him to tell him I had heard Limbaugh (mentioned specifically by TPM as one of these Cassandras) assuring his listeners not to be worried if the US military needed to put boots on the ground in the Balkans. His response? "Well, he probably said something else like it, so it doesn't really matter!"

Once a dirty, lying shitbag, forever a dirty, lying shitbag. Why so surprised?