Gabby Watch

Gabrielle Giffords and Raul Grijalva - like two peas in a pod. Oh, they may appear to be different in terms of their political philosophy, but when you cut out the idealism’s that each used when running for their seats in Congress, they are both the same big-government, tax-and-spend liberals that walk hand-in-hand with Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, and Steny Hoyer.

In recent weeks, both Grijalva and Giffords have come under heavy scrutiny for their initial refusal to disclose what pork projects they were trying to tack-on to other House bills and ultimately rob tax-payers of an honest use of their hard-earned money. Grijalva had no intention of releasing that information until his constituents started to hammer him about it, forcing him to change his mind. Gabby as well had no intention of making her projects public information until even bigger hammers and more of them started on her.

Both Giffords and Grijalva had agreed to remain secret about their pork projects, but when Raul suddenly disclosed, it threw Gabby in a loop that resulted in her disclosing as well.

Grijalva said Giffords told him she wished she had known he was going to release his list. “I apologized to her,” Grijalva said. “I accept that. I got criticism from all my Democratic colleagues.”

Grijalva got criticism from his Democratic colleagues? For what? For disclosing information that should be public knowledge anyway? Well, yes. But more importantly Grijalva committed a sin in the eyes of the Democratic leadership - he made Gabby Giffords vulnerable.

Behind closed doors, Gabby’s public image has been carefully constructed by the Democratic leadership because they know the more she appears to be like Grijalva, the worse off she is going to be with the constituents of District 8 that lean more to the right. The most liberal members of the party establishment are trying to protect Giffords and Nancy Pelosi knows full well that her protégé is going to be taking heat in 2008 when she runs for re-election, and this recent turn of events is a blow that the DCCC cannot afford.

Now that Gabby’s $327,000,000 in pork is out, party leaders are going to have a hard time putting together an excuse as to why a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition is acting so irresponsibly.