Redstate
From Pig to Man, and From Man to Pig
By Erick Erickson
July 31st, 2013 

In 2003, then just Doctor Tom Coburn, published his book. It was titled Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders. An eye witness account of the Republican Revolution of 1994 and following, journalist Robert Novak wrote the forward to the book. In his forward, Novak noted that Coburn, while serving in the Gingrich House of Representatives, realized “Speaker Gingrich, House Majority Leader Armey and the rest of the Republican leadership were not what they pretended to be. They were revolutionaries in name only, content to take possession from the Democrats of the machinery of government and then run it virtually unchanged.” 

Coburn, in the book, wrote how Gingrich began referring derisively to “the conservatives”. Coburn wrote, “Gingrich would receive our input, but he rarely took it seriously. He usually made us feel as if we didn’t have much value because we didn’t know anything about the political game in Washington. We were from the outside and wet behind the ears in terms of politics, and we obviously didn’t know as much about history as he did.” [Emphasis added] 

In 2004, Senator Coburn ran for the Senate. The Republican Establishment opposed him, putting up a squishy Republican. He was the first candidate we at RedState supported. 

In the last few years, Senator Tom Coburn has made an idol of spending in Washington. He is willing to go to mat on issue after issue of government waste and spending. He is willing to cause trouble and mischief over government waste. But I say that is his idol because outside of that issue, Coburn, over time, has … let me put it to you this way. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” 

Coburn more often than not is used as a useful foil by Senate Republican Leaders against conservatives who the leadership characterizes as not “know[ing] anything about the political game in Washington” and as “from the outside and wet behind the ears.” 

Coburn is willing to wage a holy war against wasteful pork barrel spending, but on Obamacare these days (and other issues outside of government pork) Coburn toes the leadership line — held up as the “reasonable” conservative by leadership... 

Read the rest of the article at Redstate