Todd Tiahrt, tea party joiner, went berserk with earmark requests

Data Point No. 4,327 that the tea party movement is a dark joke wrapped in the belly fat of a 60-year-old white guy wearing jeans and suspenders: Todd Tiahrt, the Kansas congressman who lost out on a promotion to the Senate, says he wants to be the state’s next Republican national committeeman.

Tiahrt tells The Kansas City Star that he will work to ensure that the tea partiers have a voice in the GOP. But a report released this morning indicates that Tiahrt requested $63.4 million in earmarks — those wasteful, wasteful earmarks — during the last fiscal year.