Did Obama Pledge to End Earmarks?

The answer is clearly NO!

http://mediamatters.org/items/200903150011?f=h_top
As mediamatters.org points out, Obama OPPOSED the outright elimination of earmarks. So why are republicans and even media outlets like Fox continuing to spew out these lies?

OBAMA [video clip]: Done right, earmarks have given legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their districts. And that's why I've opposed their outright elimination.

ASMAN: Well, he once pledged to ban all earmarks. Now the president says, eh, they're not so bad. And someone here says the president is right. Hi, everybody, I'm David Asman, welcome to Forbes on Fox. Let's get to our "Flipside" with Steve Forbes, Victoria Barrett, and Bill Baldwin, along with Neil Weinberg, Elizabeth MacDonald, and Jack Gage. Jack, of all the people in the world, I would not have expected you to defend earmarks.

JACK GAGE (Forbes magazine associate editor): Look, I think we have to separate two things. One, Barack Obama's contradiction of what he said before about how he feels about earmarks. But the second thing, I believe there's a fundamental case to be made for earmarks as part of the fabric of representative government.

But see, thats not true.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Economic/Barack_Obama_Government_Reform.htm

Obama, during the campaign, wanted to reform ear marks and go line by line through the budget and eliminate wasteful spending and unbeneficial ear marks. I challenge one person to find a quote in which Obama said he was for the banning of earmarks. Can't find it? Neither can I. And neither can the right. Because if they did, they would be quoting it from here to timbucktoo.

What they want is something to hang Obama on. They can't find it, so they make something up that sounds relatively true. But one thing Obama was quoted on during the campaign rings true. Republicans continue to focus on the tiniest part of the over all bill. The Omnibus Spending bill had allot of earmarks. But they still totaled less than 1 to 2 percent of the total bill. In other words, looking at the big picture, there wasn't allot of the money going towards ear marks. And even if there was, the Republicans only had 40% of the total NUMBER of earmarks in the bill, they spend just as much as the democrats, nearly 50% of the earmark money was for republican ear marks. And in fact, 6 out of the top ten ear markers were republicans.

All that racket for nothing. In other words, as usual, another big racket in which the republicans were being hypocrites. AGAIN! At some point, the republicans must realize that they have to come through on what they say. You can't just say stuff then do the opposite. They aren't the majority any more, they aren't getting their agenda through. If they ever want to get votes back, they MUST stop the hypocrisy! They can start with ear marks. Why don't people like Michelle Buckman of Minnesota, who scream about ear marks this year, stop requesting ear marks. While she was throwing a fit about ear marks, she quietly put three in herself. THAT is the hypocrisy people vote out in the last two elections.