Via American Crossroads comes this… evolution of the views of [mc_name name=’Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-FL)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’M001191′ ].

For those without video, that’s freshman Congressman [mc_name name=’Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-FL)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’M001191′ ] of Florida in 2013 talking a great fight about structural reforms to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare – reforms that would explicitly include cuts – and how he’s the standard Pragmatic Democrat Who Is Here To Get Things Done And Work With Others Across The Aisle To Do It that we all know, and some of us love. It was so swarmy that even the CNN interviewer wasn’t particularly buying it, but: what can you do? It’s Dizzy City, man. It’s Dizzy City.

Counterpoint: let us fast-forward to 2015. Turns out that [mc_name name=’Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-FL)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’M001191′ ] was instead the standard Democrat Who Is Here To Try To Score A Senate Seat. The small problem with that, of course, is that the… I don’t really need to call [mc_name name=’Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’G000556′ ] names, do I?  He is a walking, breathing insult all on his own… [mc_name name=’Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’G000556′ ]-ish [mc_name name=’Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’G000556′ ] is also trying to score a Senate seat, and this is a bad time to try to pretend to be a reasonable Democrat. So since Grayson decided to call for increases in Social Security payouts (with nary a reference to what other expenditures to cut, because [mc_name name=’Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’G000556′ ] believes that money grows on trees*), well, needless to say: so did Murphy.

Moral of the story: when a Democrat tells you that he or she is a liberal, the Democrat is telling you the truth.  And when a Democrat tells you that he or she is a moderate or conservative, the Democrat is telling you a liiiiiieeeeee. As you’ll discover, the second that the lie becomes too awkward to maintain.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: You want to permanently link Social Security to COLA? OK, that is a proposal. What will you be cutting to pay for that? Because we’re already running a deficit. …No. What will you be cutting to pay for that? Yes, life is not fair. What will you be cutting to pay for that? Yes, the old folks could use the extra money. What will you be cutting to pay for that?

…You get the point.

*And that the trees all hate Republicans.