Want to make your head spin?

Just observe a Republican congressman for a few days. Maximum dizzying effects can be achieved if those days fall around the discussion, passage and enactment of a massive economic stimulus package.

Because just when you think Republicans — and politicians in general — have been as blatantly two-faced and insincere as you think they could possibly be, they find a way to remind us that when it comes to saying one thing and doing another, we haven’t seen anything yet.

Following much-publicized partisan bickering among the House and the Senate, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law on Feb. 17. Naturally, in the wake of such a monumental act, representatives and senators must report back to their constituents with reactions to the newly enacted law.

And this is where it gets interesting.

It should be noted that the economic stimulus package did nothing to bring Obama’s dreams of bipartisanship closer to fruition. The bill was extremely divisive along party lines, passing 246 to 183 in the House — without a single Republican vote — and 60 to 38 in the Senate. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi handed out chocolate bars to her committee chairmen, decorated with an image of the Capitol and the phrase, “A stimulus package we can all sink our teeth into” after the House vote.

Cute.

The three Senate Republican votes in favor of the bill could — just maybe — be seen as a miniscule step closer to bipartisan cooperation. Relatively speaking, anyway.

OK, probably not.

Ridiculousness among politicians has come to be expected. Pelosi’s cutesy candy bars — seriously, themed candy? Are we at an elementary school holiday party? — can be looked past, but only because there seems to be a more pressing issue of the ridiculous variety at hand.

You’ve heard the phrase, “Every cloud has a silver lining,” yes? Well, what is the silver lining in all of this for the republicans who opposed this stimulus package?

That’s all but three of them, in case you’d forgotten. Zero in the House.

Let’s first look to Alaska — a state that hasn’t gotten enough attention since Sarah Palin’s winks and pit-bull references left the campaign trail. In a press release, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, announced he had “won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners last night in H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

He won a victory? Did we miss an unpublicized battle in which House Republicans fought for the passage of the act? No? OK, then it looks like Young voted against the bill just like every other Republican representative.

But don’t worry, Young’s post-enactment support of the stimulus package doesn’t mean he’s straying from the Republican standpoint. Later that day, he issued a statement including the following comment:

“This bill was not a stimulus bill. It was a vehicle for pet projects, and that’s wrong,”

A much more Republican point of view — except that Young had recently told McClatchy Newspapers that he would have included earmarks in the bill if it had been permitted. Earmarks … What’s a synonym for earmarks? Wait, I’ve got one.

Pet projects.

A similar duplicity can be found in a press release from Rep. John Mica, R-Florida.

“I applaud President Obama’s recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America’s future,” he said.

Of course, he voted against H.R. 1 as well. But it’s nice that he can make such a turnaround from staunch opposition to, not just muted support, but applause. The development of high-speed transit is obviously important enough to initiate that turnaround — but not so important that he could risk blurring party lines to support the legislation in the first place.

The point here is not to criticize individuals in their reaction to the enactment of the stimulus act. These specific cases are illustrations of the larger theme of hypocrisy promoted by politicians — particularly republicans in this case.

These representatives stayed in line with their party and voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Some would say that’s admirable or important. Party politics aside, I applaud every member of Congress who votes based on his or her knowledge of a bill and its effect on constituents and the nation as a whole.

But once you make that choice — for reasons respectable or dubious — and the opposition is victorious, you lay no claim to any sort of victory.

As American citizens, we will not turn a blind eye to your deceit.

— Jessica Opoien is a freshman in pre-journalism and mass communication from Marinette, Wisc.