Rep. Chaffetz Launches ‘Cot-side Chats’

Continuing his engagement with new media, Rep. Jason Chaffetz began hosting “Cot-side Chats” this week on his House Web site.

The Republican star of “Freshman Year,” CNN.com’s reality show following two new House members, spent his first two posts sitting on his cot explaining his opposition to spending proposals in President Obama’s address to a joint session Tuesday night, naming criticizing specific projects in the $410 billion omnibus bill passed yesterday by the House.

“This is a town where a billion dollars seems to be a rounding error,” he said in the second video-blog post, posted this morning. “We gotta stop running this country on a credit card. The president said he was going to have to cut back himself. I am fascinated to see where the president thinks he’s will cut back, I’ve got a whole number of suggestions.”

The video posts each last about two minutes.

None of the footage will be sent to CNN and he bought a separate camera to do the webcasts, said Alisia Essig, Chaffetz’s communications director.

Watch a video of one of Chaffetz’s chats:

–Samuel Rubenfeld