U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., likes to talk, and talk, about the perils of the federal deficit and debt. And now his talk has caught up with him.

Bennet’s recent statement that “we have nothing to show” for our national debt (now past $13 trillion) is, one sense, unremarkable; he has said it before.

But it hit a nerve, particularly among conservatives, getting play in National Review Online, RedState.com, and in the latest ad from CrossRoads GPS (see video).

The reason is as simple as the headline on Vincent Carroll’s recent Denver Post column: Bennet not credible on deficit.

“If you’re partial to stern warnings about the growing national debt and grand schemes for shrinking it, Bennet is your man,” wrote Carroll. “But be sure to avert your eyes from his actual record. Pay no attention to the contrast between Bennet’s green-eye-shade rhetoric and his drunken-sailor votes.”