Hobson Squeals, etc.

Media types are all gobbling at the trough of The organization calling itself "Citizens Against Government Waste' has released this year's edition of "The Pig Book," detailing what they believe to be wasteful pork-barrel spending in D.C. Many media outlets love this thing, as it's designed to entertain and outrage, and appeals to the most common stereotypes of government.

The Dispatch, which is no exception from the herd, put out their story today. Typically, one can predict the tone of the book, the tone of the comments from legislators, and the tone of the news story. The tone of my response would probably be just as predictable. Somewhere along the way, however, things changed up a little. This time I'm perfectly content to let the CD story stand on its own. This snippet is my favorite, for multiple reasons:

"It's not a bad thing that Ohio is underrepresented in the 'Pig Book,' " said Jessica Towhey, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester, who does not ask for earmarks.

Others appear to be getting religion on earmarks. Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, has said that he will not ask for earmarks this year, although he only received three totaling $900,000 in fiscal 2008, according to the report.

By contrast, Rep. David L. Hobson, R-Springfield, and a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, received 38 earmarks for the state of Ohio, including $984,000 for imaging equipment at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus.

Hobson, who is retiring at the end of this year, assailed the report, complaining that "these people don't have a lot of credibility with me because they didn't get it right, as usual. We did better than they thought. There's a whole bunch of defense projects they didn't put in."

So...
Boehner - "Pork Bad"
Tiberi - "I Didn't Want Your Stupid Pork Anyway"
Hobson - "B-B-M-M-That's Not All, Folks!"

This made my day.