Now, Bob Somerby has an excellent post up about the obsession with earmarks:

Those high-profile spending measures total nearly $2 trillion. By way of contrast, the EARMARKS which have Sheneman frightened total $7.7 billion. (No one has made the slightest attempt to show how much of that is “wasteful.”) But guess what? Trillions are much larger than billions! In fact, those EARMARKS represent roughly one two hundred and fiftieth of the total spending in these high-profiles measures. That amounts to one quarter of one percent—one dollar of every 250.

But to Sheneman, these EARMARKS are larger than human life. They may swallow the White House itself.

plover at Three Bulls! has particularly interesting take in rê Somerby that I thought was worth quoting here.

He condemns people as “tribal”, because, from his standpoint, “tribal” is outside the realm of “rational”. The problem is, it’s not. Tribalism, in a generalized sense, one not limited to reflexive, herdlike behaviors, is one part of what our human brains use to reason about life as a social animal (most of our brains, anyway — the ones that more or less don’t we label things like “autistic”). Declaring oneself an adherent of reason does not mean that one is not using tribalistic modes of thinking. It’s not something a person can think their way out of as it is part of thinking.

...

Bob Somerby

PALIN DOES IT AGAIN: As a politician, Sarah Palin is profoundly talented, disturbingly so. But uh-oh–she clearly enjoys telling lies! Last night, in her speech, she did it again! Why is she able to do this:

PALIN (9/3/08): We suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that Bridge to Nowhere.

(APPLAUSE)

If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves.

(APPLAUSE)