Earmarks: The Easy Target

I've noticed something in the last six months or so on CNN's programming, something that was (in my viewing experience, at least) largely absent from the preceding six years of programming: Focusing on congressional earmarks.

On one hand, this is to be expected when one of the messages that Democrats ran on in 2006 was earmark reform. With ads focused on Alaska Republican Don Young's infamous "Bridge To Nowhere", Democrats made light of excessive earmarks and promised that this culture would change when they ran the House. On the other hand, apparently this signals that our media establishment needs an invitation in order to do investigative journalism these days. Where was this "Keeping Them Honest" theme for...oh, I don't know... most of the Bush administration?

While I think it's a good thing that earmarks see the light of day, there is a certain limp outrage to the way CNN is conducting the whole affair that irritates me. In this case, earmarks are like lawyers: Everyone thinks that their lawyer is a saint and that everyone else's lawyer is crooked. Similarly, every earmark not coming to your backyard is excessive government waste, but Lord knows it's about time the federal government helped build a statue of [insert your home town's favorite son/daughter/folk tale/animal here] because they been under-appreciated for too long!

I'd like to see CNN continue to shine light on earmarks, but I'd also like to see them do away with the manufactured sanctimony about the whole enterprise. Chances are we're not going to see any reports on earmarks from Representatives from the metro Atlanta or metro New York areas being drowned in the same priggishness with which we see a $50,000 earmark for a museum for mules in Bishop, California being treated.