JustOneMinute: When Hacks Attack

When Hacks Attack

Carl Hulse of the NY Times engages in a half-hearted Hack Attack on the Times very own St. John the McCain:

Foe of Earmarks Has a Pet Cause of His Own

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — It is just the sort of parochial spending request that might lead Senator John McCain, nemesis of pork barrel projects, to give somebody an earful.

The bill would direct $2 million annually over five years to establish a center at a specified law school to honor a renowned jurist from the state. While the goal may be laudable, some critics say, the measure is a classic case of lawmakers' trying to funnel money directly to a home-state institution for a project that should find financing elsewhere.

But it is doubtful that Mr. McCain will weigh in against the idea this time: the legislation to support the project is being sponsored by him and Senator Jon Kyl, Arizona Republicans who are among those aggressively promoting new rules for handling Congressional spending requests.

Senior aides to Mr. McCain say that he is pursuing the money for the center, a tribute to the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, in the open, transparent way that such special spending pleas should be handled and that he does not consider the proposal an earmark, the type of measure he is attacking in new legislation. Others are not so sure.

"If it doesn't meet the technical term of earmark, it would probably meet the public idea of one," said Pete Sepp, a vice president at the National Taxpayers Union, who is an ally of Mr. McCain in the fight for new rules.

As Carl Hulse knows, and any careful reader will figure out, the Times is blurring two related issues - "pork", which we will describe as "wasteful" Federal spending that ought better to be done at a lower level of government, privately, or not at all; and "earmarks", which are a particularly surreptitious Congressional tool for sneaking pork into bills.

Mr. Hulse explains all this:

He and Mr. Kyl are seeking the money through a free-standing bill introduced in December, an approach that Mr. McCain's aides call a far cry from what he finds most objectionable: furtive efforts to slip through last-minute spending projects without prior Congressional scrutiny.

"You can have an issue with what the Rehnquist bill says, but it has gone through exactly the process that should be followed," said Pablo Chavez, general counsel to Mr. McCain. "It doesn't have the marks of an earmark."

In their push to rein in the explosion of spending on pet projects, Mr. McCain and others are concentrating on those tucked into the final versions of voluminous spending bills without first being approved as policy in a separate measure known as an authorization bill. The earmark bill he has introduced would allow lawmakers new avenues to strip those provisions from legislation and would require new disclosure of such requests and their sponsors.

Some others, mainly outside watchdog groups, take a broader view of what constitutes an earmark, defining it as any provision added to a larger measure in an effort to force spending on a specific project, particularly if the spending is not sought by the relevant federal agency.

Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said he considered the Rehnquist Center initiative an "earmark in training." Should the proposal advance as a separate bill, Mr. Ashdown said, his group will have no objection. But if it is folded into broader legislation, then it could meet the earmark test.

So at this point John McCain, foe of both pork and earmarks, is offering a visible, stand-alone, porkish bill. No one in the article thinks it is an earmark, or that this push by McCain contradicts his position taken on earmarks.

But with careful phrasing Mr. Hulse managed to preserve the suspense for several paragraphs. And Dead Tree readers will note that this page A11 story gets a promotional blurb on the front page: "Pork Critic seeks $10 Million".

So why is the Times turning on their own St. John with this silly attack? Have they moved on from McCain-Feingold, and are they positioning themselves for their endorsement of Hillary in 2008?

Who knows?

Posted by Tom Maguire on February 18, 2006 | Permalink

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