This article is a somewhat biased account of how Jack Murtha, the Democratic chairman chairman of the House Appropriation Committee, apparently ignored the newly adopted ethics rules on "earmarks" from his own party, and threatened a Republican member, who challanged one of Murtha's earmarks, with retaliation. The tone is slanted against Murtha, and only quotes from Republicans are directly cited. The writer neglected to mention that, by informal agreement, Murtha had no authority over Republican earmarks anyway. For a fairer and more informative (also more cynical) account, I recommend the piece by Dana Milbank (see Related Evidence).

Another good article demonstrating that the more things change, the more things remain the same, and that this Congress loves pork just as much as the last one.

There are Earmarks [e.g. a child health clinic in a Congressional District] and Earmarks [e.g. inserting something in a bill when it is too late for anyone to examine it because someone bribed you to insert it-- well-known examples of this type of Republican earmark include the activities of ex-Congressman Cunningham and ex-lobbyist Abramoff]. This editorial does not make a distinction between the two, and therefore enables Republican to complain while the staff of the Appropriations Committee attempts to review the merits of over 30,000 proposed earmarks, and yes, many thousands of those were submitted by Republicans who are complaining! These editors either don't understand how the Republicans handled earmarks in the last ... More »