Earmarks are not the issue...pork is!

This earmark issue is stupid. Not sure if you're as annoyed as I am, but I've been annoyed at the GOP and the talk radio hosts since it first came up as a topic during the stimulus debate.  Mark my words: it's going to backfire. The term "earmark" as a subject came up because Obama, like the liar and truth-twister that he is, swore that there were none in the $800b stimulus bill. Since the bill was so pork-laden, Republicans and talking heads like Hannity jumped on this. Whether the porky items in the bill are literally "earmarks" or not is a stupid discussion...it's obvious that the items are not stimulating and THAT should've been the sole focus of the argument. Instead, they took the bait and started a campaign against earmarks, as if the term "earmark" means "pork", which it absolutely does not (but your average American now thinks it does), AND as if Republicans aren't just as fond of the Constitutionally-backed appropriations process as Democrats. I'm not sure if Obama intentionally trapped Republicans into this or if it was just more of his self-glorifying deceit (likely the latter), but either way Republicans are now having to back off the earmark issue which they themselves created since there are so many of their own earmarks in the $410b omnibus bill.  Talk show hosts continue to point out that there are 8000 earmarks in the bill, as if that's bad, but [duh], 40% of those are from Republicans.  Earmarks themselves aren't bad...it's the fact that they're pork-laden, but they seem not to get that.  Conservatives managed to shift the argument from pork to earmarks, and now they're going to look stupid when they didn't necessarily have to.

Oh, and by the way, if they want to trash the earmark process, I'm not necessarily saying that's not a worthwhile discussion, but it's another subject entirely.