Due to the changes noted yesterday [see below] I'm finally getting around to posting this fascinating piece by that Bastion of the Right, George Will.
The Road To a GOP Minority By George F. Will --
Sunday, February 10, 2008

LEE COUNTY, Fla. -- Coconut Road near Fort Myers looks like any other concrete ribbon near housing developments, golf courses and shopping malls in this state's booming southwest. But like another fragrant slab of recent pork, the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, Coconut Road leads to somewhere darkly fascinating. It runs straight into Washington's earmark culture of waste, corruption and anti-constitutional deviousness.
^^^
In his State of the Union address, President Bush vowed to veto any appropriation bill "that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half." [Sen] Coburn [R-OK] tartly notes that although Congress hardly needs 5,500 earmarks -- half of last year's total -- the president's goal would be met if Republicans themselves quit earmarking. That fact goes far to explain the Republicans' current and future minority status.
Click here for the complete text.
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On occasion, when he's not blindly following the party line, George Will even gets it partly right.

Of course, that's not the whole story.
For instance, he left out the part about condoning torture.
And we mustn't forget the wars. Or the fact that we will ask them to die for a lie but abandon the soldiers who come home maimed in body and soul and need our help. Let heaven help them. We won't.
And then there's the environment. Remember it?
And our pathetic educational and health care systems.
And sending jobs overseas in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
And the part about dirty tricks in order to get elected at any cost. Does anyone study ancient history these days? Remember the redistricting of Texas? And the more recent attempt to change the rules in California?
And changing the rules of Congress -- then crying foul when the Dems took over and imposed the SAME rules on the repugs for just the first 100 days of the new order.
And justice. As opposed to condemning Siegelman to prison for being a successful Democrat. And then, when that debacle finally comes to light, leaning on CBS to kill the story then censoring it in Alabama and Tennessee.

So, George, you were right--as far as you went. You just didn't go nearly far enough. Or do you label all those matters as needless earmarks?