PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The issue of pork is getting some editorial attention:

A second example of why earmarks won’t die is found in recent articles in the New York Times and the Naples Daily News concerning the odd tale of an Alaska congressman in the land of the palm trees. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chaired the House Transportation Committee until Democrats took charge in January. His chairmanship made him a major dispenser of earmarks. He became infamous a couple of years ago by earmarking more than $200 million for a bridge to an Alaskan island with 80 residents.

In 2005, Mr. Young went to Florida for a fundraiser organized by a local developer. It apparently raised $40,000 for Mr. Young’s reelection campaign, according to The Times. A $10 million earmark later materialized on an appropriations bill last year to help connect a Florida road to Interstate 75. The friendly local real estate developer just happened to own land along the road, and its value will rise with the road connection.

Thanks, Don! The check is in the mail! Er, actually, it’s already cleared, hasn’t it. . .? Then there’s this one:

Hard as it may be to imagine, House Democrats took a corrupting, goodie-giveaway practice that served as a prime source of scandal for Republicans and made the process exponentially worse. . . .

Overwhelmed by more than 30,000 requests from his 434 colleagues, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David R. Obey, effectively has thrown up his hands and refused to even consider them until after House versions of the 13 separate spending bills are approved. At that point, he and his staff alone will sort the worthy from the unworthy, the election-year booty from the lobbyist payoff.

Of course, people are offering to help Obey in his task! But wait, there’s more!

When they took office in January, Democrats made a great show of adopting rules to rein in Congress’ rampant pork barrel practices, requiring that projects earmarked for federal dollars — and their sponsors — are well-publicized. The idea was that subjecting the projects to public scrutiny would weed out the worst abuses — such as the infamous $223 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska. But Democrats in the House seem to be blowing their first opportunity to demonstrate they mean business.

Read the whole thing. Is it any wonder that Congress is polling so badly, and that most people think it’s still business as usual despite the promises of cleanup?