PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: John Fund looks at Ted Stevens, Prince of Pork:

Everyone seems to agree that Congress needs to clean up earmarks, the special pork projects members of Congress secure often without hearings, notice or even disclosure of the direct recipient. Rep. John Boehner, the new House majority leader, laments that Congress has “become addicted to earmarks as if it were opium.” President Bush belatedly told the nation in his State of the Union address that “the federal budget has too many special-interest projects.”

Fine rhetoric, but if something drastic isn’t done, earmarks will largely survive the calls for reform. Alaska’s Sen. Ted Stevens, who has spent 37 years in Congress raiding the federal Treasury on behalf of his state, dismisses the notion that anything should threaten Alaska’s status as the No. 1 state for pork. In 2005, it hauled in $984.85 worth of pork for every resident.

Last week Mr. Stevens went so far as to chide Capitol Hill reporters for even listening to earmark critics such as Sens. John McCain and Tom Coburn. “You guys fall for it and give them publicity,” he said, and no one can doubt his authority. If anyone knows about publicity, it’s the man who gave his name to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

Hey, speaking of publicity, this should help Stevens pull ahead of Robert Byrd in the neck-and-neck race for the number one spot in the Porkbusters Hall of Shame! Meanwhile, Fund continues:

Earmarks represent a looming political disaster for the GOP. Last year Congress authorized a record 13,999 earmarks. The scandals surrounding just a few of them involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham have sent reporters scurrying to find what other nuggets of news might be buried in the remainder. If just 1% of the earmarks turn out to be embarrassing, that’s 140 stories. If a mere 0.1% turn out to be legally questionable, that’s 14 front-page exposés between now and the November election. Because they are in charge of Congress, Republicans will take the brunt of any political fallout, even though Democrats routinely secure an estimated 45% of earmark spending.

And the stories keep coming. A major newsmagazine is working on a piece exploring the bosom-buddy relationships some lobbyists for earmarks have with key appropriators. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis has steered hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds to clients of lobbyist Bill Lowery, a former congressman who is so close to Mr. Lewis that they have exchanged two key staff members, “making their offices so intermingled that they seem to be extensions of each other.”

Looming disaster, indeed.