There’s something I don’t get. Barack Obama said in his speech that earmarks and other misallocations of tax payer money (including whatever amount of taxes members of his own administration deigned to contribute) are simply necessary to get the bill passed as quickly as possible, and time is of the essence. David Obey says the same below. Put aside whether this actually, you know, is true. After all, you could pick up Republicans by spending less and better, even if it would cost you some of the Democrats who are determined to spend more and worse. And that would be bipartisan, once the ne plus ultra of this whole shebang.

What I want to know is, Why Obama and, I suppose, other Democrats aren’t furious at the Dems who insist on these projects at the expense of the nation? The Democrats’ logic works like this: We need a stimulus bill at all costs. We can’t get a stimulus bill without paying $150 million for livestock insurance and other forms of non-stimulative special interests payoffs. Therefore the bad guys are the people who want the pork out, not the guys who put the pork in.

That makes no sense to me. The bad guys are the ones willing to hold up the whole process for their own interests.

There’s been plenty of criticism of “the Democrats,” of Obama and even the Democratic leadership. But I want names. I want to know who is putting the country at risk of total catastrophe — at least according to Barack Obama and the Democrats’ own standards — in order to get their little pet-projects in this bill because they’re afraid to go through the normal process. Isn’t that a good job for the press? Shouldn’t these shadowy, self-interested, scoundrels be held to account?