No questions asked.

After all, that $80,000 for the rescue sled to use on frozen lakes that the Administration made such fun of could better be spent on various colored light bulbs to designate the different levels of alert that Mr. Ridge recently announced.

Or maybe it's just that people from Texas have trouble imagining that an entire lake could freeze. ;)

Congress is supposed to ask what the money is spent on. That's its job. If Congress decides not to purchase a pig in a poke, that's its prerogative. It's not blackmail, it's business.

Some pork deserves to be ridiculed. Some doesn't. We send our representatives to Congress as our representatives, not as representatives of America at large. Representatives and Senators run on what they have done for their constituents, which is why the position of the incumbent is so difficult to fight. Incumbents are defeated because they have either become woefully out of touch with the politics back home, they have embarrassed their constituents (see also "Condit, Gary"), they have actually been arrested, or -- and this is a big one -- they have failed to bring benefits back to their districts or states. If we object to pork we should stop demanding that it be served on our tables.

Regards--
Mary Anne