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Mother Jones magazine’s tag line is “SMART, FEARLESS JOURNALISM”, but it seems that Jonathan Stein and David Corn are going for “SNARKY, FECKLESS JOURNALISM” in their most recent bit titled “Sarah Palin: More Earmark Hypocrisy.”

In a nutshell, Messrs Stein and Corn feel that Mrs. Palin is being a hypocrite for accepting and (oh, the horror!) pushing for certain earmarks in the omnibus spending bill that President Obama just signed, after campaigning against earmarks as Senator John McCain’s Vice Presidential candidate.

As I remember it, she ran against earmark abuse.  ABCNews’ Jake Trapper unintentionally provides support for that.  Mr. Trapper quotes Mrs. Palin from the campaign trail:

“The abuse of earmarks, it’s un-American, it’s undemocratic, and it’s not going to be accepted in a McCain-Palin administration,” she said. “Earmark abuse will stop.”

Palin went on to call it “an embarrassment that abuse of the . . . earmark process has been accepted in Congress. And that’s what John McCain has fought. And that’s what I joined him in fighting.”

So, she campaigned against “abuse of earmarks” and “abuse of the…earmark process”.  That would beg the question…Are the earmarks for Alaska “abusive”?  You’ll have to answer that question for yourself (you can find a nice Excel spreadsheet here of the earmarks here: Taxpayers for Common Sense).  To me the Alaskan earmarks don’t look too bad.  Sure, there are probably some questionable ones in there, but I don’t feel abused by them.

Messrs Stein and Corn, however, must feel deeply violated by the abusive nature of those earmarks, though, right?  After all, they say Mrs. Palin is a “hypocrite” for accepting and even pushing for some of these earmarks.  Sayeth Messrs Stein and Corn:

The earmarks that Palin apparently will accept could also be ridiculed in a McCain-ish fashion. They include $475,000 to construct a “heritage center” in the Chilkat Indian Village; $150,000 to support private industry participation in two international fishery groups; $200,000 for investigating and prosecuting bootlegging; $200,000 for researching the king crab; and $855,000 for building fairgrounds. The Alaska earmarks also include $1.2 million for construction work on an airport on Akutan, a tiny island that relies on seaplane for contact with the Alaskan mainland. (The Coast Guard handles medical emergencies.) The island has roughly 800 residents. Could this be dubbed the Airport to Nowhere?

Whether or not any of these projects is worthwhile–the people of Akutan might need an airport to keep their community alive–Palin is certainly not decrying earmarks when they are benefiting her state.

Wait, it doesn’t matter if they projects are worthwhile?  Do they think it is an “abuse of the . . . earmark process” to get earmarks for worthwhile projects?  I would think the definition of “abuse of the . . . earmark process” would be getting funding for projects that were NOT worthwhile.

Now, maybe the “Airport to Nowhere” isn’t a worthwhile project – perhaps Messrs Stein and Corn think Alaska should just forcibly remove the residents and relocate them somewhere else?  Hmm, on second thought, $1.2 million for construction on an airport dosn’t sound so bad after all (especially if it allowed the scaling back of costs associated with the Coast Guard’s emergency medical assistance to the community).

In any case, let me see if I have Messrs Stein’s and Corn’s  “logic” straight:

1. Sarah Palin campaigned against earmark abuse.
2. There are earmarks for Sarah Palin’s state in the omnibus budget bill.
3. Sarah Palin pushed for some of them.
4. Sarah Palin is (apparently) accepting all of them.
5. Whether or not any of these projects abuses the earmark system, Sarah Palin is taking the money, so…
6. Sarah Palin is a hypocrite.

Does anyone else see a problem with this line of “reasoning”?  If they want to say that she is a hypocrite, fine, I don’t have any problem with calling someone a hypocrite – if you can actually back it up with something, you know, factual.  Like showing a list of actual porky earmarks.  For instance, if Alaska were getting $20+ million worth of legacy preservation for a political dynasty, then I’d say they had a pretty good case for calling Mrs. Palin a hypocrite.

I guess when you can’t do that, though, you could just write a snarky article and fecklessly skip the bit where you back up your claim of hypocrisy with anything.

It seem that for many people in the media, any reason to pillory Sarah Palin is a good one, even if you don’t have a real argument for doing so.  Maybe there needs to be a new term for this affliction.  I nominate ‘Palin Malignment Syndrome’.

I’m sure that some resourceful researcher can wrangle some earmarks in the 2010 budget to study the pervasiveness and impact of the condition.  Perhaps Messrs Stein and Corn can even lobby their own Representatives and Senators to make sure there is funding set aside in the next budget for such important work.

Or would that be an ‘abuse of earmarks’?

Links:

Sarah Palin: More Earmark Hypocrisy | Mother Jones.

Political Punch: Palin’s Back to Lovin’ Her Some Earmarks

Taxpayers for Common Sense

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