From the Evans-Novak Political Report:Meanwhile, events during the last week of June demonstrated that the celebrated transparency in the House is a sham. Amendments to strike transparent earmarks are brought up for a floor vote, they are overwhelmingly defeated and the news media completely ignore the story. Searches of Lexis-Nexis and Google News suggest that no one -- and we mean absolutely no one -- has picked up on the story of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and the embarrassing fight he lost to keep an earmark in his district.
Evidently, there is no political risk to pork-barreling because the news media ignore votes on earmarks. Meanwhile, members of both parties insist on their pork, a reflection of bipartisan congressional nonchalance toward ballooning federal spending. In pretentious cynicism about earmark reform, the Democrats punished McHenry with a vindictive chuckle...