In a transparent attempt to appease the anti-pork crusaders with a meaningless half-measure, Congress has defunded the Bridge to Nowhere and replaced it with a blank check to the state of Alaska.

Radley Balko at The Agitator is, well, agitated, and rightfully so:

This is smoke and mirrors. It’s a cheap stunt by the GOP to deflect public criticism that doesn’t really change much of anything. All the conference committee did was remove the earmark for the bridges. Alaska will still be getting the same obscene amount of money from the federal government, it’s just that the state won’t be required to use it to build those two particular bridges. It’ll be up to the executive and the state legislature to decide how to spend it.

Read the whole thing.

I disagree with Balko about one thing. He says this move “doesn’t really change much of anything,” but I think it actually makes things worse. The “Bridge to Nowhere” was a powerful metaphor for the broader problem of pork-barrel spending. It was a fantastic bludgeon with which to repeatedly bash Congress’s shameless purveyors of pork over the head. There’s a reason 60 percent of the public has heard of the “bridge.” (That’s an amazing statistic, if you think about it. This is the same public that knows all about Natalee Holloway but has never heard of Ben Bernanke.) The Bridge to Nowhere is easy to understand and virtually impossible to defend. It’s a perfect symbol for absurd, irrational government behavior. Thus, it resonates with people who don’t usually pay much attention to the goings-on in Washington. It “clicks” with the average citizen. It plays in Peoria.

Now the metaphor is defanged, the bludgeon blunted. And that, I think, is precisely why the GOP made this “smoke and mirrors” move: they knew it would look like a victory for the anti-pork crusaders, and might even briefly fool some of us into thinking we’d won, but would simultaneously deprive us of a key weapon in our battle to convince the broader public that pork is bad (which it is — always — but all the moreso now, during this time of war, crisis and debt, when we absolutely cannot afford it), and that we need to rebel against it.

I say, fight back, blogosphere. Don’t be satisfied with a Pyrrhic victory. It’s time for a new, almost-as-powerful metaphor. The Bridge to Nowhere has been replaced with the Blank Check to Nowhere. It’s still pork, and we ought to keep oinking about it. Loudly.

(Hat tip: Scientizzle and InstaPundit.)

P.S. BizzyBlog notes another reason why today’s development is bad news: “Worst of all, because Alaska still has the money, ‘Waste Ted’ Stevens probably won’t resign as he promised to if the bridge wasn’t funded.”

Howard Bashman offers a helpful roundup of the latest developments in the “Article III Groupie” kerfuffle (A3G-gate?). The most significant source of new, hard information appears to be this article from The Bergen (N.J.) Record. Excerpt:

A source who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was a “mutually agreed upon decision” to remove the site. …

Michael Drewniak, the spokesman for U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie, wouldn’t comment beyond confirming that Lat was still working for the office Tuesday.

Evan Schaeffer has more, including a prediction: “it’s only a matter of time before some other ambitious weblog author steps in to fill the void created by the sudden and unexpected disappearance of Underneath Their Robes.”

In other news, I learned this afternoon that at least one NDLS professor has been keeping abreast of A3G-related developments through my blog. Heh.

Tropical Depression 27 is no more. It no longer has a closed circulation, the NHC declared at 11:00 AM today. So T.D. 27 is dead, and won’t become Tropical Storm Gamma barring regeneration, which “does not appear likely at this time.”

Meanwhile, here in South Bend, tropical weather is the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. It’s 28 degrees and snowing. The wind chill is 14°.

What do you get the person who has everything this holiday season?

Well if you are completely nuts, how about “cute” plush toys that are basically anthropomorphized urine and feces.

I don’t know whats scarier, the fact that people make things like this, or the fact that people BUY things like this.

Guestblogger: David Kreutz

Last Wednesday top oil executives from five companies (Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, Conoco, BP, and Shell) testified before a joint session of the Senate Energy and Senate Commerce committee.

The hearings got off to a rocky start as Senator Ted Stevens (R-AlaskaBridgeToNowhere) reacted hostily to a call from Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) for the committee to vote on whether or not to swear in the executives. Said Stevens “There will be no vote. … It’s the decision of the chairman, and I have made that decision.” Sen. Cantwell then made a motion for a vote, which was seconded by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) but Stevens continued his abuse of power trip declaring, “That’s the last we’re going to hear about that, because it’s out of order.”

(You may remember the most recent conflict between Sen’s Cantwell and Stevens)

So the hearings continued with no oath by the oil executives to tell the truth (presumably protecting them from legal trouble if they did lie). When asked if they had met with Vice-President Cheney’s energy task force back in the early days of the Bush Presidency, they said no.

Guess what? They lied.

Shocking isn’t it?

Remember folks, when the Senate decided to investigate steroid use in Major League Baseball they felt it necessary to swear in those who testified. Apparently the Republicans don’t feel that energy policy and big-oil merit the same level of scrutiny. Because obviously the size of Raphael Palmeiro’s biceps have a much bigger impact on the safety and security of our nation than the possibility of price gouging and other practices by the oil industry. Obviously.

Guestblogger: David Kreutz

(Guestblogger: Josh Rubin)

Brendan, no wonder you have problems with your studies!