Cheers and Jeers for the U.S. Senate

First of all, I commend the Senate for passing a bill that rescinds the attorney general's power to appoint federal attorneys without Senate confirmation. Frankly, I'm upset that a provision giving the attorney general such power ever passed in the first place. From what I can gather, this provision passed because it was part of the Patriot Act, and no one who voted on the Patriot Act actually read it. When you give a piece of legislation a cute name, legislators tend to cast votes based on the public's perception of the bill, not the bill's actual content. In some states and districts, voting against the Patriot Act would be political suicide, regardless of what the act actually says. (A recent conversation with a friend who works as a state legislature staffer has convinced me that bills should have no name other than "Senate Bill x" or "House Bill y.")

On the other hand, I'm upset with Democratic Senate leaders for tacking countless varieties of pork onto a war funding bill. Though some of the pork projects are worthy of receiving federal funds (for instance, reconstructing levees in New Orleans), they have no business being part of a bill ultimately aimed at ending the Iraq War. Tacking on these pet projects is political pandering at its worst (just as this sentence is illiteration at its worst).