YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. Among the items in the notorious 2005 transportation bill was a gift from the then Speaker of the House to Northern Illinois University.

That stretch of road will soon be built. (Comments to the article hint at other kinds of pork involved.)

There has since been a change in the management of the House of Representatives, but the public-choice dynamic remains, albeit in a more destructive form.

This vote allows Democrats to claim they opposed General David Petraeus's plan to stabilize Baghdad, even as they let him fight. The troops must be pleased with that indulgence. If the plan fails, as Democrats expect, Mr. Bush will get the blame. If it succeeds, well, they figure no one will remember their pessimism a year from now. Either way, "accountability" is the last word to use for this exercise.

Meanwhile, the troops on the line are waiting for their money, and they'll have to wait a while longer. When they return from their holiday, House and Senate leaders will have to "reconcile" their bills, which could take more weeks. Because the bills are packed with some $21 billion in pork, as well as differing versions of a minimum wage increase, the Members will be fiddling over their domestic priorities rather than financing the war. Then they can finally present their "message" to the White House for Mr. Bush to veto, at which point they'll get to start all over.

The spectacle qualifies as a textbook example of why Congress can't be trusted to micromanage, much less lead, a war. It's a committee of Lilliputians whose main contribution is to tie down the President so that his policy fails. Few bills deserve a veto as much as this one. And once Mr. Bush dispatches it, we hope Congress will fulfill the one war power it does have, which is to appropriate enough money so our troops can accomplish their mission.

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez sees it this way.


Marquette Warrior has found another cartoon in the same spirit.