John McCain and Earmarks. Plus, Hillary Clinton Critical of Palin.

Out on the stump, John McCain gets wild applause each time he promises as president to veto every spending bill that contains an earmark. The promise to veto any bill with congressional earmarks, which come by the scores in the president’s annual budget request doesn’t take into account the executive branch. McCain has not promised to get rid of the executive branch’s line-item spending requests.

TPJ: So McCain is not so clear on earmarks after all. Why is he being so ambiguous about doing away with presidential executive spending requests if he is against every earmark and spending request in Congress? What's good for the Congress should be good for the executive branch. And as much as we all want to reduce earmarks it isn't the constitutional job of the president to decide how money should be spent. That power of the purse resides firmly in the hands of the Congress to separate the powers and keep them balanced so that no one branch has more power than the others. It is fact that not all earmarks are pork barrel spending on pet projects, many are important that help funds this such as:

But as many veteran lawmakers point out, for every far-flung Alaskan bridge project or hippie museum, there are dozens of other earmarks that are politically palatable, like military base housing improvements, levee upgrades and Veterans Affairs hospital wings.

And many of these are never requested by the executive agencies or the White House.

TPJ: Yes, John McCain is a maverick but in all the wrong ways including throwing the baby out with the bathwater on earmark spending. It is reckless to do away with ALL earmarks since many bring great benefit to communities all across the country and provide for the defense of the country:

Young points out that it was one of his earmarks back in the early 1990s that created the National Bone Marrow Registry. And the Predator drone — an unmanned aircraft critical in the war on terrorism — was created by a congressional earmark.

TPJ: It is much wiser and shows better judgment in my opinion to reform the process to help reduce the frivolous earmarks that give the money appropriation system in Congress a bad reputation. Instead of doing away with them completely because many of them are necessary and much needed. What I just described is Obama's balanced and well thought out approach to the situation. You can't repair every thing that is broken with a hammer and that is exactly what McCain would do by absolutely eliminating every earmark.

HILLARY CLINT ON ON SARAH PALIN:

"A lot of people are missing the boat here," Clinton told ABC News' Diane Sawyer, aboard the "Good Morning America" Whistle-Stop Express. Palin has generated a great deal of interest, Clinton acknowledged, but added, "That's not a good enough reason to vote for that ticket. There's a lot of talk in the country about who are you for in this election, but that's not the right question. The right question is, who is for you."

Clinton suggested that the McCain-Palin team doesn't understand "the struggles you face."

"So I don't think it's inconsistent for a lot of people to say well hey, that's exciting, what an exciting pick, and still say, but that's not the ticket for me and my family," she said.

The National Organization for Women will snub Palin's history-making candidacy and endorse the Obama-Biden ticket Tuesday in Washington. Palin's opposition to abortion rights is a major stumbling block for Now and other women's rights organizations.

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