Pork on the menu

The late George Carlin was a master at pointing out how perception too often undermines one's view of reality.

"Did you ever notice," he asked in one of his comedy routines, "that everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everybody who drives faster than you is a maniac?"

It's all a matter of perception.

Take government pork. When is government pork not really government pork? Why, when it's your government pork, of course.

Consider Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons. Having presided over perhaps the worst budget crisis in state history, Gov. Gibbons is a staunch opponent of wasteful government spending. Yet on Tuesday he was applauding the federal stimulus bill for providing money to fund the restoration of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad in Northern Nevada.

A few days earlier, Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona had included the project -- a tourist train that runs between Carson City and Virginia City -- on a list of wasteful endeavors packed into the multibillion-dollar stimulus bill.

"These funds would be used for a project that will create jobs and bring more tourists to Nevada," the governor insisted. Ergo, it's not pork.

One wonders whether Gov. Gibbons also approves of the millions handed to the National Endowment for the Arts to put on jazz festivals and puppet shows, or the grants given to the National Institutes of Health to examine whether drinking by female college students can lead to casual sex. (Duh!)

It comes down to this: Why should taxpayers in Michigan's Upper Peninsula or Florida's Panhandle have to pay for a Virginia City tourist train that can't make it on its own?

It's pork, governor. The fact that we're the ones pulling up to the table doesn't change reality.

Oink, Oink.