Vegan politicians need pork too!

If money is the mother's milk of politics, surely pork is its first solid food.

All congressional members tout how they bring home the bacon to their districts. This is one of the things they define as constituent service. It is true that high-priced call girls also describe what they do as a service, but let's not dwell on that for now.

What else is a politician to say? That he's gotten rather fond of those fine restaurants that Washington abounds in, much superior to those in Gooseberry Falls that he once called home? "And that I still call home!" he will hasten to add.

So in the present bailout —to distinguish it from those to come— pork became the ideal lubricant to help recalcitrant congressmen ease their consciences.

Much of the pork was especially tainted. And it is small comfort to know that most of it would likely have been slipped into future bills, if not this one. The two parties clearly indulged in a slop-trough mano a mano: "Okay, you can have this odious provision if we can have this putrid one."

It is fortunate that after the voice vote to pass the bill, Congressman Barney Frank verified the ayes and nays by asking the members to rise. It would have been difficult for them to raise their hands while holding their noses.

But the bill is passed by congress and the president quickly signed it, the former now having sense enough to leave town, although surely regretting they once again must return to their beloved Gooseberry Falls locales across America.