Editor's note: Click here to listen to the original radio commentary this transcript is based on.

Visiting Fellow Fred Thompson

The House's emergency war-funding bill contains several conditions on how the war should be run. They'll never become law but they "send signals" they say. They're big on sending signals in Washington. But what I was really surprised to find in the bill was what looked like 25 billion dollars in pure pork. Since a lot of the people who voted for the bill campaigned against pork, I was puzzled.

I'm puzzled there's $283 million for dairy farmers in an emergency war-funding bill. But there's also $74 million for peanut farmers, so I figured our soldiers are eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches; they need more milk to wash them down with.

Hey, I'm trying to keep an open mind, here, okay?

But I also wondered why the bill gives $25 million to spinach producers. Our troops should certainly eat their vegetables, but unless it turns out that there's a scientific basis for that Popeye spinach thing, I don't get it.

I'm also trying to figure out what $400 million for rural schools has to do with the war--unless that money produces students smart enough to explain why this bill includes over three hundred thousand dollars for the widows of two ex-House members, and $80 million for low-income rent subsidies.

There's a lot in the bill I don't understand, but this sort of makes sense. There's $50 million for repairs to the plant that supplies electrical power to the Capitol--where Congress works. To fund and win the war, Congress does need electricity at least to do its job.

Ah, I get it. This bill isn't just about funding the war for democracy and freedom in Iraq. It's a political statement. And it's about buying enough votes with pork in order to make that statement. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing, if Congress did have its power cut off every once in a while.

Fred Thompson is a visiting fellow at AEI.