On the tax-cut side, the Senate bill included a tax break worth up to $246 million over 11 years for outside investors in big-budget Hollywood movie projects. "Tax cuts for the wealthy" are OK -- as long as the wealthy are making movies. But bad publicity and pork-busting Sen. Tom Coburn pressed the Senate (including 13 Democrats) to scrap the tax break.

The "green" lobby is thrown a pile of bones in the "stimulus" bill, including $10 million for bike and walking trails, $200 million for plug-in electric car stations, $400 million for climate change research by NASA scientists, $600 million to buy new "green" cars for government workers, $800 million for more cleanup of "Superfund" pollution sites, and $1.5 billion for the construction of new "green" school buildings.

Then there's just plain self-dealing by the Democrats. The Washington Times reported on a $2.25 billion provision in the House bill for the National Parks -- almost equal to the National Park Service's total yearly budget, and a eyebrow-raising increase of almost three times the $802 million the Senate Appropriations Committee put in its "stimulus" bill. The chief lobbyist for the National Parks Conservation Association is Craig Obey, the son of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey.

There's a reason why the Obama administration wanted to cram this massive spending bill through the Congress by Abe Lincoln's birthday. Speed is of the essence: The longer it lingers, the more details emerge, proving this egg is rotten to the core. Republicans are now using those details to build skepticism about this freight train of partisan pork.

Standing in their way are TV news anchors, miffed that the GOP would "turn the cold shoulder" to Obama's outreach, as Charles Gibson put it on ABC. His man on Capitol Hill, Jonathan Karl, added: "So much for the president's charm offensive. Today it was all partisan rancor and name-calling."

The news media are supposed to be offering us information from Washington. In the case of this "stimulus" bill, it's the last thing they want to do.