Golly, this is like that time Tom Hanks kept getting the Oscar. Well, not quite. This particular honor, the Whole Hog Award, has been awarded to Senator Ted Stevens for the second year in a row, and isn’t so prestigious.

It’s a citation by the Citizens Against Government Waste. They’ve listed him in their “Pig Book” as the guy who has grabbed the most federal moolah per capita for his state. Stevens nabbed for Alaskans a little more than $800 per person $524 million total. That’s 26 times the national average of $31 of pork per person.

One item in the Stevens laundry list is $2 million that goes to recreation in North Pole, Alaska, population 1570. When you divide up $2 million amongst them that’s more than 1200 bucks apiece. I don’t suppose it will be divided up evenly. And no, this is not a subsidy for Santa’s elves. Stevens is unfazed by the criticism. His main response is denial. He’s says there’s no pork in the money he’s obtained for “Alaska’s future.”

But I say: if it looks like pork, smells like pork, and oinks like pork, it’s pork. Don’t doubt: Stevens has eye, nose, and ear trained for pork. But to him his spending probably does seem pulchritudinous, aromatic, and music to soothe his savaged breast. That’s the real training that life-time politicians get, year after year, handling other people’s money. That’s why their terms must be limited, before pigs appear as angels and oinks sound as symphonies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.