So according to Crain's Insider (always to be taken with a grain of salt) Vito Fossella made no earmark requests this year. Very strange right? Every other New York member made plenty of requests, particularly since Dems are finally looking to get a piece of the pie.

So why did Vito let his district get left out of the pork pit? According to his spokesperson, the new disclosure rules are too ambiguous, and could leave members open to ethics violations. Huh?

To me that sounds like BS. There are two possible explanations, I can think of. One is that Vito has been making some very questionable earmarks in the past, and is too afraid to put in for them again, given the new disclosure rules. Given that it might be too hard for him to tell the shady beneficiaries of his largess he can't fund them anymore, it's easier to just tell everyone he can't fund them.

Another possible explanation is that, since he's not in the majority party anymore, he stands to receive a lot less money than before, and will probably look bad if he tries ineffectively to get everything he did in the past.

Whether it's one or both of those reasons, or some other reason, going into a difficult re-election campaign telling the people you've been giving money to for the past few years they won't be getting anymore, cannot be a good thing for your chances.

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