To the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out that "The Masked Senator" who's held up a bi-partisan bill to make government spending more transparent is Ted Stevens of Alaska. He was unmasked by bi-partisan detective work done on a thing called the Internet which, as I understand it, is a series of tubes.
So no one's surprised it's Stevens. What's amazing is his stated reason for doing what he did. Ted Stevens is the guy who fought for and got $453 million to build a bridge in his home state…a bridge that would only be of use to a very small group of people.
So then along comes this bill to establish a database of government spending so that our elected officials will be more accountable as to how they spend our money. The bill has wide support from both sides of the aisle and the database is only supposed to cost $15 million. So why does Stevens try to stop it? Because he's afraid it will cost too much.
You have to feel sorry for people who have to write political satire these days. How do you stay ahead of stuff like that?