Which does Andrew Malcolm do worse: Comedy or reporting?

LA Times reporter (and former Laura Bush press secretary) Andrew Malcolm, last seen helping the GOP smear Sen. Al Franken with a doctored photo, has a new blog post about Franken's first legislative initiative.  The post nicely illustrates how Malcolm's work tends to be pointless at best, and malicious at worst.

Malcolm doesn't bother with any actual "facts" about Franken's proposal, to provide service dogs for wounded military veterans. Instead, Malcolm assigns a frighteningly large (and quite false) price tag to the proposal:

Franken wants to establish a three-year federal pilot program to study ways the animals can help the humans and measure those benefits. The estimated cost of the freshman Democrat's pilot dog program: $15 billion.

Just kidding.

Ha!  Hilarious.  So what's the real price tag? Back to Malcolm:

It's only $7.4 billion.

No, not really.

Oh, wow.  Another joke -- and just as hilarious as the first!  Look out, Carrot Top, Andrew Malcolm is going to put you out of business.

So what's the real price tag?  Malcolm never says.  He just leaves the reader assuming it's something unacceptably large.  And that, basically, is Malcolm's entire post: a couple of stupid jokes perpetuating the stereotype of Democrats as big-spenders, accompanied by no actual facts.  Because, you know, it's hilarious that someone would want to provide assistance and companionship for wounded military veterans.  Hilarious.