Over the weekend, CNN's John King described the omnibus spending bill as “packed with thousands of earmarks” and “full of-maybe 8,000, 9,000 of these so-called earmarks.” At The Daily Howler, Bob Somerby explains it just isn't so:
According to King, the “huge” spending bill was “packed with” earmarks. (Was “full” or earmarks.) Semantic question: Can a bill really be “packed with” X when X comprises less than 1.9 percent of the bill? CNN viewers didn't have to ask—they weren't given the overall numbers.