Chaffetz making his (ear)mark about pork

Back when he was a place-kicker for the Brigham Young University football team, Jason Chaffetz liked to joke that he was the smartest man on the field.

"Nobody can hit me," he'd say. "Touch me, they throw a flag."

Wonder what he thinks now that his kicks are more, shall we say, metaphorical?

Chaffetz is the newest U.S. congressman from Utah, not quite two months into his rookie term, and he's wasted no time in displaying a flair for drawing attention, taking heat and exhibiting unconventional behavior in our nation's capital.

Last week he really ratcheted up the temperature, and pretty much destroyed his chances of being initiated into the Good Old Boys club, when he announced he would not participate in earmarking.

Earmarking is the term used to define the practice of senators and representatives designating chunks of the federal budget for particular projects or undertakings of their choosing, usually involving favorable treatment for their constituencies.

Almost everyone in Washington does it. Every other Utah member of Congress does it.

Not Chaffetz, who calls earmarks "the ultimate no-bid contracts," and vows, "I campaigned against earmarks, and I'm not going to change now."

In that regard, his 2008 campaign was much like another relative political newcomer, a one-term senator from Illinois running for president named Barack Obama, who was also pointedly anti-earmark all along the campaign trail.

But as Chaffetz is not bashful in pointing out, that similarity took something of a detour last week when President Obama signed off on the massive $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill, despite the more than 8,500 earmarks attached.

"In his speech to Congress, the president said he wanted no earmarks," says Chaffetz. "It was literally the very next day the House voted to pass that bill with 8,500 earmarks in it." With the president's approval.

Obama has said his hands were essentially tied. He had to get the omnibus bill passed to prevent the country from grinding to an economic standstill. And he still is on record that he wants to see wholesale reform of earmarking.

But it's the Republican representative from District 3 in Utah who struck the first unequivocal "no" vote against business-as-usual in Washington by refusing to support the omnibus bill.