A friend of mine who used to work on "the Hill" was arguing with me the other day that the whole debate over earmarks is overblown - and that DC doesn't work like a back-room shady-deal fat-cats-paying-pols kind of place.

For the most part, I agree with him - earmarks are a small drain on our budget and most lawmakers, I think, are primarily concerned with making decent policy.

The problem with earmarks is not that they're hurting our country in a massive way - but that they're just icky - or, put in a less scientific way, they make for unfairness and leave a bad smell (oh, and they're also a time suck).

Take, for example, the multi-billion dollar hand-out the banks got this week. It wasn't the classic kind of earmark - instead of writing in money for banks, a senator who happened to get a lot of campaign money from banks, wrote in immunity from pending patent lawsuits that would cost them billions.

The senator - and other supporters of the measure - say that the lawsuits in question represent what's bad wrong with the patent law and so are unfair. Okay, then change the law - and if you're going to do retro-active immunity why not do it for all patent cases? Why just the banks?

To add insult to injury, the plaintiff in the case would get some award - $1 billion - from you and me (if you happen to be a tax payer I mean).

Again, these kinds of ad-hoc petty favoritism acts aren't bringing our country to its knees - they're just below a nation that prides itself on fairness, openness and rewarding merit... oh, and on being a nation of laws. Jeesh.