CLYBURN GOLF CENTER WINS NEW ‘TEED OFF’ AWARD FROM EARMARK WATCHDOG GROUP

For using $3 million taxpayer dollars from the the defense budget to fund his own personal golf center, House Majority Whip James Clyburn won the first ever “Taxpayers Get Teed Off Award” from the Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group targeting earmarks in the federal budget. The award was part of the group’s 2008 Pig Book which was released Wednesday and included Clyburn’s pork project along with hundreds of others.

“It is extremely disturbing to see Jim Clyburn divert national defense funds to his own golf facility while he refuses to equip our troops with the resources needed to win the War on Terror,” SCGOP Chairman Katon Dawson told The Palmetto Scoop on hearing of Clyburn’s big award. “We realize winning the War on Terror may be politically inconvenient for Clyburn, but losing the war is incomprehensible to those of us who put the public good before political gain.

“Our troops deserve better than this, and I call on South Carolinians to sign our petition demanding Clyburn protect our troops instead of polishing his ego.”

The third-ranking House member first came under fire for the project in November when Dawson pointed out that he had appropriated money away from military personnel to create the James E. Clyburn Golf Center in Columbia as part of the “First Tee” program. First Tee lists as its mission “providing young people of all backgrounds an opportunity to develop life-enhancing values such as confidence, perseverance and judgment through golf.”

Normally this would seem like a worthwhile project, unless of course it comes at the expense of American Troops. So the CAGW rightfully crowned South Carolina’s King of Pork with his very own award.

“You know, when you’re at war, and you know you got a war on two fronts, the first thing you think of is golf, isn’t it?” Leslie Paige, vice president of the CAGW, told CBS News. “That’s the first thing that comes to mind.”