In one of the classic scenes in the movie Animal House, the Delta boys are on trial for their fraternity hijinks. One of them, Otter, takes the floor and in his defense manages to spin the charges against the fraternity into an indictment of American society in general. In the climax he announces, "Well, you can do what you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America." (NOTE: The clip is an unedited clip, so be prepared for the same language and themes that earned the movie an R rating.)

Rep. Don Young has just tried the same thing in defending his pork-barrel spending to Citizens Against Government Waste, a spending watchdog group that annually declares a "porker of the year" -- the lawmaker with the most extreme pork-barrel spending habits.

Earlier this month CAGW nominated Young along with five other members of Congress as finalists for the porker of the year award -- Young already won the porker of the month designation last April.

But Young fired back, in a stern letter accusing CAGW's president, Tom Schatz, of not caring about the lives of American troops.

His argument is one of his earmarked projects went to technology that allows troops to monitor enemies behind walls. He said a combat team out of Fort Wainwright, Alaska, will be deployed to Iraq with the new technology in September.

"Essentially what you are saying is that countless Alaskan lives (and the lives of our military in general) are not worth $1.6 million?" Young wrote in his letter.

And then comes the Animal House part:

"In short, Mr. Schatz, I invite you to travel to Alaska and talk to our military using new technologies that will save their lives; talk to the Alaskans who frequent food kitchens so they can feed their families; or those Alaskans who visit the new Salvation Army Center so they can have a safe, warm place to sleep. All of these things are possibly because Alaskans requested assistance and I was able to secure some funding to help them. Visit them after you sit down to a meal with your family, and tuck your children into bed at night, on any given day when you are enjoying being a free citizen because of the United States military, and tell these agencies and the people they serve what a waste of money their earmarks were," Young wrote.

Schatz was not impressed, and fired back his own response:

"We are well aware of the pride you take in your pork, to the extent that you referred to the taxpayers' dollars as 'my money' on the floor of the House of Representatives on July 18, 2007. That misguided use of the possessive alone epitomizes why Americans are fed up with earmarks and why opinion polls show Congress inspiring an even lower level of trust among Americans than President Bush," he said.

As for Young's argument about American lives, Schatz said: "In reality, earmarks hollow out national security by taking valuable defense dollars and placing them into programs and projects that are not viewed as essential by military experts at the Pentagon."

The back and forth can be found here.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times