Last week the Washington Post had a story on the tension between fast stimulus and green stimulus; this week they have another along the same lines.

Smart growth groups and enviros are trying to push the balance as far as possible toward green infrastructure spending: public transit and smart grid. In contrast, Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.), incoming head of the Blue Dog caucus, has decided to be a tool, accusing those who want green infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill of "trying to create a Christmas tree out of this."

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Stories like this don’t tell themselves.

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Because public transit is an ornament, you know. A trinket.

Notably, Hill is the only voice in the piece arguing against green stimulus — and I bet this isn’t the last time the Blue Dogs pop up to push back against boldness. Their mau-mauing against green spending will get more frequent and more annoying as Obama’s first term proceeds.

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It isn’t because they have a substantive case to make, or even a reason for existing; the argument against deficit spending has been lost, at the very least for a term. But they still have the media’s ear, and they keep it with these kinds of empty gestures, throwing progressive goals under the bus in the name of a perverse form of myopia that only the D.C. press corps would mistake for fiscal prudence.