In most normal places, such as business or the military, everyone understands that an employee who disputes the boss in public will soon have to find another job. But not in Washington. There you're treated as a hero, a modern day Nathan Hale, able to regret that you have but one life to give for your bureaucracy.

We're referring to Michael Parker, who was sacked last week by President Bush as head of the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that builds water projects. A former Mississippi Congressman, Mr. Parker had merely gone to Capitol Hill and trashed his boss's proposal to cut the Corps budget by 10%. He preferred a modest 40% increase. The word that comes to mind here is insubordination. But Members of Congress from both parties reacted to Mr. Parker's dismissal as if he were a glorious martyr for pork.

"Mike Parker told the truth that the Corps of Engineers budget as proposed is insufficient," said Trent Lott, allegedly the leader of the President's party in the Senate. When the choice is between more spending and his party's principles, Mr. Lott is never in doubt. Another Republican, Alabama Congressman Sonny Callahan, called it "a national tragedy." He wasn't kidding. And Jim Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat, referred to the dismissal as "one of the darkest hours in the 226 years of the Army Corps."

Forgive us if we interrupt this patriotic funeral music with a few facts.

The Army Corps of Engineers is not fighting and dying in Afghanistan. It builds things like dams here at home, including for example the $181 million Yazoo Backwater Pump in Mr. Lott's state that would be the world's largest hydraulic pump. In his budget, Mr. Bush is proposing to fund fewer of these projects precisely so the U.S. can afford to spend more to fight the war on terror. Republicans in particular are supposed to appreciate this trade-off, since they keep beating up Democrats for refusing to make it.

Mr. Bush's Corps budget isn't even all that onerous. It actually proposes more money to complete projects already under way, such as the Olmsted Lock and Dam on the Ohio River, which was supposed to be completed in 2006. But because Congress keeps larding up the budget, at the current pace Olmsted won't be done until 2011. Mr. Bush wants to clean up the Corps backlog, which is already $21 billion and 12 years long.

The Members know this, but they love issuing press releases taking credit for this or that study for some new project, even if it won't be completed for decades. In 2001, Members earmarked 405 Army Corps projects, or 8% of the total budget. In 2002, their earmarking grew to 604 projects, or 10% of the total. As the President's budget notes, more than three-fourths of these 2002 earmarked projects were "inconsistent with long-established policies for the Corps." This is bureaucracy-speak for saying they have little economic or environmental justification; they are pure pork.