Sen. Barack Obama this weekend decided to go after Gov. Sarah Palin. Set aside for a moment the stupidity of spending time as the No. 1 guy on the Democratic ticket attacking the No. 2 on the GOP ticket and just focus on the subject.

Barack Obama took his first direct swipe at Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on Saturday, criticizing her for supporting congressional earmarks before opposing them.

“I know the governor of Alaska has been, you know, saying she is change,” Obama said at a town hall meeting here. “And that is great. She is a skillful politician. But when you [have] been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person.

“That is not change, come on,” Obama continued. “I mean, words mean something. You can’t just make stuff up. You can’t just make stuff up. We have a choice to make and the choice is clear.”

Earmarks? Obama's seriously going to raise the earmarks issue?

Based on the release by his campaign, Mr. Obama was able to obtain only about $3 out of every $10 he requested.

The winning requests included more than $10 million for a military arsenal in Rock Island, Ill., to several million dollars for research on soybean disease and livestock genes at the University of Illinois and $100,000 for after-school clubs and sports programs at the Chicago Jesuit Academy.

The request for $1 million for the University of Chicago Medical Center was to help pay for construction of a pavilion that could increase its capacity for treating patients by one-third.

Kelly M. Sullivan, the medical center’s vice president for communications and marketing, noted that Mr. Obama had also requested money for a number of other hospitals in Illinois, and she said any lobbying for the money had been handled by the hospital’s government-affairs officials.

“I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Michelle Obama was not part of our lobbying over the request, not in any way,” Ms. Sullivan said. She said the hospital’s lobbyists often seek help on their own from both of the state’s senators.

Do you seriously want to go down the earmark road when you requested $1 million for your wife's employer? Do you really want it widely known that your wife got her salary more than doubled just after you were elected to the Senate?

You're supposed to be the "change" guy, and all this seems like more of the same.