What's really going on here? The senator -- who prefers to be called Dr. Coburn -- has been a thorn in the side of both big-spending Republicans and Democrats. He calls earmarks "the gateway drug" to Washington's spending addiction. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote back in 2006 when the GOP ran the Senate, "Tom Coburn is like an imam at a pig roast: He sees pork everywhere, and he doesn't like it."