Do politicians ever listen to themselves talk?

This is one of those things that has really started to annoy me. After all, can't we just pass legislation rather than loading every bill up with various other things just to make something horribly unpalatable seem less awful? Now, this article states that our congressmen (should I call them persons now) have attached a pay raise for judges to the auto bailout bill. This happened only in the House of Representatives (the people's house), not the Senate, because the Senate had passed the bill in November. I am not against our federal judges getting a pay raise. In fact, everyone needs a pay raise, although most people won't get one this year because of the economy. The judges have had to go 6 of the past 13 years without pay raises because Congress said they had to. So, do they deserve a pay raise? Probably so, just like everybody else. However, the Democrats (Nancy Pelosi) actually stated that it is hard to justify voting to raise the pay of the federal judges because they make more money than most Americans. Yes, around 169,000 dollars if you're wondering. So, in order to not look bad, the House is attaching the pay raise to the auto bailout bill. Hmm... this is just great. They should simply vote on the pay raises separately. They won't because they know people wouldn't like it. However, that begs the question. The bailout is supposed to be the unpalatable part of this legislation, so why are the pay raises what we seem to want to hide? I think the judges can go another year, like the rest of us, without a pay raise and I KNOW we should not be giving government money to the auto industry. So, pretty much the entire lame duck session of Congress is dedicated to stupidity. My title above comes from the fact that the lawmakers say they can't justify voting separately on a pay raise so they'll attach it to something else. Obviously they don't listen to themselves talk because that premise is crazy. If you can't justify voting on it separately, you shouldn't be voting on it at all.