Wed, Jan 14, 2009 (2:08 a.m.)

The mob museum that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman wants funded with $55 million from a national stimulus bill has become a nonstop publicity machine.

Unfortunately, the publicity is making Las Vegas look silly and selfish.

The stimulus bill is being prepared by Congress as part of President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to pull the nation out of the recession.

Obama, whose promise of change was his central campaign message, has said his stimulus package will not be about local pork-barrel projects, but about funding national priorities that will recharge the nation’s economy.

Does anyone really want another Bush administration-type stimulus? The promised focus of the $700 billion bill that became law Oct. 3 — giving Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson total control over an initial $350 billion — literally changed overnight. And we are all witnesses to the result — a recession that got worse as the money was being doled out to banks that used it not for lending, but to buy other banks.

If Obama’s stimulus bill falls prey to the pet projects of mayors and members of Congress, it could jeopardize his other objectives.

And the critics would be relentless and merciless. A prime example is Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader. On national TV last week, he singled out the mob museum as an example of the bill’s potential for reckless, politics-as-usual spending.

Obama then had to confront the mob museum question during an appearance Sunday on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” Even though he answered that it would not be funded with stimulus money, the die had been cast. The New York Times, Esquire magazine and bloggers galore have picked up the story.

The Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, as the mob museum is formally known, has received some federal grants. That’s as far as it should go. It is a local amenity, not a national priority.