Eleven New York Democrats fumed in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. after learning that the Big Apple's men and women in blue received none of the $1 billion allocated for COPS program funding under the economic stimulus law.

"We are writing to express our dismay and disappointment," they told Holder in a letter spearheaded by Rep. Anthony D. Weiner. "[T]o stay ahead of those looking to do harm to our city, the NYPD must continue to invest in new officers on the beat."

Weiner pointed out in a brief hallway exchange that the posh ski resort towns of Steamboat Springs and Telluride in Colorado were funded through grants for the new COPS Hiring Recovery Program announced by Holder and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Tuesday.

But the lawmakers didn't ask the administration to revisit its decision, nor did they offer a compelling reason as to why a crime-crippled city such as Detroit should get less funding so that New York -- where the mayor's office recently has bragged about the safety of Central Park -- should get more. If nothing else, the letter provides cover from any charge that the lawmakers looked the other way while New York's finest got nothing from a Democratic administration.

As the president's poll numbers plummet in Ohio, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is heading to Cincinnati Thursday to showcase a once-abandoned factory that is being converted into "a multi-use economic development project."

In a bit of a double shot for the White House, which announced the trip Tuesday evening, the American Can Factory is in vulnerable freshman Democrat Steve Driehaus' 1st District and close enough to Minority Leader John A. Boehner's 8th District to make sure the media in southwest Ohio note how wrong he was when The Tanned One said this weekend that Ohio projects weren't seeing stimulus dollars yet.