By Mark Silva

They named a federal courthouse for Rush Limbaugh Sr., and they named a post office for the late President Gerald Ford. They named the education building for Lyndon Baines Johnson.

They named a post office for Buck Owens, the departed country crooner. And they named part of an interstate highway for Cal Ripken, the retired and hardest-working Oriole ever.

Indeed, by the GOP's count, nearly half the bills passed by Congress and signed into law this year have named post offices, buildings and roads. It's fall, the peak of Congress-bashing season at the White House, and Republicans are joining with the president's complaints of a do-nothing Congress by counting all the bills passed this year.

The Republicans point to only two, the supplemental war-spending bill enacted after the president vetoed the first one for its timelines for troop withdrawals, and the Protect America Act, with any sort of pride in a release from House Republican Leader John Boehner today.

The Democrats, of course, point with some pride to bills they have passed and the president has vetoed -- including that first war bill with timelines for troop withdrawals from Iraq, and the children's health insurance bill.

But the Republicans, playing chorus for the complaints which the president is making, maintained today that of the 106 bills signed into law this year, 46 named something.

By Boehner's count for the year:

46 BILLS NAMED POST OFFICES, OTHER FEDERAL PROPERTY, OR BUILD A ROAD

H.R. 49 – To name the “Gerald R. Ford, Jr. Post Office Building”
H.R. 335 – To name the “Gale W. McGee Post Office Building”
H.R. 342 – To name the “Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Sr. United States Courthouse”
H.R. 414 – To name the “Miguel Angel Garcia Mendez Post Office Building”
H.R. 433 – To name the “Scipio A. Jones Post Office Building”
H.R. 437 – To name the “Lino Perez, Jr. Post Office Building”
H.R. 514 – To name the “Sergeant Lea Robert Mills Brooksville Aviation Branch Post Office”
H.R. 521 – To name the “Lane Evans Post Office Building”
H.R. 544 – To name the “Santiago E. Campos United States Courthouse”
H.R. 577 – To name the “Sergeant Henry Ybarra III Post Office Building”
H.R. 584 – To name the “Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building”
H.R. 625 – To name the “Atanacio Haro-Marin Post Office Building”
H.R. 753 – To name the “Clifford Davis & Odell Horton Federal Building”
H.R. 954 – To name the “Percy Sutton Post Office Building”
H.R. 988 – To name the “Lieutenant Todd Jason Bryant Post Office”
H.R. 1129 – To build and maintain a road in St. Louis County, Missouri
H.R. 1260 – To name the “Claude Ramsey Post Office”
H.R. 1335 – To name the “S/Sgt Lewis G. Watkins Post Office Building”
H.R. 1352 – To name the “Dr. Francis Townsend Post Office Building”
H.R. 1384 – To name the “Buck Owens Post Office”
H.R. 1402 – To name the “Sergeant Dennis J. Flanagan Lecanto Post Office Building”
H.R. 1425 – To name the “Staff Sergeant Marvin ‘Rex’ Young Post Office Building”
H.R. 1434 – To name the “Rachel Carson Post Office Building”
H.R. 1617 – To name the “Harriet F. Woods Post Office Building”
H.R. 1722 – To name the “Leonard W. Herman Post Office”
H.R. 2025 – To name the “Willye B. White Post Office Building”
H.R. 2077 – To name the “George B. Lewis Post Office Building”
H.R. 2078 – To name the “Staff Sergeant Omer T. ‘O.T.’ Hawkins Post Office”
H.R. 2127 – To name the “Clem Rogers McSpadden Post Office Building”
H.R. 2309 – To name the “Frank G. Lumpkin, Jr. Post Office Building”
H.R. 2467 – To name the “Frank J. Guarini Post Office Building”
H.R. 2563 – To name the “Major Scott Nisely Post Office Building”
H.R. 2570 – To name the “Dr. Karl E. Carson Post Office Building”
H.R. 2587 – To name the “Kenneth T. Whalum, Sr. Post Office Building”
H.R. 2654 – To name the “Eleanor McGovern Post Office Building”
H.R. 2688 – To name the “Dolph S. Briscoe, Jr. Post Office Building”
H.R. 2765 – To name the “Master Sergeant Sean Michael Thomas Post Office”
H.R. 2778 – To name the “Robert Merrill Postal Station”
H.R. 2825 – To name the “Owen Lovejoy Princeton Post Office Building”
H.R. 3052 – To name the “John Herschel Glenn, Jr. Post Office Building”
H.R. 3106 – To name the “Staff Sergeant David L. Nord Post Office”
H.R. 3218 – To name part of Interstate 395 “Cal Ripken Way”
S.159 – To name the “Robert T. Stafford White Rocks National Recreation Area”
S. 229 – To name the “Raymond G. Murphy Dept. of Veterans Affairs Medical Center”
S. 521 – To name the “Gerald W. Heaney Federal Building & United States Courthouse & Customhouse”
S. 801 – To name the “Robert E. Coyle United States Courthouse”