Curiouser and Curiouser

The first words phrase Republican babies are taught to speak is “less government is better.” Let’s see what this means in everyday usage.

History will show George W. Bush’s lasting legacy to the federal government to be the addition of a huge, inefficient, cabinet-level department that adds nothing to the agencies brought under its umbrella except an extra layer of bureaucracy, aka the Department of Homeland Security. It appears the only aspect of government diminished under Shrub’s expert guidance is the Constitution.

Social entitlement programs? Read what conservative icon George F. Will wrote in December 7^th’s Washington Post: the leaked Donald Rumsfeld memo… echoed the 1960s Great Society confidence in government-engineered behavior modification: jobs programs for unemployed young Iraqis, reallocation of reconstruction funds to "stop rewarding bad behavior" and "start rewarding good behavior," and bribery ("provide money to key political and religious leaders").

Increase efficiency by running government like a business? Over half of those hired to work on the Coalition Provisional Authority, ostensibly to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq, obtained their first passport to make the trip to Baghdad. Two CPA staffers said they were asked their position on Roe v. Wade before they were hired. The traffic code the CPA wrote for Iraq had the following libertarian passages: “the driver shall hold the steering wheel with both hands;” and “rest should be taken for five minutes for every one hour of driving.” Try to pass a law requiring an American from driving an eighteen-wheeler less than fourteen hours a day and you’d think the only thing standing between our economy and Haiti’s was No-Doz.

I don’t have much to say about this. As Will himself says, “[it] would be hilarious were it not horrifying that so much valor and suffering have been expended in this context.” It’s just that every so often I can’t resist pointing out what hypocritical sons of bitches these guys are, have been, and will continue to be. Let’s hope the Democrats are better. Let’s face it, the bar’s been set low enough for even their flea-like efforts to be enough.