Office of the Independent Blogger

In Conservative circles, there’s a mantra that fifty cents of every dollar spent by the government is wasted. Clearly that’s an overstatement — although I’ll bet there’s no shortage of charts meant to prove that hyperbolic assertion — but there are, very often, ridiculous errors in government. The entire Bush Administration is one, but this is another. The current Governor of Indiana — who is, for background’s sake, the hack who used to head Bush’s Budget Department and was an important figure in drawing up deficits — writes about toll roads, and how, before, it cost twice as much to operate toll booths as what was charged, so that the government lost money in collecting it.

Daniels sought to correct that, and his program was an excellent example of good government. That is, however, about the only example of government done well that I’ve got today as my next story involves Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who threatened to quit as Attorney General if Bush ordered the FBI to give up the documents it found while searching a Congressman’s office for corruption. It’s a testament to Gonzales’ reign as AG that his threatened resignation would occur over something like this, when he should be threatening to resign because of the abuses of power by the Bush White House (NSA), or because he’s being given such shoddy assignments by the Bush White House.

What do I mean? Perhaps he doesn’t see them as shoddy. Bush has given Gonzales the instruction to go after pornographic search records on Google, amongst other X-Rated assignments. Now if I were the Attorney General, I’d be offended that an assignment such as this would be given me. But then again, I’m not the Attorney General, and Republicans have a history of nominating perverts. Perhaps a penchant for the obscene explains Gonzales refusal to threaten resignation up until now?

On this Memorial Day, let me take a brief break from satire to wish all servicemen, alive and dead, the best, and note that the men and women of our armed forces are in my thoughts. Now, with that said, I’d like to say that President Truman is in my thoughts, as he is in George W. Bush’s, who has compared himself to Truman in recent days. I’ve always been a staunch critic of Republicans who want to exploit Truman — he is not their long lost father — and today is no exception. If Republicans want to compare themselves to Truman, they’ve got to give us the complete package, and that means Universal Health Care.

Earlier, I mentioned Mitch’s tollways as an example of good government, and here’s bad government, courtesy of the Bush Administration. I’ll tell you, Republicans have a reputation for being greedy, but they sure do like giving us bad government by the truckful! Today’s stories? First, that they want to kill elks with sharpshooters to thin a Colorado elk herd. Brilliant.

The second? They continue refusing to talk to Iran, although they are debating amongst themselves over it. I won’t get my hopes up, simply because the Republicans don’t like high hopes.

To close, there’s this story, which is simply ugly government.

Doctors said sexually transmitted diseases among senior citizens are running rampant at a popular Central Florida retirement community, according to a Local 6 News report. A gynecologist at The Villages community near Orlando, Fla., said she treats more cases of herpes and the human papilloma virus in the retirement community than she did in the city of Miami. “Yeah, they are very shocked (to hear the diagnosis),” gynecologist Dr. Colleen McQuade said. “I had a patient in her 80s.”

There’s no other way to describe it.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 29th, 2006 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Outside Retort (Current Affairs).