In a rumination on the incompetence of Alberto Gonzales, Mickey Kaus wonders if the incompetence wasn’t deliberate. Gonzales’ incompetence lets President Bush stumble-bum all over affirmative action, helping to end it without seeming to be responsible for the death. And he doesn’t need to do anything anyway.
[R]ace preferences... are being killed anyway, by the voters . That’s even better for Bush. His fingerprints aren’t on the corpse, and even Republican judges’ fingerprints aren’t on the corpse.
Kaus continues by noticing that Democrats aren’t that outraged about the setbacks to affirmative action.
Affirmative action may be joining gun control on the list of liberal issues Dem candidates don’t push very hard because they want to win.
That’s a good point. What other issues don’t Democrats talk about too much? Guns, as Mickey mentioned. Abortion, of course. Single-payer health insurance is quiet, although ready to burst out of the shadows if anyone offers encouragement. The war: Democrats need to placate their base but they know they have to be careful. Gay marriage: Democrats pretend to be all in favor of traditional marriage even as they encourage the gay marriage advocates.
The big problem for Democrats is not that Americans disagree with them on hot-button issues. It is that their Big Three programs: pensions, health care, and education, together amount for over half of all government spending. And you ain’t seen nothing yet as baby boomers start to retire.
The good thing is that about half of the spending is complete waste, so we don’t really need it. But who will have the courage to wield the ax and cut the bloat?
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