In Charge, Except They’re Not By E. J. Dionne Jr.

This episode is important because it is representative of a corrosive style of politics. Bush and many of his fellow Republicans have done a good business over the years running against the ills of Big Government. They are so much in the habit of trashing government that even when they are in charge of things — remember, Republicans have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for all but 18 months since 2001 — they pretend they are not.

And when their own government fails, they turn around and use their incompetence to argue that government can never work anyway, so you might as well keep electing conservatives to have less government. It’s an ideological Catch-22. Even their failures prove they are right.