The American Spectator

Catch that? Mr. Change is horrified at the notion of even a freeze on federal spending, and oh, by the way, he wants to raise your taxes so he can “increase early childhood education.” To return to Goldwater, the paradigm here is to ask why the federal government should be involved in early childhood education at all? This is precisely why this country is in financial trouble, whether it’s Dodd and Frank re-arranging credit to ensure, in the words of the now infamous Clintonite Fannie Mae chief Mr. Franklin Raines, “millions of families” receive mortgages they can’t afford, or raising taxes because Senator Obama has a thing for appeasing teachers unions by increasing spending for early childhood education. All the hue and cry over the role of lobbyists in Washington begs the question: they are only there because politicians have created these huge bureaucracies that attract lobbyists both to the bureaucrats and the Congressmen who have created them. It is the Washington equivalent of spreading chum in the water to attract sharks. Guess what? It works!

WHATEVER ELSE COMES OUT of the last few weeks, the paradigms of the last several decades have begun to shatter. Never again will the media be able to pronounce judgment on others while conveniently avoiding a similar self-examination. More and more angry Americans are understanding the importance of not letting incompetent or corrupt members of Congress go un-investigated after almost bankrupting the country. And the idea of simply assuming that a governmental paradigm installed in 1933 — 75 years ago! — is still valid is, thanks to the Fannie Mae debacle, being shredded in front of our eyes. The idea that the greed for power is just as important — if not more so — than the greed for money has taken root.

Perhaps we can borrow a phrase from the now-famous Obama pastor the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

After decades, finally, for the mainstream media, the corrupt members of Congress and the New Deal itself the pot has begun to boil.

The chickens have come home to roost.

Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania.