disconnect

Tommy Thompson, today's resignation press conference:

For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do.

Um... does this bother anyone else? That our outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services can't fathom why we're all not dead yet? Perhaps this is like Bush's taunt to Iraqi insurgents to "bring it on," though that hasn't turned out too well... or maybe this is some sort of clever ruse - a trap set to lure terrorists into attacking our food supply at which point our agents snap into action and catch Osama with his hand in the cookie jar.

You think maybe someone would have fixed this if it was so easy to sabotage... maybe make it less easy. Just a suggestion. And doesn't this conflict with John Ashcroft's "the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved"? Someone's not on message here.

To his credit, it sounds like Tommy Thompson wanted out a year ago but stayed at the President's request, and typically the most competant members of this administration have been the ones to leave most quickly. But lest you worry about terrorists attacking our food supply, rest easy knowing that he'll be replaced by someone much less competent. Who's the leading candidate? The New York Times reports that it's Dr. Mark B. McClellan, whose primary accomplishment is being the brother of the White House press secretary. He's also in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, which is doing a really good job of being as confusing and inefficient as possible while still being very expensive. I think I'll be staying indoors for the next four years.

Other cheerful news comes from this NY Times article about the falling dollar, describing the central bankers of China:

In Beijing these days, one of the fastest-growing fortunes the world has ever seen is managed by fewer than two dozen traders, chosen for showing mathematical brilliance at China's top universities.

Generally lacking any financial experience outside China, they sit at trading stations around a gold stand bearing a jeweled globe, two feet in diameter and with seas of lapis lazuli, in a rented room on the fourth floor of an insurance building.

So even though your food is probably about to kill you, you can at least rest easy knowing that the world's economy rests at least in part in the hands of guys selected because they got good grades in calculus. Look, I knew guys in high school and college who were really good in math and some of them were lucky if they remembered to pay the electric bill every month. Heck, I was good at math and it doesn't mean I should be controlling China's Treasury purchases. I know, I know, I'm sure they're qualified, I just didn't like the sound of that quote. Plus, from that article it sounds like they're responsible for the nice mortgage rate I got two months ago, so thanks for that, China. But do you think they could maybe get a permanent office? $111.3 billion in new foreign currency reserves in the first three quarters of the year and these guys are renting? Do they own their suits yet or are those still on layaway?

Anyway, the article goes on to describe how Asian countries would like to sell their dollar-denominated assets, but they can't, as that would undermine the value of the rest of their dollar holdings. So they're stuck with what they've got and reduced to pressing the Bush administration to act rationally for a change. Good luck with that. Now they know how Democrats feel.

From the Washington Post:

With the three Cabinet replacements Bush has announced so far for his second term, he kept his circle tight by dispatching White House staff members to take over the State, Justice and Education departments. Aides said many other such moves will be announced, because Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove are determined to "implant their DNA throughout the government," as one official put it.

Someone may want to remind Bush that the last time the president engaged in "implanting of DNA" during his second term, you might say things got a little messy. Thank you, I'll be here all week. Really though, at the rate Bush is putting his inner circle into prominent positions of power, I'm surprised that either Jenna or Barbara Bush weren't given the commerce secretary job today.

As you can probably tell, I'm pretty much out of ideas for posts about politics now post-election. And that might be a good thing, as the impact that I might have goes from 0.0001 to 0.00000001 given the end of the election and the fairly complete victory of the Republicans. Still though, there's some use in making your voice heard even if you're not in the 51% "mandate" majority. If there are people out there deciding that "Saving Private Ryan" is too risqué for primetime TV, there ought to be people making some noise about how utterly ridiculous all this is. I mean, aren't you glad that all those boys died in World War II so that we could have the right to self-censor an accurate portrayal of their deaths? But I guess when the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved, we can focus on the little things that go ignored, like making sure no citizen of this fine nation ever has to look at Nicolette Sheridan's bare back again. I'm sure many a young puritan lad took a lashing after his eyes were made unclean one fortnight ago, but no one said it was easy being the most free land in the world.

In case you had any doubt of the hubris of this administration, I think Ashcroft's quote (the link in the previous paragraph) pretty much puts it to rest. Sometimes I think everything this Republican majority is doing is an insidious ploy to get Democrats to warm to the idea of limited government. I have to say it's working on me - they've even got me advocating a flat tax. Then again, check out the alternative:

[A]dministration officials have begun dialing back expectations that they will move to scrap the current graduated income tax for another system.

Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said.

Good idea - shift more of the tax burden off of those people scraping by on their dividends and onto those fatcats working for their income, while simultaneously making it harder for those freeloading employees to have health insurance. I'd like to say that this surprises me, but it doesn't. I guess the plus side of all this is that for people like me who thought that things were going to have to get worse before they got better, that first step of things getting worse will probably happen as soon as possible.