Three-Ring Circus Photo-Op.

Send in the Clowns

Serious observers will agree: the mise en scène in Washington, ostensibly arranged to "fix" the economy, is a charade through and through; a shallow gimmick put on by world leaders to demonstrate to the masses that they care about the economic plight afflicting us, which, lest we forget has come to us singularly via their own screwy Keynesian at best, socialist at worst policies. If we're lucky, our leaders may cut taxes (good) yet they invariably ratchet up spending a hundred-fold (very bad). Our currency is devalued per diem by a Treasury run by unelected, shadowy potentates whose bills print out with the fluidity of water gushing from a mighty river, and we're supposed to believe that these folks in Washington will rise to the occasion and set everything right?

I can no longer take these people seriously. What substantive results, beyond the obligatory photo-ops. intended to convince us that they care (they don't), are we supposed to anticipate from a group as ideologically heterogeneous as this: Our George Bush to Spain's useless Zapatero, Italy's cheeky Burlusconi to leftist celeb. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Who? That is, Argentina's gaudyily vested president). As ideologically opposed as this bunch may be, one one thing do their minds converge: all share a belief that the government should "do something." Well, if they had done nothing at the very beginning, we wouldn't be at the present juncture of financial confusion. It's precisely because the doyens constantly feel the urge to "do something" that things have gotten so wonky. Try doing NOTHING, just once, please!

While somewhat ironic, it is also deeply vexing that this group of ne'er-do-wells view themselves as uniquely qualified to clean up the huge mess they themselves left in the middle of the floor. It pains me to include a good man like President Bush in this group but I must. He too shares a healthy portion of blame. Just the other day and with a straight face, he warned against excessive government intervention in the economy. This, only a month or so after he signed into law the scandalous eight-hundred billion dollar "rescue package," which amounts to the most far-reaching display of government meddling in the economy since the days of the Great Depression. And this, from a Republican president who campaigned as a conservative and enjoyed six years of a Republican congressional majority, whose spending bills, mind you, he vetoed not once. Well, I remind myself, Bush ran as a "compassionate" conservative, and it is in this seemingly benign adjective, that we uncover the root source of his fatal deviation which has brought our Party to the bitter nadir of political exile. As for Obama, the closet socialist-with-a-smile, he will only further sink the economy (not to mention the entire nation) into the smothering abyss of the big government nanny state. Our hope is that real conservatives will rise from the smoldering heap of ashes of the now-defunct and discredited crop of current Republican leaders.

Bush and co., exit stage right.