James Lileks’ latest “Athwart” column for National Review targets Anthony Weiner.
Actually, Lileks avoids skewering Weiner and instead uses this latest congressional scandal as a starting point for a discussion about embattled politicians who yearn to “get back to the work of the people.”
No! Please don’t. It’s your work that got us in this mess in the first place. It’s your inability to clean your teeth without wondering if there’s a national standard for dental-floss diameter, and if not, why not. It could be your name on that bill, you know. You could go down as the fellow who brought order out of the chaos, established uniform codes for mintyness. Never mind that the bill ends up so vague it exerts total federal control over anything string-related, and leads to the demise of the tight-rope-walking industry because OSHA gets jurisdiction and bans acts more than two feet off the ground. You did your part for dental health, and no one’s going to suffer from floss that breaks halfway through while teasing last night’s ribs from between two molars. You did that. You, you wonderful, selfless servant of the people. And hey, after Congress? Maybe a job with the Twine Council. Suddenly they need lobbyists.
