Victor Davis Hanson offers National Review Online readers a new analysis of politicians who like to “resort to cosmic sermonizing” while failing to address the “mundane challenges” voters have elected them to address.
The most obvious case in point is the Arizona sheriff who looked everywhere except within his own department for villains to blame in connection with the recent shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
In [Sheriff Clarence] Dupnik?s case, it is hard to monitor all the nuts like Loughner in the sheriff?s department files to ensure they don?t get guns and bullets and pop up at political events, but apparently far easier to deflect subsequent responsibility by sounding off on political issues.
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was a past master of lecturing about the cosmic while at times ignoring the more concrete. Governing the boroughs of an often-chaotic New York City is nearly impossible. Pontificating on the evils of smoking, fatty foods, and supposed anti-Muslim bigotry was not only far easier but had established the mayor as a national figure of sensitivity and caring. He was praised for his progressive declarations by supporters of everything from global warming to abortion.
But Bloomberg?s carefully constructed philosopher?s image was finally shattered by the December 2010 blizzard and his own asleep-at-the-wheel reaction. An incompetent municipal response to record snowfalls barricaded millions in their borough houses and apartments, amid lurid rumors of deliberate union-sponsored slowdowns by Bloomberg?s city crews.
For the last three years, California has managed through poor governance to simultaneously achieve the highest deficits in the nation; the highest combination of income, sales, and gas taxes; the best-paid teachers; and among the lowest school test scores in the country. After failing along with the legislature to balance budgets, improve the schools, lower taxes, trim state expenditures, and deal with millions of resident Mexican nationals without diplomas, English-language skills, or legal status, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reinvented himself as a globally celebrated green-action hero of the solar, wind, and alternative-energy lobbies.
