If the title didn?t give it away, you still should face little difficulty discerning P.J. O?Rourke?s assessment of politicians after reading his latest book, Don?t Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards.
I?ve spent some time with politicians. I like politicians. I?m friends with politicians from both sides of the aisle. Politicians are fine until they stick their noses into things they don?t understand, such as most things. Then politicians turn into ratchet-jawed purveyors pf monkey doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the doors of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy-coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people?s money. They are lapdogs of demagoguery returning to the vomit of collectivism. They are pig herders tending that sow who eats her young, the welfare state. They are muck-dwelling bottom feeders growing fat on the worries and disappointments of the electorate. They are the ditch carp in the great river of democracy. And that?s what one of their friends says.
Charlotte-area supporters of the John Locke Foundation might remember O?Rourke?s 2007 Headliner presentation, which included another example of politicians? handiwork, the federal farm bill:
