Doctors Detect Neural Activity in George Will

Previously believed by many prominent medical authorities to be brain dead, George Will demonstrated a flickering of synaptic activity with today's column.

When conservatives break with their principles, they seem to become casual about breaking the law, too. Last year the then-General Accounting Office accused the Department of Health and Human Services of illegal spending when it distributed fake "news" videos that were used by 40 local stations around the country. In them the many benefits of the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement were "reported" by a fake reporter whose actual status -- an employee of an HHS subcontractor -- was not revealed. The English version of these "video news releases" concluded, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

This scofflaw enterprise was an appropriate coda to the lawless making of this law. Republican leaders traduced House procedures by holding open the vote for three hours, giving them time to pressure sensibly reluctant legislators. And the Justice Department says the Bush administration broke no law when the Medicare program's chief actuary was told he would be fired if he gave Congress his estimate that the program's 10-year cost would be about a third more than the $400 billion the administration claimed.

He starts off talking about the Armstrong Williams fiasco, of course, but then goes on to list a litany of abuses which the Bush administration has perpetrated. Will's basic premise is to attempt to define the line between correct and necessary government public education efforts regarding its programs and propaganda - the former being part of their normal responsibility and the latter being strictly verboten.

Obviously government leaders must try to lead by persuading the public. But government by the consent of the governed should not mean government by consent produced by government propaganda. Unfortunately, as government's pretensions grow, so does its sense that its glorious ends justify even the tackiest means.

Eight decades ago, in a Washington not progressive enough to think that it could or should superintend primary and secondary education, the president set a tone that today's government -- a Leviathan with attention-deficit disorder -- could usefully emulate. "Mr. Coolidge's genius for inactivity," wrote columnist Walter Lippmann, "is developed to a very high point. It is far from being indolent inactivity. It is a grim, determined, alert inactivity." After the debacles of hired and faked journalists, we need a contagion of Coolidgeism, beginning in the Education Department, if it is educable.

This column is definitely worth a look and deserves some thought. A couple of other bloggers have weighed in on this already.

Betsy Newmark shows some sensible appreciation for the fact that both parties now appear willing to expand the behemoth of the federal bureaucracy to an unlimited degree.

For the life of me, I can't figure out whether Vodkapundit agrees with George Will or is deriding him.