Oh, Zing!

This latest Fareed Zakaria column on the Bush administration's refusal to take responsibility of the runaway budget is simply blistering:

Today's Republicans believe in pork, but they don't believe in government. So we have the largest government in history but one that is weak and dysfunctional.
Public spending is a cynical game of buying votes or campaign contributions, an
utterly corrupt process run by lobbyists and special interests with no concern
for the national interest. So we shovel out billions on "Homeland Security" to
stave off nonexistent threats to Wisconsin, Wyoming and Montana while New York
and Los Angeles remain unprotected. We mismanage crises with a crazy-quilt
patchwork of federal, local and state authorities—and sing paeans to federalism
to explain our incompetence. We denounce sensible leadership and pragmatism
because they mean compromise and loss of ideological purity. Better to be right
than to get Iraq right.

I despair. For how much longer will the public perception of Republicans as the small government party continue? On the social front, they're increasingly intruding into our lives in unwelcome ways. On the economic front, they are spending like the proverbial drunken sailors while refusing to recognize the tab.