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    Good Boy, Government!

    Posted Friday, February 27, 2009 11:24 AM | By Hanna Rosin
    Abby, you suggested calling the new Obama puppy "Government." I'd say how about calling the dog "Northern Trust Corp." Noco for short. Or maybe "Wells Fargo." (Welly). That way we can employ that old-fashioned doggy command, not much in vogue anymore: "Beg," whenever Welly  comes to the president wanting treats, particularly after he just peed on our rug.

    I can see by your post, and Sen. Bobby Jindal's response to the president this week, that conservatives are holding fast to that old Reagan motto: "Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem." Holding fast, that is, despite all evidence. If there's any moment when that attitude is proving fantastically, stupendously wrong, it is this one. We can argue forever over whether a hands-off government got us to where we are today. But one thing is for sure: Only government—" a jewel of human association and an heirloom of human reason," in the words of Leon Wieseltier—can dig us out of this one.

    Obama is by temperament such a conciliator, so judicious, that he is failing to embrace this triumphal moment for liberalism and what should be the new motto: "Good boy, Government!"

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