As If We Live On Mars

How do you write a column about the stimulus package while barely mentioning the only reason it existed at all: the sharpest depression since the 1930s? Yuval Levin managed it. How do you write it without mentioning well over $300 billion in tax cuts from a Democratic president (far more than anything the Republican actually proposed last fall)? Levin managed that too. He also managed to argue that the two parties represent deep, stable and coherent views about human nature, and the relationship of the citizen to the state. The Republicans, one infers, represent fiscal responsibility, the freedom of the individual vis-a-vis the government, the resilience of human nature, and prudent strength in foreign policy.

Hmmm. Which party added over $32 trillion to future unfunded liabilities, turned a surplus into a trillion dollar deficit, and endorsed indefinite nation-building at a simply staggering cost in two of the most intractably divided non-countries in the world? Which party asserted "near-dictatorial" powers for the executive, the priority of the will of the leader over the rule of law, and a mantra, in the words of the most "conservative" vice-president in memory, that "deficits don't matter." Which party described prohibitions against torture "quaint" and presided over the most reckless, and irresponsible period in American finance since the 1920s? Ah, yes, I remember ... Levin's party. And Levin's president. And Levin's vice-president.

Quite a racket, that partisanship, don't you think?