{"id":562,"date":"2005-06-30T17:11:51","date_gmt":"2005-06-30T21:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=562"},"modified":"2009-04-12T20:38:59","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T00:38:59","slug":"conceit-of-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/06\/30\/conceit-of-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Conceit of Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peggy Noonan writes this<\/a> lovely little rant on politicians, and I find myself in total agreement with her. What is<\/em> wrong with these people?<\/p>\n

\nWhat’s wrong with them? That’s what I’m thinking more and more as I watch the news from Washington.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago it was the senators who announced the judicial compromise. There is nothing wrong with compromise and nothing wrong with announcements, but the senators who spoke referred to themselves with such flights of vanity and conceit–we’re so brave, so farsighted, so high-minded–that it was embarrassing. They patted themselves on the back so hard they looked like a bevy of big breasted pigeons in a mass wing-flap. Little grey feathers and bits of corn came through my TV screen, and I had to sweep up when they were done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Be sure to read the whole article; it’s well worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s wrong with them? That’s what I’m thinking more and more as I watch the news from Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-94","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":862,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/04\/15\/snow-in-april\/","url_meta":{"origin":562,"position":0},"title":"Snow in April","author":"Keith Survell","date":"April 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Why, yes, that is snow. Why, yes, it is April 15th. No, I don't know what's wrong with the world.","rel":"","context":"In "Pictures"","block_context":{"text":"Pictures","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/pictures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":410,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/02\/17\/grand-theft-auto-led-teen-to-kill\/","url_meta":{"origin":562,"position":1},"title":"Grand Theft Auto Led Teen to Kill","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"As someone said in the comments for this article: \"When will it be 'Parents irresponsible with how they raised their child leads to deaths'?\"","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3473,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2011\/09\/02\/protecting-them-not-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":562,"position":2},"title":"Protecting Them, Not You","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The last 10 years have seen many laws enacted in the name of security, but they are meant to protect the lawmakers, not you.","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6258,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/04\/so-much-is-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":562,"position":3},"title":"So Much is Wrong","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"No matter how terrible things get, remember that wrong is wrong.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":499,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/05\/09\/unrealidcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":562,"position":4},"title":"UnRealID.com","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 9, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"More protest against this \"REAL ID\" thing. Don't use their form to contact your senators, though - fax or email them yourself; it has more of an impact that way. Apparently, this will be voted upon tomorrow, so act fast!","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4360,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2013\/06\/06\/why-corporate-participation-in-politics-is-bad-bad-bad\/","url_meta":{"origin":562,"position":5},"title":"Why Corporate Participation in Politics is Bad, Bad, Bad","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've talked before about why corporations are evil (or rather, why they tend to behave that way). But there's something else I want to talk about which is related to that - and that's corporate participation in politics. Let's back up a bit first though and go over what exactly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}