Ehrlich or good (government) grief
I don't get some of this new-style republican stuff. The chaste and
pure, logical and responsible. Uncorruptable. 'Good Government' through
loathing government; though, still being in (and around) government
mind you. Its not just the righteous pose or the garlands laid at the
feet of efficiency and efficacy, the moral justification of the free
market (or are we beyond it needing justification). It's not that, or only that.
True I suspect that somewhere in our thrall to efficiency. growth, and
innovation that there is something that isn't what it seems to be.
Something either slightly more or slightly less than we take it
for. The answer there, is hidden somewhere in the words
themselves. It's that I'm not seeing it - the purity I mean.
All last week the Governnor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich held
the state legislature in session because he insisted on an emergency
recess session to deal with the Malpractice Crisis. Everything's a crisis these days and must be solved
quickly, before thinking sets in. At the end of the week there were at
least four versions of a plan to fund the malpractice insurance subsidy
and keep medical practitioners in Maryland: one from the Governor, Md
state house, Md state senate, and the compromise joint resolution bill
put together in an all night session. The Governor allowed that none
but but his were acceptable the others were miles off the mark and that
he would veto it all at his leisure. The next day He was quoted
admitting he might not be able to get a veto to stick Ehrlich Foresees Trouble With Veto Frankly he had
nothing, the other plans placed a tax on HMO's, his plan called for the
money to come out of the general fund on his call some time down the
line. An empty and self-serving gesture. Also he had provisions and
caps to largely end the ability of the
public to effectively sue a HMO, doctor or insurance company. And no
oversight regulation to bring any other sense of account to their
practices. In the background to all this is the Federal governments
intention to restucture medicaid, which could knock most state budgets
off their foundations.
Over the past month a little scheme came to light where the governor's
office arranged for park land the state had bought (at market price) to
keep it non-developed, to be placed back on the market (at set-aside
price) - to a particular customer a friend and campaign donor of the
governor's who was simultaneously arranging for it to be re-classed as
developable land: Sellout in Maryland, Protecting Maryland's land, and Top Aides To Ehrlich Knew of Land Deal (washingtonpost.com). All other things being equal I usually like to see
people go to jail for stunts like that. In this case reporters from the
Baltimore Sun Newspaper who cover the Governor have been barred from
his presence NPR : 'Baltimore Sun' Suing Maryland Governor.
These are your New Style Republicans. No sense of corrupt
- what is corruption, nothing to do with them. They do management.
Corruption is a thing belonging to Old Style Democrats, its owned by
them. My father never tires of bringing up Mayor Curley of
Boston; hobgoblin of his transplanted youth (from the midwest) in
the Hub. Curley was (in)famously elected Mayor from his jail cell. To
be sure there is more than a little truth
in these opinions my father holds, but they belong to previous times.
There is a set of shifting realities occurring now for which perception
is lagging. Arrogance is flowing across caucuses, like water over land.
Corruption is a function of power in the hands of the weak, the
ignorant, the un-reflective. It will come to all of those every time.
Addendum: There appeared to be a brief interruption to this
process last night when the Republican house voted to reinstate the
robust version of their ethics rules GOP Abandons Ethics Changes (washingtonpost.com).
Note though that this did not come from the leader ship but from
the republican rank and file. Even though mag. leader DeLay assures us
that he no longer believes he will be indited and be asked to
step down. Likely others have assured him he won't be. Perhaps
also coming into play here was that the democratics had been trying to
arrange that the vote to change the ethics rule be a formal vote on
public record and not a voice vote. Which may have left some feeling
the Ring of Gyges had been unfairly taken from them.
11:35:29 PM  ;;
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