Big Government Republicans

David Broder: So, Now Bigger Is Better? "Two years after taking office, Bush is presiding over the biggest, most expensive federal government in history. He has created a mammoth Cabinet department, increased federal spending, imposed new federal rules on local and state governments, and injected federal requirements into every public school in America."

How does Bush get away with this? Two proximate reasons:

1. The GOP doesn't have the rep of supporting "big government", so there appears to be no pattern to point to. The logic, then is, if there is an exeption, then it must be a "principled" one.
2. The GOP white-noise machine, which ratchets up each time the Democrats take some particular action, doesn't worry about the hypocrisy of staying silent when the Republicans do the same thing, since for some, hypocrisy in politics is no sin.

This strategy works because of a fundamental failure on the part of the mainstream media to understand that the second reason is why the first reason exists. In other words, the press rarely sees beyond the rep because it takes the conservative spin at face value.

But as usual, the reality in this case is somewhat different from the rhetoric. Like the GOP's oppositon to term limits, opposing "big government" makes political sense when you don't control the government; it becomes a symbolic issue that directs attention to the party that is in power. Far from being a position based on principle, it is a position based on political calculation. Why does the media gives this kind of posturing a pass? That is left as an exercise for the reader.