Spleen—Political

I confess to not listening to the president's speech Monday night, nor to the replies from the Republican leadership. The summaries on the web were depressing enough. The two parties deserve each other, and, sadly, I'm not sure our perishing republic deserves any better.

It embarrasses me to admit I'm a Republican; it has for the last twenty years, ever since the debacle of the Clinton impeachment (no love lost for him, by the way, though he does look better and better in the wake of his successors). As for the Democrats . . .

We have spawned a political class that has little in common with us. Our elected legislators and our often unelected government minders are distinguished, not by party or principle, but by which trough they and their clienteles like to feed at. Some prefer the mash that keeps an unlikely coalition of unions, academics, and investment bankers fed; others dine with factory farmers, defense contractors, smokers of Atlas Shrugged, and talk-radio nitwits. No matter—there's always been plenty to go around, and if there isn't much today, the blue pigs and the red pigs can fight over who gets to devour the scraps.