Great party in Atlanta. Highlights:
—Best two panel comments:
(1) Kate O’Beirne’s remark that GWB missed a valuable opportunity right
after 9/11 to point out how utterly useless all those big, tax-eating
federal government agencies were at locating easy-to-locate enemies of our
country and defending the citizenry against their nefarious deeds. I have
similar thoughts when I see TV clips of illegal immigrants streaming across
the southern border: For all the stupendous sums of our money the feddle
gummint consumes, for all the Washington DC real estate they occupy, for all
the numberless legions of well-salaried college graduates they employ, they
can’t do anything about **this**? No, they can’t. Why not? Because
they’re totally bloody useless, that’s why not.
(2) Ramesh pointing out that the last time a conservative was put on the US
Supreme Court without an assist from identity politics was 1972. (Scalia,
remember, was picked partly to be the first Italian-American justice.)
—Most Derb-simpatico floor question:
The gentleman who asked us whether, given the vast increases in feddle
gummint staffing and expenditures under GWB’s presidency, and the relentless
expansion of the welfare state in the name of “compassionate conservatism,”
there is any hope for small-govt conservatism in this country. No, Sir,
there is no hope. We are doomed, doomed.
—Best of the post-event gathering at Mahogany Ridge:
Jonah expounding lustily on the theme of his book. My lips are sealed; but
one of the villains is a 20th-century US president who I never thought
particularly badly of before.