Via the WSJ, here’s José Manuel Barroso, former Maoist and the EU’s top bureaucrat, losing it in Los Cabos:

“Frankly, we have not come here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to run our economy,” Mr. Barroso said at the end of a pre-G-20 briefing. “The European Union has a model and we are very proud of it.…We are certainly not coming here to receive lessons from nobody….By the way, this crisis was not originated in Europe,” he told reporters. “Seeing as you mention North America, this crisis originated in North America and much of our financial sector was contaminated by, how can I put it, unorthodox practices, from some sectors of the financial market.”

Frankly, Mr. Barroso can take a hike. When it comes to judging which has been the most damaging of all the pieces of speculative paper that have been created over the last couple of decades, the brutally destructive euro, recklessly constructed, dishonestly sold and disastrously mismanaged, really does take some beating.

And then there’s this:

“We are open democracies — not all the members of the G-20 are democracies, but we are democracies and we take decisions accordingly,” the former Portuguese prime minister said. “Sometimes this means that we take time because we are democracies and we have to find consensus.”

Tell that to the German taxpayers, a large majority of whom are opposed to the bailouts — that roll on regardless.

Tell that to the Dutch and the French, who rejected the EU constitution in referendums only to have it (in effect) foisted upon them through a treaty (the Lisbon Treaty) specifically designed to circumvent the voters.

Tell that to the Irish, compelled to revote referendums (on the Lisbon and Nice Treaties) until they came up with the ‘right’ answer.

Tell that to the Danish, compelled to revote a referendum on the Maastricht treaty until they came up with the ‘right’ answer.

And that’s just the beginning of a very, very long list.