Former Bush domestic policy advisor Claude Allen is alleged to have scammed DC-area stores out of thousands of dollars by way of an unimaginative scam that involved exchanging items that he never purchased for a refund. His boss, President Bush, has used other people's money to fund an imaginary mission to Mars, to pay off the Gulf Region in hopes they forget his post-Katrina aloofness, and to award prescription drugs for old people who vote. From whom did Claude Allen learn that taking goodies without paying for them is permissible? To quote the government, "From you, dad. I learned it from watching you." Okay, okay. So George W. Bush isn't Claude Allen's dad. But there are too many similarities between common, department-store scams and common, government scams whereby officials standing for election spend borrowed or taxed money on self-enriching items that they are proscribed by the Constitution from spending borrowed or taxed money upon.

Dan,

A little constructive criticism: I think you could make your point, and avoid alienating some of your readers, by writing about the lunacy around government spending without the needless and hyperbolic comparison of Bush to a common thief. I know, I know - he's an uncommon thief. Seriously though, such methods do little to advance your argument but instead serve to heighten rancor. Is that the result you're looking for?

I second that notion. Between Sopranos and pokes at Bush (not saying it's not deserved) there hasn't been much substance (for me).