Michael Barone Skewers Risen and the NYT for their ideas about how democratic societies should work (hint: think more oligarchy of the few):Risen makes it quite clear how he thinks the government should be run. Elected officials like the president and vice president and top presidential appointees should sit quietly in their chairs. They should not meet, at least not very often. They should wait for career government employees—"the experts who understand the region"—to "forge a consensus." Policy should always be kept "toward the center," regardless of what the American people or their elected president think.
So that is the New York Times's idea, or at least this New York Times reporter's idea, of how democratic representative government should work. Unelected bureaucrats should rule. If the policies produced by their understanding of the region should produce September 11, they should still rule. Elected officials' jobs are to sit in their chairs, to meet infrequently if at all, and to accept the decisions of the unelected and for the most part unremovable bureaucrats.
At least so long as those bureaucrats' policy ideas are considered suitable by James Risen or the New York Times. One suspects that Risen's theory of government would shift completely if the bureaucrats opposed the policies he liked and the elected officials and their top appointees favored them. Then Risen might favor democratic government. But not now, not while George W. Bush is in office. James Risen: for democracy, but only if elections come out his way.
Great work, Michael, you finally see the NYT and Risen for the modern day communists that they are. Yes, I said it. The Times and Risen seem to be advocating for a government of "experts" who decide everything, the bureaucrats. This governing by the experts is one form of radical communism. And we know how well that works, now, don't we?
