Cause, lord knows, were we to call a spade, you know, a SPADE, we would no doubt be fending off charges of racism in no time.

Was disappointed to see only 2 views on the This is Why I Boycott Citgo essay regarding a fascist in Presidents clothing the other day.  I thought editing that Financial Times paragraph was some of my best work, and yet remain humbled by the deafening silence...

I suppose I can take some solace in the validation by The Wall Street Journal editorial when it said;

Fleecing lenders to pay off politically powerful interests, or governmental threats to reputation and business from a failure to toe a political line? We might expect this behavior from a Hugo Chávez. But it would never happen here, right?    Until Chrysler.

the day after my screed btw...

Anyway, onward and upward.  This headline caught my eye the other day:  Tincture of Lawlessness
by George Will.  I have to admit, even though I am a big fan of Will I was more interested in finding out what the hell a "tincture" was than whatever the column might be about.

As it turns out, not surprisingly, I was less impressed by the use of the term than the content of his thesis, dealing with one of the ongoing themes here, Obamas constitutionally questionable handling of Chrysler and GM. 

tidbits:  
The Obama administration is bold. It also is careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness.

That word: Oxford: 1 a medicine made by dissolving a drug in alcohol. nah that couldn't be it.
2 a slight trace.  There ya go
3 Heraldry any of the conventional colours used in coats of arms.
 origin from the Latin tinctura, meaning to tint or color.

The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail.

Well put and spot on, as I've been saying all along.

And the big finish...

The administration's central activity -- the political allocation of wealth and opportunity -- is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.

This, I have noticed, has been picked up and linked a lot, particularly by Hot Air and Instapundit.  It is a precise and succinct desription of the sum and substance of Chicago style liberal governence in action.

Put another way, corruption is not a bug, or even a feature, in their operating system - - it is their operating system.
 
And Mr Will, I am afraid, is way too generous in using "tincture" as a descriptive of this assault on free enterprise.  This is no hint, tint, or trace, bub.  It's a full out dye job - - in bright red.

I am hoping Mr. Will will be more punctilious in his word choice henceforth.