Thomas Frank: GOP Corruption? Bring in the Conservatives

22 AUGUST 2006

In the lexicon of American business, ‘’cynicism'’ means doubt about the benevolence of market forces, and it is a vice of special destructiveness. Those who live or work in Washington, however, know another variant of cynicism, a fruitful one, a munificent one, a cynicism that is, in fact, the health of the conservative state. The object of this form of cynicism is ‘’government,'’ whose helpful or liberating possibilities are to be derided whenever the opportunity presents.

Remember how President Reagan claimed to find terror in the phrase, ‘’I'm from the government and I’m here to help'’? Or how the humorist P. J. O’Rourke won fame by declaring that even the proceedings of a New England town meeting were a form of thievery?