"Two years later, the right-wing CATO Institute published a report noting that total government spending had grown by 33 percent in President Bush's first term, lamenting that "President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson."

And is the lesson there to pay attention to what Republicans actually do rather than what they say? Would a reasonable and prudent person believe Republicans dislike larger government, and don't want more federal power over the individual? Or that they just hate social programs, the government providing essential services to those who are shut out of the American Dream but really, really like running the average citizen's life?

Next we should discuss Republican myth of their superior "family values", what they say v. their reality. We could start by comparing McCain and Obama, Palin and Biden. That might be fun.

Arf