Keller @ Large: You Get The Government You Deserve
DES MOINES, IOWA (CBS) - It was the great French historian Alexis de Toqueville, as best I can tell, who originally said "we get the government we deserve," and I am reminded of the wisdom of that comment as I slog through the endgame of the Iowa caucuses out here in Des Moines.
It's not hard to see in what's going on here a reflection of what's good and bad about our political culture.
Let's start with the bad news.
Much of the political discourse is little more than baby talk, no offense intended to babies.
I happened to grab a brief one-on-one interview yesterday with the hottest ticket in the caucuses, former Senator Rick Santorum, a seemingly fine fellow and good family man who was cordial and articulate, but had nothing of substance to say.
For instance, after months of railing against runaway federal spending, as have all of the Republican candidates, Santorum is now being criticized by others for having grabbed plenty of earmarks for his home state when he was in the Senate.
"That to me is an appropriate thing, that's why people send you," he told me with a straight face, apparently oblivious to the conflict between attacking excessive spending while also defending it.
Then again, the same could be said in spades for the voters who sent a fiscal conservative to Washington and then expected him to bring home the pork.
You get the government you deserve.
Yesterday, I heard Mitt Romney tell a group of appreciative Iowans that if elected, he will turn away from the notion of a "entitlement society" and instead "restore the principles of freedom and opportunity."
Which entitlements will be scrapped by a President Romney?
Medicare?
No, he promises.
Social security?
Heavens no.
Military jobs and spending?
Never!
Will he restore the principle of freedom that allows people to go without health insurance of they choose?
Don't hold your breath.
As I said, you get the government you deserve.
Again this week I'm seeing the unnerving sight of people pestering candidates for autographs and pictures, as if they were baseball players or supermodels.
But it's nothing compared with four years ago, when huge crowds swarmed around Barack Obama as if his breath was the fountain of youth.
And yet so many people of both parties say they're disappointed with the president, disillusioned, their absurd expectations exploded like soap bubbles in a hailstorm.
Gosh, what happened?
Maybe people just got the government they deserved.
And while I would never trade our messy, flawed system for the bureaucratic sclerosis of Europe or the totalitarianism of Venezuela, maybe the Republicans here in Iowa are bent on seeing that it happens again.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
