The Six Scariest Words in the English Language

President Reagan famously liked to say that the nine terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”  The six scariest words in the English language were written today by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times: “I Want to Be a Mayor.”

Just please, please Tom, promise you won’t start tweeting “selfies” of your block and tackle to the world before launching your campaign.

But given that in Tom’s ideal political universe, there’s one party top-down total control and the government can ban everything that works and subsidize everything that doesn’t, and fun, other than running over pedestrians on ten-speed bikes would be outlawed, how would that make him any different than New York’s current mayor?

Oh, and speaking of scary quotes from bloviating Timesmen, on Friday’s PBS NewsHour, David Brooks flashed back to the joys of the early “Progressive” era, which launched the mindset that is bankrupting the nation. (See also: Detroit, Sacramento, and DC.)

“If you go back to — there are moments of big economic transitions,” Brooks said. “So the progressive era in the 19th century, beginning in the 20th was a similar moment of transition. And you had this concentration of power in certain trusts and corporations. It took the progressive movement really to come up with an intellectual solution to that, which turned into progressivism, a whole chain of legislation. We’re at similar moment with these big shifts in technology and globalization. I wouldn’t say there’s been a movement like the progressive movement which even has a solution, which has an adequate description.”

Only the Gray Lady could hire someone as their token conservative and have him turn out to be an Obama-worshiping, “Progressive”-championing columnist.

Well, other than Newsweek and David Frum, of course. And maybe CNN and David Gergen. But then, when you’re in the Axis of Davids, you do what you gotta do to keep those Beltway cocktail party invitations coming.