Tom Watson

The Columbian Legacy

What better day to launch a new blog on public policy than Columbus Day - which, in some small way, celebrates the coming of policy to the New World (along with Europeans, slavery, and disease....but that's another story). Policy, you say, que boring, eh? Except that policy is at the root of everything in public life - all of politics, all of governance. Sure, the Rove CIA scandal is fascinating and a blogger's delight; but its roots are firm in the sandy, shifting soil of policy. The Bush Administration felt the need to discredit its emissary Joe Wilson by outing his operative wife because it wanted to support its policy of intervention in Iraq, details be damned. Yes, "intelligent design" is a fascinating study of a religious body politic gone mad; but its effect on policy - national education policy -- is what really counts; do went spend our tax money to teach this tripe? Again, the conservative backlash over the appointment of Bush family lawyer Harriet Miers - as Wolcott says, the Miss Jane Hathaway of the Bushies - to the United States Supreme Court makes for some wonderful liberal spectator sporting opportunties. But it's her effect on the Court and on the policies it rules constitutional or not - or that her successor nominee may - that really matters. Yea, verily you must admit: we are living the legacy of Columbus today in the unveiling of this blog: the voyage is cool, but the governance mattered more in history. Viva Columbius. Viva DMIBlog.

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Posted at 11:58 AM, Oct 10, 2005 in Media
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