McGurn: Sandy and the Failures of Blue-Statism

Wall Street Journal ^ | Updated November 5, 2012, 7:31 p.m. ET | WILLIAM MCGURN

[jmcenanly]

Judging from their numerous appearances on our TV screens, Michael Bloomberg and Barack Obama have come through Hurricane Sandy just fine. The same cannot be said for their brand of governing. Of all the vulnerabilities exposed by this storm, the biggest hit may have been to Blue State Liberalism.

The damage goes well past the obvious embarrassments. Those include Mayor Bloomberg's initial insistence that a yuppie marathon in Manhattan proceed—requiring a massive police and sanitation presence, as well as power sources—even as citizens on Staten Island were pleading for disaster relief. The embarrassments surely ought also to include Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign vow that his election would slow the rise of the oceans.

The silliness of those episodes speaks to a serious point about the great vulnerability of 21st-century American liberalism: an inability to set the priorities necessary for good government. As a result, government grows both bigger and less capable, especially for people who do not have the resources to fund other options. As Walter Russell Mead argued recently on his blog at The American Interest, our biggest cities represent a "colossal failure of blue social policy to create sustainable lower middle class prosperity."

[G Larry]

Socialism is designed for “control”, NOT productivity!

[DownInFlames]

Socialism is for the people, not the socialist.

[Verginius Rufus]

Giuliani was on Fox & Friends this morning lambasting FEMA for their incompetence (not bringing water in by plane when JFK airport is open), and the media for the way they have been protecting Obama—imagine the headlines if the incumbent President had been a Republican.