Everyone should be so lucky to have advice from the inimitable P. J. O'Rourke. A couple of years ago he offered some of the bad kind to new graduates, which appeared in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. The excerpt on politics is rich. Well, maybe greasy is a better description:
Politicians are chefs, some good, some bad. The problem isn’t the cook. The problem is the food. Or let me restate that: The problem isn’t the cook. The problem is the cookbook. The key ingredient of politics is the belief that all of society’s ills can be cured politically. This is like a cookbook where the recipe for everything is to fry it. The fruit cocktail is fried. The soup is fried. The salad is fried. So is the ice cream and cake. The pinot noir is rolled in bread crumbs and dunked in the deep-fat fryer. This is no way to cook up public policy.
Politics is greasy. Politics is slippery. Politics can’t tell the truth. But we can’t blame the politicians for that. Because just think what the truth would sound like on the campaign stump, even a little bitty bit of truth:
“No, I can’t fix public education. The problem isn’t funding or teachers’ unions or a lack of vouchers or an absence of computer equipment in the classrooms. The problem is your kids!”
Read the rest. You won't be disappointed.
