Fund:

It is difficult for Americans to appreciate just how removed from the French people the nation's bureaucratic elite is. Its arrogance is mind-boggling.

I'm not sure John Fund appreciates just how removed from the American people this nations bureaucratic elite is. It scarcely recognises the existence of such an entity as "the American people".

Over 60% of the Democrat party wants the border secured. That number passes 90% in the GOP. And yet, and yet, ................ ??????? The border has yet to be secured. The American people have spoken REPEATEDLY on that subject, and yet their views have failed to find reflection in policy.

Look at that Dubai Ports deal that was arranged behind closed doors, and was slated to go down in the bureaucratic equivalent of the dead of the night. Increasingly we have a government and bureaucracy whose agenda is hostile to the best interests of the American people, inimical to American sovereignty and derisive of American exceptionalism. Our bureaucracy is controlled by the same people that have made such a mess of our educational establishment. And we had better do something about it, BEFORE it gets completely out of hand. And the conservatism offered by men of the Bush family, and men who share the attitudes of the Bush family isn't going to get it done. We need a REJEUVENATED Reaganism.

The dynamism of the American economy masks the sclerosis of American politics and public policy: our "demosclerosis," as someone put it. America is exceptional in some ways. But more fundamentally, we are not. Much of what we dislike in France is also here, and getting worse. In France, it may be getting better now. Not least because they were lucky enough to have, and smart enough to elect, a Sarkozy. Enough of the French intelligently distinguished between him and Chirac, who is nominally of the same "center-right" party. Will the allegedly superior American people acquit themselves equally well in 2008? Probably not. But here's hoping.