On the morning after a long weekend (though not long enough), we've already been treated to Matt Welch's penis-waving Uncle Todd. Here, courtesy of columnist Ron Hart, is a different uncle allusion, one decidedly less exhibitionistic yet no less worrisome:
My personal uncle smells like cheap gin that comes in plastic bottles, and he has the demeanor of a lookout for a cock fight. Yet, he does, on occasion, impart wisdom to the under-aged kids there. One year he told them "In Budweiser there is wisdom, in bourbon there is freedom, and in water, there are bacteria." It cost all the parents money the next year as all the children demanded only bottled water thereafter....
We all have this sad uncle metaphor for our Congress: well past his usefulness, spending money that he does not have and clearly on the downward half of a very mediocre life. His sex life limited by age and the advent of commercially viable pepper spray, there is nothing but delusional nostalgia that keeps him going, and the thought that someone might believe his good intentions.
Like my uncle the lush, the U.S. government also made dramatic pronouncements of its pandering intentions in the form of an IRS letter sent to all of us telling of the impending rebate check. Our government spent $42 million of our money (well, not technically our money, it just borrowed more in our name) to send out a self-congratulatory mailer that tells us of its impending "largesse."