The Citadel of Scoundrels
6 February 2008
Editor, The Boston Globe
Dear Editor:
Ed Lawrence asks about the current crop of president-wannabes if "any one of them ever really changed things in Washington? Has even one of them reorganized departments, shut down bureaucracies, resisted lobbyists, or improved the lives of anyone other than their rich and connected colleagues?" (Letters, February 6).
Mr. Lawrence is right to be disillusioned. In 1928 H.L. Mencken accurately described Washington, D.C., as "the citadel of scoundrels." Nothing that has happened in that town during the subsequent 80 years is cause for rejecting this description.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Editor, The Boston Globe
Dear Editor:
Ed Lawrence asks about the current crop of president-wannabes if "any one of them ever really changed things in Washington? Has even one of them reorganized departments, shut down bureaucracies, resisted lobbyists, or improved the lives of anyone other than their rich and connected colleagues?" (Letters, February 6).
Mr. Lawrence is right to be disillusioned. In 1928 H.L. Mencken accurately described Washington, D.C., as "the citadel of scoundrels." Nothing that has happened in that town during the subsequent 80 years is cause for rejecting this description.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Sunday June 29, 2008 at 8:54am