Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else – Frederic Bastiat Procrustes – literally, “the stretcher who hammers metal” -- was in Greek mythology a rogue smithy and bandit from Attica who cut off the legs of people to fit them to his iron bed. Political narratives as they relate to facts can be procrustean beds. If the facts don’t fit the narrative, you simply cut off their limbs to make them fit. Facts may be stubborn things, but politicians sometimes are more stubborn.

  In the matter of abortion, U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal is all in. The Senator, while he was for 20 years Connecticut’s Attorney General, was not known to shy away from prosecuting companies large and small that had violated some obscure regulation. He also had recommended regulations to Connecticut’s General Assembly if he found that a regulation would satisfy his own view of ethical commerce, much to the dismay of Connecticut companies already burdened with excessive regulations. When he moved from the Attorney General’s office to the U.S. Senate, Mr. Blumenthal left in his wake a trail of regulatory tears flowing down the cheeks of his commercial targets, which for years had found their assets diverted to court costs. His successor, Attorney General George Jepsen, almost immediately swept hundreds of such nuisance cases from the books. Moving into the U.S. Senate, Mr. Blumenthal brought all his vices as Attorney General with him and soon acquired a reputation as Connecticu...

"Th’ newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward" – Mr. Dooley In Peace And War Dannel Malloy, Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and the second least popular governor in the United States , has produced, in conjunction with Senate President Martin Looney and Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey, the third least popular budget in Connecticut.

“Cuz that’s where the money is.” Such was the response when Willy Sutton, the scrupulously honest bank robber of the 1920-30’s, was asked why he robbed banks. Before the reader draws the usual aphorism from his holster – “honesty is the best policy” – he should be advised that Willie denied having said the quip for which he is most famous. He robbed banks, Mr. Sutton said, because it was exhilarating: “I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life!” It turns out that the most famous line in bank robbing history was inserted into an after-interview story by a reporter who thought the quip would be good copy. He was right. Reporters In those days took such liberties – not like today. It is true, however, that Willie gave his name to a law, Sutton’s Law, which holds that in diagnosing crime, one should always consider the obvious.