Dubya's politics defined

Fintan O'Toole writes (subs. req'd) in today's Irish Times about a new policy of Ireland's permanent party of government, Fianna Fail. It's a harebrained scheme to tackle the magnetic pull of development in Dublin by spreading government administrative offices around the country. A moment's reflection would show that when other countries have sought to move government functions out of the orbit of the big cities, they still tend to put those functions in one place (e.g. Canberra, Washington DC, Islamabad, Brasilia). But now every town in Ireland will have a pub, an undertaker, a parish pump, and a government office. In seeking to explain this lunacy, Fintan offers a deeper insight, a remarkably apt description of a typical Dubya policy proposal as well:

What becomes clear when you read the [decentralisation] report is that this is a classic Fianna Fail operation, in that it appeals vaguely to a broad swathe of the population and sharply to an insider elite.

No wonder Dubya and Bertie get along so well.