Steyn's Latest: My Nominee For Column of The Year

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Though NewsBusters is normally in the business of critiquing the liberal media, not praising the conservative, I want to ensure that as many of our readers as possible have the pleasure and profit of reading Mark Steyn's recent column: We're in the fast lane to Bailoutistan.

With its mordant, don't-know-whether-to-laugh-or-cry take on our current fix, it's my nominee for best column of the year.

I urge you to read it all, and marvel at its insight and wit.  Let me tempt you with a few morsels:

The UAW is AARP in an Edsel: It has three times as many retirees and widows as "workers" (I use the term loosely). GM has 96,000 employees but provides health benefits to a million people.

The Terminator makes Gray Davis look like Calvin Coolidge. Care to terminate a government program, Governor? Hey, great idea! We'll hire 200 people to do an impact study on terminating the Department of Impact Study Regulation and get back to you in a decade.

Gov. Paterson is said to be considering appointing Princess Caroline of Kennedy to Hillary Clinton's vacant Senate seat. After two and a third centuries of republican experiment, America has finally worked its way back to the House of Lords.

And much more.

Steyn is roughly the same age Shakespeare was when, at the height of his powers, he wrote The Tempest.  Prospero's renunciation of his dark arts in its Act V, Scene I ["Ye elves," etc.] might be the single finest passage in English dramatic literature.  If punditry gets any better than this Steyn column, I'd love to see it.

Do yourself a favor and have a read.