Getting over Grover

Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly raises a delicious question: Has Grover Norquist, the anti-tax fanatic who has been extraordinarily powerful as a largely-behind-the-scenes operator in the Bush Administration, started to become a political liability as he becomes better known outside the beltway?

As Drum says, it's too early to be too confident, but anything that begins cutting the legs out from under the piece of work who famously said of government that he wanted to

"get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub"

( although he now wants to distance himself from that statement, lest he be thought an "anarchist")

. . . and who cheerfully observed that

"Bipartisanship is another name for date rape."

(although his right wing "truth squad" defenders later insisted that it was really Dick Armey who coined that phrase in reference to Democrats--as if that's a defense)

. . . has to be a good thing. And unlike many political demises, this one would be for the right reasons: The public goods people want and deserve ought to be paid for by taxes, not by corporate sponsorships or the noblesse oblige of the super-rich.

And I'll leave it to the small-government enthusiasts to mull over the implications of their hero's love of snuff-porn imagery.