Hoosier Daddy?

The Boston Globe reports that Bush's Budget Director Mitch Daniels is stepping down to pursue the governorship of Indiana, and quotes Bush as saying, "This administration's loss is the gain of the people of Indiana." I suppose that's true in the same sense that the national perception of the collective IQ of Indiana probably shot up when Dan Quayle disappeared from the national scene (no hate mail, please, the same held true for my state of North Carolina once the withered husk of Jesse Helms finally slithered into retirement). But if Daniels is serious about becoming governor, you could only call it a gain for Indiana if you made little fingers-in-the-air quotation marks and rolled your eyes when you hit the word "gain."

As head of the Office of Management and Budget since January 2001, Daniels oversaw a federal budget that went from surpluses to record deficits. His tenure was also marked by pitched battles with both Republicans and Democrats over the administration's tax and spending priorities. [...] Daniels also drew fire from Republicans, including [Alaska senator Ted] Stevens, who once accused the budget office of using ''Enron-type'' accounting tricks.

As economic stewardship goes, putting Mitch Daniels in charge of your state coffers is roughly akin to hiring Roman Polanski to babysit your daughter. "Daniels's supporters say he made tough budget decisions during the toughest of times." Tough decisions? Tough? "F*ck it, we'll just engage in the biggest unfunded spending orgy in the history of the Union and let the Democrats fix it when they make it back to office, just like last time." Yes, that was a tough decision, alright, in the sense of, "You want Social Security when you retire? Well, that's just tough."