From Bad to Worse: Affirmative action and prescription drugs, and what they have to do with each other.

In the last week of June, conservatism suffered two of its worst defeats in a generation -- the Supreme Court's endorsement of state-sponsored racial preferences and congressional passage of a huge new prescription-drug entitlement. Worse yet, President Bush praised the Supreme Court decision -- and twisted arms in Congress to pass the drug bill. Both of these defeats illustrate modern democracy's inexorable drive to provide large benefits to the few at the expense of the public good. Politicians tend to favor government programs that will reward identifiable interest groups to the disadvantage of the general citizenry, because the narrow groups are almost by definition ...