Where’s the Love?

The government can do a lot, says President Bush. But Uncle Sam is a coldhearted brute.

In early August, President Bush did what all sensible Washington politicians do: escape. He headed to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and embarked on what has become an annual ritual in reconnecting with the folks back in the real world. In a speech before the American Legislative Exchange Council in Grapevine, Texas, the president outlined a whole bunch of things his government is doing: Fighting wars of liberation, countering terrorists, developing a new energy policy, enacting legal reforms and negotiating free trade agreements, to name just a few priorities.

But then Bush endeavored to put those accomplishments into perspective. When it comes to the big stuff, he said, Uncle Sam is a heartless old man. "We understand that government-government can't love," Bush said. "Government can pass law, government can hand out money, but government cannot put heart-hope in a person's heart, or a sense of purpose in a person's life. That's done when a loving citizen puts their arm around somebody who hurts and says, 'How can I help you? What can I do to make your life better?' "

Paradoxically, Bush's government-can't-love speech actually demonstrates how much he loves government. As his laundry list of federal accomplishments shows, this is a president who's seen few federal programs he doesn't like. Bush drives libertarian groups nuts with his relentless push for a huge homeland security bureaucracy, massive new benefits programs (such as prescription drug coverage under Medicare) and the push to increase the federal government's role in education.

President Bush's compassionate conservative philosophy-which he describes as "government if necessary, but not necessarily government"-includes a loophole big enough to drive a truck through. Virtually any government program can be defended on the grounds that it's "necessary"-especially in the post-Sept. 11 world, when people have decided that only the federal government can guarantee our security.

Of course, people want much out of government, but they also want not to like it. You'd have to go back to Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to find a successful presidential candidate who didn't run against the Washington bureaucracy. So Bush is reduced to making the case that the government that he has cultivated and managed since 2001 is more effective and efficient-even more "compassionate"-yet is incapable of, well, genuine emotion.

When you think about it, this is an odd, backhanded slam. Of course "the government" can't love. As far as I know, nobody has ever suggested that it could. Only people can. Luckily, the government employs lots of 'em. "Please tell President Bush that the love can be found in government at any VA medical center, where occupational therapists give hope to our nation's veterans every day," a VA employee e-mailed me after Bush's speech.

The address followed a recent pattern among administration officials, who-burdened with the rather large and unmistakable growth in the bureaucracy on their watch-now must hunt for innovative ways to burnish their anti-government credentials.

At an appearance before a group of federal interns in Washington in July, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. had this to say about programs to encourage government internships, according to a Washington Post report: "There are many programs for young people to have employment opportunities, but the greatest employment opportunities in our society come through the private sector. And so I don't think that everyone who is looking for a job should expect or even want a job with the federal government or one of our agencies. In fact, our economy would not do very well if people just worked for the government."

Again, last time I checked, no one was suggesting that everyone in the country should work for the government. Card's questioner was simply asking about federal support for internship programs. The Bush administration's Office of Personnel Management offered an answer that was somewhat different from Card's just a week after his speech, announcing that it had put the finishing touches on an internship program designed to make it easier for agencies to hire new civil servants.

What OPM failed to mention is that those with the capacity to love apparently need not apply.