While the left likes to claim that it opposes government fraud and waste as much as the right, more honest outlets like Mother Jones admit that they simply don’t care that much about blown taxpayer dollars, so long as there’s good intent behind them. After the New York Times confirmed today that Andrew Breitbart’s crusade against waste, fraud, and abuse in the Department of Agriculture’s Pigford settlements was correct, Mother Jones justified such waste, fraud, and abuse anyway, at least in part:
Obviously it’s hard to understand why the Agriculture Department didn’t adopt a stricter standard, one that wouldn’t have paid out thousands of fraudulent claims to people who didn’t deserve it. At the same time, it’s hard not to think of the flip side: all the valid discrimination cases that have been brought over the years, but tossed out because the evidentiary bar was too high and it was impossible to prove that discrimination actually took place …. There’s obviously plenty to criticize about how Pigford II has been handled, but I have to say that I’m sure not looking forward to the inevitable ugliness this is going to generate.
At least Mother Jones calls ’em like it sees ’em. The New York Times is still pretending that the waste, fraud and abuse at the USDA are troubling, while maintaining the editorial position that massive government spending is an unbridled good.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).