Dana Milbank Needs an Index

Message to Dana Milbank: your book needs an index. Well, it's not a book, really; more like a salad bar, or a bag of M&Ms, where you pick and choose an ensemble of goodies to your own taste. But you know what I mean: Homo Economicus, your collection of absurd or salacious or inglorious tidbits, canvassing everything that went wrong in the last eight years.

The book is good fun in its own right, but what you really want to keep for is that time when you are tempted to think that the W years weren't so bad after all. Then you would want to be able to tap an index that says things like:

Hostilities, End of, Word "Major" Added After the Fact

Heart Attack, Suffered by Poor Mug Who Got in the Way of Dick Cheney's Gun, After he Victim Shot but Before Victim Apologized.

Required Bribes, Menu of, Presented By Duke Cunningham (Currently Seeking Pardon)

Milbank wisely (or out of simple cowardice) tries to throw in the odd Democrat here and there, but it isn't easy. You could say that's because they have been out of power, and it is power that tends to corrupt. You could say that, but you would be wrong; these guys, the current lot, when it comes to corruption and incompetence, they really are something special.

But keep some perspective here: one day, perhaps not very far away, you're going to say something about "Those Idiots in Washington" and you will be talking about the new crop of idiots, the ones just measuring the curtains today. You'll feel a twinge of nostalgia; you'll be tempted to think that the old days weren't that bad.

No, they were that bad. Milbank proves it. But he nees an index.