Don’t miss columnist Richard Cohen’s rant against anti-tax honcho Grover Norquist. I missed the interview that set off Cohen. Apparently, Norquist compared folks who say that the “death tax” should kept because it affects only 2 per cent of the population to those who ignored the Holocaust because it affected only a small portion of the population. Holocaust analogies are generally to be avoided. That said, I love it when somebody pushes a button and Cohen goes berserk. “Out of Their Anti-Tax Minds” is the headline. Noting that “it’s hard to overstate Norquist’s importance in contemporary Washington,” Cohen says Noquist’s agenda “is to ensure that taxes are reduced to a bare minimum, the government is starved and everyone, the rich and poor, is taxed at the same, which is to say almost not at all.” Hey, that sounds like Utopia to me. Cohen has summed up a fair and balanced, as we like to say, system, even if it’s anathema to him. At the end of the piece, Cohen makes reference to the fabled Wednesday meeting, a stimulating gathering of activists over which Norquist presides and which is known as The Grover Meeting. At the next meeting, says Cohen, “someone ought to ask him if he’s out of his mind. If no one does, it’s because they all are.” A valium for Mr. Cohen, please.
