If you think about the government in terms of its original mission--"to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty"--then Ignatius is right.

WSJ: Best of the Web Today: What Would Bulworth Do?

And yet, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, most progressives believe as an article of faith that most GS-13s somehow are better adapted to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity than are mere citizens.

FORBES: Government Shutdown: A Psychodrama

For only the 34th time in our nation's history, the United States Senate undertakes a most careful, solemn exercise - amending the Constitution of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity: dudes shouldn't marry dudes, and chicks shouldn't marry chicks?

NPR: Gay Marriage Amendment vs. the Other 27

His technocrats, in the EPA, Health and Human Services, OSHA, Energy Department, and so on, regulate, subsidize, fine, and promote with no goal other than the general welfare.

FORBES: Romney Must Convince Conservatives He's Not A David Brooks Republican