Who is Wesley Mouch?
Posted by Richard on January 7, 2010
John Stossel is airing an "Atlas Shrugged hour" tonight, and he's taking a poll asking the above question:
Tomorrow, my Fox Business Network show about Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" will finally air. That should stop the emails like this one from Karen Cooper:
"Oh for the love of god! 'Atlas Shrugged' explains about 99 percent of what's wrong in all of the arenas of topics: health care, education, climate change, unions, the economy, etc. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE cover 'Atlas.'"
Cooper makes a good point. Even though Rand published "Atlas" in 1957, her descriptions of intrusive and bloated government read like today's news. The "Preservation of Livelihood Law" and "Equalization of Opportunity Law" could be Nancy Pelosi's or Harry Reid's work.
The novel's chief villain is Wesley Mouch, a bureaucrat who cripples the economy with endless regulations. This sounds familiar. Reason magazine reports that "as he looks around Washington these days," Rep. Paul Ryan "can't help but think he's seeing a lot of Wesley Mouch".
Me, too. I also saw a lot of him under George W. Bush.
So I'm conducting this unscientific poll: Who is our Wesley Mouch? Hank Paulson? Tim Geithner? Barney Frank? You can vote here.
Of the five choices, I had to pick Geithner. But I think the best answer is that all of the President's czars, collectively, are playing the part of Wesley Mouch.
Go cast your vote. And if you get the Fox Business Network, be sure to watch the show:
My first guest on the show (Fox Business Network, 8 p.m. Eastern Thursday, repeating at 10 p.m. Friday) is BB&T Chairman and "Atlas" fan John Allison. Allison's bank, the ninth largest in America, is doing very well, but he's angry the government forced him to take TARP money.
Allison once told The New York Times, "To say man is bad because he is selfish is to say it's bad because he's alive."
Plus, you'll get to see John get a fish pedicure!
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