They are the Democrats and they are here to protect you.

Speaker Pelosi has promised that the new powers that be in Congress
will protect us helpless Americans from a host of perceived evils: big
oil, corporate lobbyists, stingy employers, debilitating diseases, etc.


In Concord, Gov. John Lynch, House Speaker Teri Norelli and Senate
President Sylvia Larsen are singing the same tune. They have pledged to
protect us from big oil, stingy employers, second-hand smoke, high
college tuition and a host of other worries.

One can be thankful for their humility. For all of their faith in the
power of government to cure any ill, at least they are not following
John Edwards' lead and promising to end poverty itself.

Still, government, they believe, is not doing enough to protect us from
life's uncertainties. They are determined to remedy that.

They will pass laws ostensibly designed to protect the weak from the
powerful. But in doing so they will make the government that they
control, already more potent than the richest tycoon or largest
corporation, even more powerful. In many cases they will replace the
collective judgment of millions of Americans with the judgment of a few
hundred lawmakers.

Yes, the nanny state is back. Here's to hoping that it takes less than
two years for Americans to remember why they rebelled against it in the
first place.

Joe