Calling a slush fund a slush fund

Sharron Angle, GOP candidate from Nevada for the U.S. Senate, keeps getting accused by the Democratic letter-writing trees of committing a "slip of the tongue" when she branded as a "slush fund" the $20 billion extorted by Barack Obama from BP a month back.

I don't get it.

Mr. Obama -- who has the de facto power to order the federal government to file criminal charges against BP -- swore up and down that no one from the government would be in charge of doling out the $20 billion he extorted from BP (far in excess of the $75 million damage cap set by the federal law Mr. Obama has sworn to enforce, providing BP had a proper drilling permit, which Mr. Obama's own administration had indeed issued them). I heard him speak the words.

Then, within hours, Mr. Obama turned around and gave control of those extorted funds to his own personal salary czar, Kenneth Feinberg. So yes, the $20 billion extorted from BP "IS" a government-run slush fund, easily and almost inevitably manipulable to buy votes for the Democrats now in power -- just as Ms. Angle declared.

Such damages were usually awarded by the courts, after taking some "evidence," under our quaint previous system of government. And presidents were expected not to usurp the prerogatives of the courts, even in the name of "getting things moving faster." Do we all really expect to be happier living under a form of government where el presidente can simply make up the law and the procedures as he goes along, assessing damages and disbursing other people's money as he sees fit?

The answer is yes, a foolish plurality apparently do think that'll be great, since they're assured it's only the "greedy rich robber barons" whose fat wallets will be looted.

Too bad the schools pretty much stopped teaching history almost 50 years ago, replacing it with cutting pictures out of magazines and calling it "Social Studies." Otherwise, we could ask voters to recall how that had worked out in France by 1793, or in Russia by 1921.