Just do your job.

Victor Davis Hanson asks why local officials feel compelled to focus on cosmic issues rather than getting the job they were elected to do done.  It appears that Sheriff Dupnik was much better at blaming others than responding to the many calls of concerned citizens about a certain homicidal nutjob in his jurisdiction.  While Mayor Bloomburg is saving his city from Trans Fats, the snow piles up.  Hat tip Jim Geraghty and www.nationalreview.com

The always great Victor Davis Hanson: "Dupnik is a good example of the increasingly common bad habit of local politicians to resort to cosmic sermonizing when more mundane challenges go unaddressed. In Dupnik's case, it is hard to monitor all the nuts like Loughner in the sheriff's department files to ensure they don't get guns and bullets and pop up at political events, but apparently far easier to deflect subsequent responsibility by sounding off on political issues. "New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was a past master of lecturing about the cosmic while at times ignoring the more concrete. Governing the boroughs of an often-chaotic New York City is nearly impossible. Pontificating on the evils of smoking, fatty foods, and supposed anti-Muslim bigotry was not only far easier but had established the mayor as a national figure of sensitivity and caring. He was praised for his progressive declarations by supporters of everything from global warming to abortion. But Bloomberg's carefully constructed philosopher's image was finally shattered by the December 2010 blizzard and his own asleep-at-the-wheel reaction. An incompetent municipal response to record snowfalls barricaded millions in their borough houses and apartments, amid lurid rumors of deliberate union-sponsored slowdowns by Bloomberg's city crews." There is enormous opportunity for the Republicans elected in 2009 and 2010; if they just do their jobs, they will prove exponentially more satisfying to the electorate than the recent breed of aspiring philosopher-kings. To paraphrase FedEx's Fred Smith, the first priority is making sure that the first priority remains the first priority.