Sometimes it is Better to Remain Silent Than to Speak Up and Remove All Doubt

A number of political class verbal missteps recently have reminded me of a favorite saying that goes something like the following:

"Sometimes it is better to remain silent and thought ignorant than to speak up and remove all doubt."

Politicians say the darndest things and continue to amaze me with their lack of knowledge of how the world and how reality work:

- With regard to the recent Arizona immigration law, Attorney General Holder testified before the Senate recently, "Sure there is a potential for challenging a law on its face and then challenging a law as it is applied." No problem here, as Attorney General of the entire United States, it is his job to make sure that laws are proper in light of the Constitution and other state and Federal laws. But, he did not close his mouth fast enough. When queried by a Senator on whether he had actually read the ten page Arizona law, he replied: "I have not had a chance to. I've glanced at it. I have not read it."

So, here is the top law enforcement officer in the country talking about filing suit against a sovereign state of the United States and he has not even read the law that he has a problem with! And, unlike Obama Care's 2,000+ pages, the Arizona law is only ten pages long. As a lawyer, I would think he could have read and understood the bill in less than a half hour. Thus, he looks extremely ignorant on two counts. First, you would have thought he would have taken the short amount of time to read the bill before testifying about the bill, under oath, before Congress. Second, he does not look unbiased in this matter since he has prejudged law that he has not even read.

- Consider the following quote from Joanna Doven, a spokesperson for the current Pittsburgh mayor, as reported in the June, 2010 issue of Reason magazine, pertaining to urban farming: "Anytime you see something growing and expanding and there are no rules, you need to regulate it." She acts as if government regulation is a good thing. The U.S. housing and banking industries are regulated by the Federal Housing Authority, Housing and Urban Development, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Senate banking and housing committees, House banking and housing committees, state level government regulatory agencies for banking and housing, the Federal Reserve Board, the Treasury Department, etc., and all this government regulation did was cause the housing market bubble, and then watch helplessly, as the housing and banking industries collapsed. Just as a side note, according to Fortune magazine's May 3, 2010 issue, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost a combined $94 billion in 2009. Guess regulation did not work in this case.