Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it is a truism especially relevant today. Throughout most of the 19th century, New York City was plagued by a corrupt group of Democrat politicians operating out of Tammany Hall, the worst of whom was William “Boss” Tweed. After stealing as much as $2 billion (today’s dollars) from New York citizens, Tweed was brought down in 1871, jailed and ultimately died in prison.

The Boss Tweed story of political hubris, influence peddling and outright theft of public funds makes for fascinating reading, partly because of the role played by political cartoonist Thomas Nast in helping to dethrone Tweed. Nast was so hated by Tweed he asked Harper’s Weekly to stop printing his cartoons, although he didn’t mind the articles written about him since “his supporters couldn’t read”! There is a lot of similarity to our current situation with “Boss” Obama, although the scale of theft is much greater today, and some of the public projects Tweed got rich from actually did have a redeeming public benefit (such as the Brooklyn Bridge). You have to look at the Boss Tweed blueprint and wonder if it wasn’t simply grown to a national scale and expanded in scope to trillions of dollars from billions of dollars by the “Boss” Obama regime. Democrats today have the added advantage of virtually unlimited public funding, funneled through public service unions. Political patronage was the cornerstone of the Tammany Social Club, and that certainly is the background fabric for the last six years, complete with IRS enforcers and EPA under-bosses to keep dissenters in line!

I think the underlying message is of decades of government agencies totally out of control. It’s disgusting to listen to the arrogant, unrepentant testimony of the head of the IRS to any of several congressional investigative committees. You won’t find that “dog ate Lois Lerner’s emails” story in much of the mainstream media though. Like current-day political cartoonists, the mainstream media has taken sides instead of reporting the facts. Where, oh, where, is Thomas Nast when you need him?

Curt Greer

Marysville