Who is Wesley Mouch? ~ By John Stossel

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By John Stossel Posted: January 06, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 Tomorrow, my Fox Business Network show about Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" will finally air. That should stop the e-mails like this one from Karen Cooper: "Oh for the love of God! 'Atlas Shrugged' explains about 99 percent of what's wrong in all of the arenas of topics: health care, education, climate change, unions, the economy, etc. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE cover 'Atlas.'" Cooper makes a good point. Even though Rand published "Atlas" in 1957, her descriptions of intrusive and bloated government read like today's news. The "Preservation of Livelihood Law" and "Equalization of Opportunity Law" could be Nancy Pelosi's or Harry Reid's work. The novel's chief villain is Wesley Mouch, a bureaucrat who cripples the economy with endless regulations. This sounds familiar. Reason magazine reports that "as he looks around Washington these days," Rep. Paul Ryan "can't help but think he's seeing a lot of Wesley Mouch." Me, too. I also saw a lot of him under George W. Bush. So I'm conducting this unscientific poll: Who is our Wesley Mouch? Hank Paulson? Tim Geithner? Barney Frank? You can vote here. Personally, I think Chris Dodd's ridiculous financial proposals ought to win him the honor. But he isn't among the choices on Fox's list. As I write this, Geithner, President Obama and Barney Frank lead the voting. My first guest on the show (FBN, 8 p.m. Eastern Thursday, repeating at 10 p.m. Friday) is BB&T chairman and "Atlas" fan John Allison. Allison's bank, the ninth largest in America, is doing very well, but he's angry the government forced him to take TARP money. Allison once told the New York Times, "To say man is bad because he is selfish is to say it's bad because he's alive." READ FULL STORY >