Friday night on Newshour With Jim Lehrer, Washington Post columnist Mark Shields declared, crankily,"It's an insult to Americans when a politician stands up and says that Americans know better how to spend their own money than the government does. I'm tired of it."

I think it might be applesauce time for Mark Shields.

Now, it is an insult when President Bush says such things, as he did in the SOTU. Because he doesn't mean them.

But Shields was speaking more generally.