This is a fabulous read by a Mississippian and nationally syndicated columnist. Via NEMS360.com:

Whether he’s dismissing the national shame of slavery, shoveling Katrina relief funds to insurance companies instead of victims, posturing for a national audience that cares not how little he’s done for most Mississippians, Haley keeps a broad smile on his face. He seems like a favorite uncle, the one who made silver dollars come out of his ears.

Only Haley’s silver dollars don’t go to the children. They go elsewhere, to corporations and foreign countries, at least if you judge by per-capita income of my state’s citizens – still the nation’s lowest.

When Haley Barbour was running Reagan’s Mississippi presidential campaign, he must have noticed that sometimes the truth got in the way of a good story. And that Ronald Reagan instinctively knew that whiners were never winners.

Reagan had that way of being relentlessly chipper about any set of circumstances, playing such a good fiddle tune that it didn’t much matter what was burning. Swing your partners, do-si-do.

Haley can do that Pollyanna thing well, too. He can ignore abject poverty, statistics, children without insurance, the history of slavery, criticism, whatever you got. He ignores it, poo-poos it, gladhands it.

Go read the entire column. It’s a hoot and a holler!