How much wiser must some people be to entitle them to dictate how everyone else lives?

The President Is a Lot Smarter Than You Think was the book title of a 1973 collection of Doonesbury cartoons. The book cover showed a construction worker glaring at a college punk who did not appreciate the wisdom of the commander-in-chief. The cartoon was originally a jibe at diehard Richard Nixon supporters. But since then, the notion that government is smarter than it seems has become the mantra of many social scientists, editorial writers, and pundits.

Paternalism is fashionable in part because it is self-evident — at least inside the Washington, D.C., beltway — that Washingtonians are superior to the rest of the nation. But the paternalist calculus only works if one assumes that the paternalist class is composed of saints untouched by the self-interest, vanity, or vindictiveness that trademark other humans. Paternalism requires the illusion that the political-bureaucratic class has no motivation except serving humanity. In reality, the self-interest of the paternalists leads them to exaggerate their successes, hide their failures, and multiply their prerogatives.