Last night, at Acton’s 15 Year Dinner in Grand Rapids, former president of El Salvador Francisco Flores gave a reason for his country’s great economic success: it stopped blaming others. Compare this with another statement yesterday by another politician, Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm. In a bid to the federal government to help the ailing Michigan manufacturing industry, she said (among other things) that “a crisis is upon us and the Federal Government needs to step up and do its share” presumably because “NAFTA and CAFTA have given Michigan the shafta.”

Now, I may be a sucker for semi-witty wordplay, but the reason I bring this up is simply to point out the following: one politician, whose state was once in a financial ruin Michiganders cannot imagine, pulled his country to increased prosperity with a “don’t blame others; take responsibility for yourself” mentality; another politician, whose state is on the economic slide, blames the policies of the federal government for it and then demands that the same federal government fix the problem. The irony that these two politicians made these two statements on the same day in Michigan evokes in me–well, lafta.