Mark Steyn unleashes his humor to address what has a lot of people griping. We're dissatisfied with both parties. The Democrats have lurched so far into Soros territory that they've left many of those who might not be in line with the Goerge Soros-Michael Moore-Cindy Sheehan line of thought.

American politics seems to have dwindled down to a choice between a big government party and a big permanently-out-of-government party. The Senate Democrats had two months to cook up a reason to vote against John Roberts and the best California's Dianne Feinstein could manage come the big day was that she'd wanted to hear him "talking to me as a son, a husband and a father." In that case, get off the judiciary committee and go audition for ''Return To Bridges of Madison County,'' or ''What Women Want 2'' ("Mel Gibson is nominated to the Supreme Court but, despite being sensitive and a good listener, is accused of being a conservative theocrat").

That slab of meaningless emotive exhibitionism would make a good epitaph for the Democratic Party. The reality of life as a bigshot Dem is that what John Roberts is like "as a father" is less important than what George Soros is like as a sugar daddy. The more money shoveled at the party by Moveon.org, Hollywood, NOW and other unrepresentative fringes, the less it's able to see over the big pile of green to the electorate beyond. A party as thoroughly Sorosized as the Democrats is perforce downsized.

But those of us on the right are also dissatisfied with what the Republicans have wrought in their control of the country. Bush seems to be competing in how much money he can promise people whether they be seniors wanting a drug program or those in New Orleans who want the federal government to hand over a couple of hundred billion dollars to let them build back exactly as they wish. And the GOP in Congress have just gone overboard in spending on pork. They've become the party of Don Young's Bridge to Nowhere.

Ambitious presidents seize on extreme events to change the culture, as FDR did, using the Depression to transform the nature of the federal government. In allowing the eco-crazies to get away with prioritizing the world's biggest mosquito herd over Alaskan oil, and the teaching establishment with insisting that there's nothing wrong with the most overfunded public education system in the world that can't be fixed with even more wasted dollars, and the bureaucracy with creating an instantly sclerotic jobs-for-life federalized airport security (that just walked off the job in Houston), the Republicans missed their post-9/11 opportunity.

Instead of changing the nature of the federal government, the Republican majority in Washington seems to be changing the nature of the Republican Party. The Democrats' approach to government has been Sorosized, the GOP's has been supersized. Some choice.

Peggy Noonan addressed this same point about how the Republicans have become the party of big spenders in her column on Thursday.

George W. Bush, after five years in the presidency, does not intend to get sucker-punched by the Democrats over race and poverty. That was the driving force behind his Katrina speech last week. He is not going to play the part of the cranky accountant--"But where's the money going to come from?"--while the Democrats, in the middle of a national tragedy, swan around saying "Republicans don't care about black people," and "They're always tightwads with the poor."

In his Katrina policy the president is telling Democrats, "You can't possibly outspend me. Go ahead, try. By the time this is over Dennis Kucinich will be crying uncle, Bernie Sanders will be screaming about pork."

That's what's behind Mr. Bush's huge, comforting and boondogglish plan to spend $200 billion or $100 billion or whatever--"whatever it takes"--on Katrina's aftermath.

She goes on to examine all the spending that Bush has approved or initiated in his years as president and wonders what the point is of being conservative anymore. What is the point of just being a party that competes with the Democrats in how much money and federal control they can throw at problems?

The Republican (as opposed to conservative) default position when faced with criticism of the Bush administration is: But Kerry would have been worse! The Democrats are worse! All too true. The Democrats right now remind me of what the veteran political strategist David Garth told me about politicians. He was a veteran of many campaigns and many campaigners. I asked him if most or many of the politicians he'd worked with had serious and defining political beliefs. David thought for a moment and then said, "Most of them started with philosophy. But they wound up with hunger." That's how the Democrats seem to me these days: unorganized people who don't know what they stand for but want to win, because winning's pleasurable and profitable.

But saying The Bush administration is a lot better than having Democrats in there is not an answer to criticism, it's a way to squelch it. Which is another Bridge to Nowhere.

A lot of conservatives are too fed up with the growth of government under Bush's watch to argue anymore that it is worthwhile to support Bush's spending if that is what it takes to keep him in power to do what we like in economic and foreign policy and with judicial appointments.

This doesn't mean that conservatives don't want the federal government to help the victims of Katrina or to help rebuild New Orleans. We're just disgusted taht there doesn't seem to be any effort to cut other spending in order to pay for that aid. That was the whole inspiration behind Truth Laid Bear's and Instapundit's creation of the Porkbusters site. Right now the tally is close to 50 billion dollars. I suspect that a lot of people would support politicians who said to their constituents: "Look, I wanted to get the federal government to help with this or that in our community, but, in light of the unprecedented challenge our country is facing with the aftermath of Katrina, I am going to vote to take that money for our local bridge, light rail program, bike path, etc. out of the budget for this year and to channel that money into aiding those in the Gulf coast who are so in need. I hope my constituents will understand that being your representative means making tough choices sometimes for the good of the entire country not just our local community." I think that such an approach would be applauded by people on both sides of the ideological divide.

However, it just isn't happening. Compare the list on the Porkbusters page of the money that people online are suggesting for cuts and then go over and see how few politicians have been willing to step up to the plate and volunteer to support cutting out pork. As my daughter pointed out, it's a pretty bizarro world where Nancy Pelosi is showing more responsibility on spending than Tom DeLay. Ramesh Ponnuru reminded us taht Reagan had tried to veto a highway bill and his veto was overridden. So I recognize that it's mighty hard to eliminate pork in spending. Pork is the lubricant that gets bills passed. I'm sure that all the earmarks in the Transportation Bill represent a lot of trading that went on for a whole host of other issues from the War in Iraq to CAFTA to who knows what. But can't these folks even try just the teensiest bit?