Learning to Read Democrat

An op-ed by Michael Kinsley in today's New York Times on the draft platform for this year's Democratic Party convention.

The best-hidden boondoggle is dropped into the second half of a sentence in a general passage about women. “We will invest in women-owned small businesses and remove the capital gains tax on start-up small businesses.” (Attention all conservatives: Do not panic! This passage does not mean that Democrats favor government investments in businesses, even small businesses, even small businesses owned by women. That would be socialism. It is a convention of platform-writing that all government spending is referred to as “investment.” The Republicans do it, too. That doesn’t make it right.)