Connecticut Post, Bridgeport, Charles Walsh column: Thankfully, the government is not always just one big turkey

The devastated remains of a truly epic Thanksgiving banquet sit lonely and abandoned on the kitchen counter.

Most of those responsible for the devastation have waddled down the basement stairs hoping to counteract massive doses of sleep-inducing L-tryptophan by listening to a lively impromptu concert by a trio of grade-schoolers who had thoughtfully brought their favored musical instruments to the banquet.

Upstairs, a quartet of post-banquet guests, perhaps too stuffed to risk the stairs, sits in front of a flat-screen, hi-def television the size of a small highway billboard. The set is turned off, and because none of them knows how to turn it on, there is no choice but to engage in, yes, conversation. (As an art it is not really dead; just lost under the electronic waterfall.)

"So," said one of the quartet for no other reason than to break a momentary silence, "what do you think about this health-care thing?" So much for the post-banquet mental numbness.

"Hey," says Kevin, rising slightly out of his overindulgence-induced posture of repose on the couch. "I'm all for everybody having some kind of health insurance, but I don't want the government having anything to do with it. Let's face it, the government can't run anything right." He pronounces the word "anything" with special emphasis.

Kevin goes on to express his utter distrust of government's ability to do even the simplest task without somehow messing it up. No amount of "yeah, buts" and "on

the other hands" has the slightest impact on his resolve.

That kind of complete lack of faith in government competency is nothing new, of course. But you hear it a lot more these days as Obama's drive for universal health insurance ricochets its tumultuous way through Congress. And it is not just the ranks of right-wing radio and television squawk masters who are voicing it.

Far less ideologically blinded people like Kevin sincerely feel that government, at all its levels and permutations, possesses a kind of reverse-Midas touch that turns everything it touches to lead.

On the surface, at least, this attitude is strange. All around us government-run programs seem to operate, if not with complete efficiency, at least in a manner that allows lots of people to draw benefits from them. Who ya gonna call when that attempt to deep-fry a large turkey in a small cauldron sends a magnificent fireball into the sky? Remember that 911 crew and the firemen who arrive extinguishers at the ready are a bunch of bumbling government employees.

Surely anyone who has had the onerous task of putting a crammed garbage can into the back of a SUV for a ride to the local transfer point appreciates the ever-reliable, pre-dawn arrival of the city-employed garbage guys.

This is not to say government has not made its share of God-awful messes of jobs they took on. The miserable failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission to police the securities industry comes immediately to mind. Just ask Bernie Madoff how much he sweated the SEC flyswatter as he trucked his billions to points unknown.

But the next time someone is tempted to a blanket condemnation of government's ability to do anything right, they might take a ride up Route 8 where the Naugatuck River, not so long ago a multi-hued sewer for a plethora of irresponsible private industries. Now, thanks to the state Department of Environmental Protection, a government agency, it runs clear and free as a wild trout.