"Hugo Chavez in a Pantsuit"

“The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits, and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart, energy, alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence.” –Sen. Hillary Clinton

(Some thoughts from Friday night’s show on Hillary’s anti-capitalist, confiscation of private property proposal...)

KUDLOW: P.J., what would Adam Smith say about a carbon tax, or a carbon cap, or Kyoto to deal with global warming?

P.J. O'ROURKE ("On the Wealth of Nations" author): Well, I happen to know exactly what he'd say. But first let me say that Hillary Clinton is Hugo Chavez in a pantsuit.

Adam Smith knew about greed. You know, greed for money is nothing. Money's a neutral thing. It can be used for good, for ill, for indifferent things. And money is not zero sum. We can always make more money.

You want to see real greed, look at greed for power. Look at greed for political power. Because power is zero sum. The power that I accrue to myself is power that I take from you, that I take from all free people. And politicians will use any excuse to accrue power. I don't know about global warming. All I know is I'm buying beach front in Greenland. I don't know about the theory. I don't know whether it's right. I don't know whether it's wrong.

But I know that anything, any excuse will do for politicians to accrue power. If it's not like too broad a range of income between the poor and the rich, then it's global warming. If it's not global warming, then it's the fringe-toed lizard. If it's not the fringe-toed lizard—anything, any excuse will do. What you see with Jerry Brown there is greed, sheer, raw, naked greed of the kind that Adam Smith would have...

KUDLOW: Well, it's public greed. You know what? It's government greed. It's the Hillary thing. It's public greed.

Mr. O'ROURKE: It is greed for power.