SLATE: The California Banana Republic. “It’s not a line of clothes — it’s a failed state!” Strangely, however, the piece fails to mock public-employee unions.

UPDATE: Reader Todd Thacker emails:

As a California resident, it is to laugh that Slate blames the California budget crisis on Arnold and the Republicans. Don’t they realize that this state is almost completely controlled by Democrats, and has been for some time now? California would have money for the slashed social services Slate so bemoans if our spendthrift legislature could control its expenditures or stand up to the public employees’ unions. I’d like to say I find it difficult to believe that journalists could present such a simplistic, biased, and wrongheaded analysis of our state’s financial situation, but, well . . . . .

Ouch.