Evidently, the following passage from this story, is supposed to terrify me:

As head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, [Cass] Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor, would be the arbiter of debates on rules for auto safety, environmental protection, union organizing and dozens of other issues. Some critics question his commitment to imposing tougher standards on companies.

“Progressives have expressed concern because Professor Sunstein’s long track record on regulatory issues is decidedly conservative,” said seven law professors in a Jan. 26 paper published by the Center for Progressive Reform, an Edgewater, Maryland, academic policy research organization.

“We fear that Cass Sunstein’s reliance on cost-benefit analysis will create a regulatory fiefdom in the White House that will deal with needed regulations in very much the same way that the Bush administration did,” Rena Steinzor, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, said in releasing the report.

God forbid that we should be engaged in cost-benefit analysis when examining whether new regulations pass the laugh test. I mean, the world would go to Hell in a handbasket if we suddenly decided to be sober and responsible, wouldn’t it? To be sure, I am not banking on Sunstein emerging as some kind of force for deregulation during the Obama Administration. But do his attackers not understand the absurdity of their attacks and the way those attacks are phrased?