There are Gormogon operatives all over creation.

Note the Czar did not say “all over the Earth.” He didn’t even say “all over this dimension.”

Every so often a newer one is revealed, such as Operative lelnet, who is tasked with the impressive job of defending our Castle from submarine attacks. As you guess, lelnet has the amazing ability to rip submarines apart with his bare hands. The Czar has seen it. We have seen him do it. Don’t tell us he doesn’t do it, because he can do it. He is a gorgeous hunk of a person.

He is also extremely well-versed in current events and political science, and above all, knows how to write a freaking letter. Check this out, which contains elements the Czar hasn’t seen since the Restoration period.

Most esteemed Czar, sovereign of Muscovy and famed commentator on all subjects worthy of commentation, upon whose every public utterance yr hmbl srvnt awaits continuously with breath not merely bated but also baited, to exclaim in delight at the appearance of every such post, etc etc…

You write:

What a surprise then that within weeks of its unveiling, photos emerged of government-paid landscapers and gardeners operating rototillers, weeding, raking, and tending this garden. Some claims exist that these guys do this work in their spare time….

Let us say it is true: […] that the small platoon of caretakers do this work on their lunch hour at no cost to taxpayers.

Surprising as it may be, for someone as justly revered by all right-thinking persons as yourself, to whom it is merely right and proper that all who find themselves in your august presence would gladly pay servile homage, this supposition about the behavior of American citizens toward the FLOTUS (whatever her personal merits may, or—as in the case of Michelle Obama—may not be) is even more disturbing a prospect than the notion that government employees are being paid by the taxpayers to care for and beautify the White House garden.

True, the care and feeding of a vegetable garden does seem a trivial and frivolous task, to be financed with money extracted from hard-working Americans under the implicit threat of imprisonment. But I think I speak for quite a substantial number of those very taxpayers when I assure you that both of the two logical alternatives strike us as even worse. To wit:

1. It is possible that those undertaking the care of the White House garden would indeed do so of their own genuinely free and uncoerced choice. If true, this would clearly indicate a cult-of-personality phenomenon around the Obama family so severe that its mere existence poses what may be an existential threat to the political health of the republic. (Think Scientology. Except that L. Ron Hubbard never had control of a nuclear arsenal.) Of course, politicians have always had cadres of fan-toadies, but in days of yore such people’s devotion was generally limited to working on their campaigns, and the sort whose devotion was so intense that they’d actually volunteer to do unpaid stoop labor were regarded as insane…perhaps dangerously insane, but even if merely creepily eccentric definitely not the sort who’d even be allowed to know what a White House security pass looked like.
2. In the (more likely than #1, I think, but still far less than “of course they’re getting paid…since when do Democrats count the cost of staffing a program when doing the cost/benefit analysis?”) alternative case, one has government employees “volunteering” to do menial labor for the Obama family on their personal non-working hours. Anyone who has worked in enough office jobs has probably been at least occasionally dragooned into “volunteering” for the boss’ favorite charity. But rare indeed is the American who doesn’t shudder in frightened disgust at the notion of being so beaten-down at work that he’d even think of going to his boss-to-the-nth-power’s house on his lunch break to weed the garden for free. Rarer still are Americans who have actually done so.

As should be clear, I don’t personally hold to either of these notions. The neglect of the garden during the “shutdown” tends to confirm my view (and, it appears, your own) that the gardeners are simply federal employees for whom this was their assigned task, and who were compensated for time spent at the task in the normal fashion of civil servants. Again, a frivolous way to spend tax dollars, but in the grand scheme of things not even a drop in the proverbial bucket, where government waste is concerned.

What disturbs me is this:

The Obamas, and those tasked with speaking on their behalf in public, are so utterly disconnected from reality that they appear to have thought that “oh, those folks doing the gardening are doing it for free” (which inevitably reduces to either case #1 above, or case #2) would be taken by Americans as a positive spin of the situation.

Of course, what disturbs me even more greatly than that is that, to the extent it’s possible to discern, they may have been correct in thinking so.

*shudder*

I am now and shall ever be, your regal excellency’s faithful admirer and servant

lelnet

Thanks very much for your well-appreciated obsequiousness. You are of course entirely right to take this to the next step, which is where Island Dweller probably wanted to go with it. Have you met each other yet? The two of you are both very nice fellows, even if one of you can rip a 47,000-ton Typhoon class Акула into small bits.

There is a third possibility that two of your theories are operating together: that yes, of course, the guys are getting paid. While a boss can wrangle a little free work out of you here and there, eventually people start finding things to do when he comes around. After nearly five years of Obamadom, NPS employees will have found ways to get paid to do that work. But, yes, the Obamas could be completely deluded that out of sheer agape, these loyal minions would cheerfully donate their time and service to cruel overlords simply in exchange for the possibility of a little attention.

And that’s our job.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.