Visual source: Newseum
Jonathan Bernstein on torture:
Nothing that the Republicans said [Sat] night is going to change the various candidates’ chances of winning the nomination. Perhaps the headline in that sense is that Rick Perry managed to make it through 90 minutes without making a fool of himself, but that’s about it as far as nomination news.
But it certainly is important that several candidates — Perry, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann — confirmed their position in favor of torture and against normal rule of law constraints on the U.S. government and the president of the United States. For the details, see Conor Friedersdorf, Adam Serwer, and Steve Benen..
NY Times on federal power:
If the federal government can require people to purchase health insurance, what else can it force them to do? More to the point, what can’t the government compel citizens to do?
WaPo on jobs and regulation:
In the face of the country’s unemployment crisis, many politicians have portrayed regulations as the economy’s primary villain. House Republicans have identified 10 “job-destroying” regulations they want to repeal. But economists say the situation is complex and that jobs are also being created.
What? More analysis and less stenography? What is this world coming to?
Bill Keller:
Election Day is nearly a year off and the first primaries aren’t until January, but I’m ready to skip ahead to the main event. The last serious hope of the Tea Partiers, Rick Perry, and their last not-so-serious hope, Herman Cain, are in campaign death spirals. Unless God has a cruel sense of humor, Newt Gingrich will pass like a tantrum. That leaves us with a general election between two serious and certifiably sane candidates. Phew!!...
Meanwhile, if you find yourself hungering for the days when politics had heart, buy Bill Clinton’s new book. You may find, as I did, that you kind of miss him.
Rip van Keller apparently slept through the whole tea party thang and missed what the Republican Party has become. Why do you think Perry, Keller and Gingrich are still in the race? It's because more 70% of the Republican primary voters prefer non-Romney.
EJ Dionne:
Energy was the department he forgot. Would he scrap the department’s 17 national labs, including such world-class facilities as Los Alamos, N.M., Oak Ridge, Tenn., or — there’s that primary coming up — Aiken, S.C.?
I’m not accusing Perry of wanting to do any of these things because I don’t believe he has given them a moment of thought. And that’s the problem for conservatives. Their movement has been overtaken by a quite literally mindless opposition to government. Perry, correctly, thought he had a winning sound bite, had he managed to blurt it out, because if you just say you want to scrap government departments (and three is a nice, round number), many conservatives will cheer without asking questions.
CSM and the pollsters speak:
Walmart moms' view of Washington politics:
Newhouse: "These women are frustrated.... They look at Wall Street getting bailed out, [and they ask], 'Who's paying my electric bill?' They see a government activism that doesn't impact them directly. They want their share. They want some focus on them as individuals and fighting their battle."
How candidates can reach out to Walmart moms:
Ms. Omero: "What any candidate can do is really speak directly to, 'What does [this policy] mean for you and your family?' The more the debate is about the back-and-forth wrangling in Washington, the less these moms are engaged. The more it is about what does this policy mean for [the fact they are] spending less at Christmas, making all these different cuts in [their] household budget ..., the more these moms will be engaged."