Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Monday... time to go back to work, pundits.

Paul Krugman:

The idea that tight fiscal policy when the economy is depressed actually reduces private investment isn’t just a hypothetical argument: it’s exactly what happened in two important episodes in history.

The first took place in 1937, when Franklin Roosevelt mistakenly heeded the advice of his own era’s deficit worriers. He sharply reduced government spending, among other things cutting the Works Progress Administration in half, and also raised taxes. The result was a severe recession, and a steep fall in private investment.

The second episode took place 60 years later, in Japan. In 1996-97 the Japanese government tried to balance its budget, cutting spending and raising taxes. And again the recession that followed led to a steep fall in private investment.

Neal Gabler: Goldwater-Reagan-Bush? Nah. McCarthy-Nixon-Reagan-Bush-Palin.

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That's why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama's relationship with onetime radical William Ayers.

Roger Cohen: Bringing some tough love (make love, not war) to Israel would be a good thing for the new foreign policy team. Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli prime minister, thinks so.

William Kristol: Before he goes, Bush should pardon every fool patriot who thought torture was a good idea. And the public needs to pardon the biggest fool of all me for thinking Bush's legacy is capable of being polished.

William Kristol: I know, I know. You can't get enough of me. But if I keep yapping about terrorism and scaring people, I can prove Gabler right.

AP:

"I think he's moving center-left, rather than left-center. It's fair to call him pragmatic," said Paul Light, a public policy professor and presidential historian at New York University. "I think labor is going to get a lot from him. I think his liberal supporters are going to get a lot from him. But they're going to be disappointed if they want all liberal all the time."

David Yepsen: Huckabee and Jindal do Iowa.

These prescriptions come none too soon for the GOP. A Gallup poll taken after the November election and released last week showed "the Republican Party's image has gone from bad to worse" since the election. Only 34 percent of Americans say they have a favorable view of the party, and 61 percent view it unfavorably - the worst image rating in a decade.

By contrast, 55 percent view the Democratic Party with favor, and only 39 percent look upon that party unfavorably.

Matthew Alexander (interrogator):

Torture and abuse are against my moral fabric. The cliche still bears repeating: Such outrages are inconsistent with American principles. And then there's the pragmatic side: Torture and abuse cost American lives.

Julian Selizer: Americans are watching the extraordinary sight of two presidents working at once. And it's not a bad thing.

Andrew Malcom: What's a small donor? And only 32 months until the Ames [IA] straw poll. [original research here, h/t Scarce]