Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up

Your one stop pundit shop.

Bob Herbert:

The American dream was alive and well and seemingly unassailable. But somehow, following the oil shocks, the hyperinflation and other traumas of the 1970s, Americans allowed the right-wingers to get a toehold — and they began the serious work of smothering the dream.  [...]

The right-wingers were crafty: You smother the dream by crippling the programs that support it, by starving the government of money to pay for them, by funneling the government’s revenues to the rich through tax cuts and other benefits, by looting the government the way gangsters loot legitimate businesses and then pleading poverty when it comes time to fund the services required by the people.  [...]

Now, with the economy in free fall and likely to get worse, Americans — despite their suffering — have an opportunity to reshape the society, and then to move it in a fairer, smarter and ultimately more productive direction. That is the only way to revive the dream, but it will take a long time and require great courage and sacrifice.

The right-wingers do not want that to happen, which is why they are rooting so hard for President Obama’s initiatives to fail. They like the direction that the country took over the past 30 years. They’d love to do it all again.

David Brooks:

The G.O.P. leaders have adopted a posture that allows the Democrats to make all the proposals while all the Republicans can say is “no.” They’ve apparently decided that it’s easier to repeat the familiar talking points than actually think through a response to the extraordinary crisis at hand.

Richard Cohen:

This is a tricky, auspicious moment for a young president. He is ending one century, beginning another. Concisely, he essentially laid out his approach to foreign policy in a blurb for a recently reissued book by the late theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He wrote that he took away from Niebuhr's works "the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain." He added that "we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction."

This, then, is the Obama Doctrine: wisely, to have none at all.

Derrick Z. Jackson:

In his 2010 budget, President Obama wants $31.5 billion from oil companies over the next 10 years with new taxes and by closing tax loopholes. This is a mere $3.15 billion a year, but the oil execs still say Obama is the creature stealing their black lagoon. [...]

Americans should be flabbergasted that the industry most in the black has the nerve to cry as millions of Americans are seeing pink and sinking into the red. Obama's proposal, if anything, is relatively modest.

Leonard Pitts:

As many pundits and even party officials have noted, given the dramatic cultural and demographic changes under way in this country, the GOP faces a real possibility of being reduced to a regional party of limited national relevance unless it broadens its appeal beyond angry white men living primarily in the states of the old Confederacy. That being the case, why are they kissing the ring of the angry white man who broadcasts from West Palm Beach?  [...]

The GOP has reliably been able to woo them by demonizing gays, people of color, Muslims, feminists and anyone else who did not fit their white picket fence fantasies. But the changes afoot in our country suggest that won't work quite as well in the future as it has up till now. So it's all well and good if the party feels a need to apologize.

But they're facing the wrong way.

Barbara Brotman:

Anyone who yearned for a national conversation about domestic violence now has one.  [...]

But one element of the story has a particularly crucial lesson to teach.

To domestic violence experts, choking is not just another element in a brutal attack. It is a harbinger of potential murder.  [...]

Robyn Rihanna Fenty, 21, may wish that her private life were not so public. Brown, 19, who was charged last week with two felonies, may not appreciate the way his case will be followed and reported in detail.

But the spotlight that shines on celebrities can also light the way to knowledge. May this teachable moment educate us all, but particularly those trapped in darkness who need the lesson most.

Zeik Saidman:

It is our hope that the Alinsky legacy will continue as the next generation of idealistic young people develop the expertise to change lives for the better in the neighborhoods and barrios of the big cities, in the rural countryside and on the Native American reservations.

They will be the inheritors of the ground broken by Saul Alinsky that enables grassroots leaders from congregations and neighborhoods to be a powerful presence when decisions are being made about their lives.