Sunday opinion - the "electing Republicans didn't fix anything" edition.
Frank Rich:
For [Jon] Stewart, the hyperpartisanship of the modern news media remains the nation’s curse. "The country’s 24-hour politico pundit panic conflict-onator did not cause our problems," he told the throngs at his rally to "restore sanity," but it "makes solving them that much harder." At Beck’s rally to "restore honor," the message seemed to be that America’s principal failing is a refusal to recognize that God "is our king." If Stewart’s antidote was more civility, Beck’s was more prayer.
Stewart’s point is indisputable as far as it goes. Beck’s, not so much: If prayer hasn’t cured this highly prayerful nation by now, it may be because our body politic has long since developed an immunity to it. But both rallies, for all the commotion they generated, have already faded to the status of quirky historical footnotes. The reason is that neither addressed the elephant in the room — or the donkey. That would be big money — the big money that dominates our political system, regardless of who’s in power. Two years after the economic meltdown, most Americans now recognize that that money has inexorably institutionalized a caste system where everyone remains (at best) mired in economic stasis except the very wealthiest sliver.
William D. Cohan:
Despite the very dire consequences of the latest financial crisis that Wall Street perpetrated on the world, America cannot seem to shake its infatuation with Wall Street bankers and traders.
We continue to shower them with riches, prestige and glory. We make movies about them. We write books about them. We seriously overpay and then envy them. This year alone, while millions of others suffer from the Great Recession, bankers and traders are expected to be paid — incredibly — another estimated $144 billion in compensation and benefits. Accordingly, Wall Street remains the No. 1 destination for our best and brightest.
It's Sutton's Law: that's where the money is.
Thomas Friedman:
On Nov. 19, Rasmussen Reports published results from a national telephone poll that showed that 47 percent of America’s likely voters said the nation’s "best days are in the past," 37 percent said they are in the future. Sixteen percent were undecided. Just before President Obama was inaugurated, 48 percent said our best days were still ahead and 35 percent said they had come and gone. This is a disturbing trend.
What’s driving it? Let me say what’s not driving it. It is not that millions of Americans suddenly started worrying about the national debt. Seriously, do you know anyone who says: "I couldn’t sleep last night. I was tossing and turning until dawn worrying that the national debt was now $14 trillion." Sorry, that only happens in contrived campaign ads.
Joseph Picard:
It's now as plain as the beard on Lincoln's chin. The Republican Party that Honest Abe helped to found - that is, in its current Limbaughian form -- does not give a hoot about American global security. All it wants to do is remove Barack Obama from the White House, and it does not care if its actions - that is, its inactions - wreck the painstakingly constructed goodwill between the U.S. and Russia and push the entire world back toward the shadow of possible nuclear annihilation.
Kathleen Parker:
In a political culture where moderation is the new heresy, centrism is fast becoming the new black.
Political outliers - not quite Republican, not quite Democrat - are forming new alliances in a communal search for "Home." Exhausted by extremism and aching for real change, more and more Americans are moving away from demagoguery and toward pragmatism.
Parker misses two gigantic points: that Obama is a centrist, and that when non-committed "centrist voters", however they are defined, actually vote (and vote with passion), they will have political power. Until then, we have the 2010 election results. As an answer, Parker highlights two conservatives (not moderates) to make the point - Bob Inglis, who lost in SC, and Lisa Murkowski, who won only in bizarre unreproducible circumstances in AK. That's not a winning ticket (and she left out Mike Castle in DE.)
All that's missing from a centrist movement that could be formidable is a leader.
There's two other things missing - voters willing to vote for them, and pundits willing to acknowledge how much harm the modern GOP has done to centrist politics (even when practiced by Democrats) by refusing to consider supporting them, labeling them socialist, and making them unacceptable to their base for short term political gain.
William G. Gale:
Five myths about cutting the deficit
- The United States is on the verge of a fiscal crisis.
- The deficit commissions should propose reforms that are politically viable.
- Social Security has a surplus, so it shouldn't be cut.
- We can balance the budget without raising taxes.
- A new short-term stimulus would be fiscally irresponsible.