Charlie Cook:
Welcome to Washington! Having spent last weekend at an investment conference where top-notch tax and budget experts and economists warned about this country's impending fiscal crisis, I found it perfectly natural to hear Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, one of the most moderate and pragmatic, not to mention decent, members of Congress, throw up his hands and virtually say, "This place sucks. I'm outta here!" The two-term senator from Indiana pointed to the defeat of a Senate bill a few weeks ago that would have created a federal budget deficit-reduction commission charged with developing a set of recommendations that Congress would have to adopt or reject as a whole; it would work much like the base-closure commissions that enabled Congress to deal with the dicey issue of mothballing military bases that were no longer needed.
Fifty-three senators voted in favor of the commission, seven short of the 60 needed. The 46 opponents were evenly divided between the parties, 23 from each side voting against doing what needed to be done. Clearly, Congress is no longer capable of dealing with our country's biggest problem, but it won't allow creation of the only mechanism that could possibly solve it. Democrats and Republicans are equally culpable. Well, that's just great.
Ain't it, though? But about that "equally culpable" thing...
WaPo:
Emboldened by a belief that their political fortunes are on the rise, conservative activists descended Thursday on the capital city they love to hate, seeking to stoke what they consider a grass-roots uprising against President Obama and Democrats in Congress.
Michael Gerson:
It does not fit Palinism, which, in spite of populist excesses, usually swims in the conservative mainstream. It does not even fit the polling of Tea Party activists and sympathizers, who report a fairly typical range of conservative views. The Tea Party movement, on the whole, seems to be an intensification of conservative activism, not the triumph of the paranoid style of politics.
But the birthers and Birchers, militias and nativists, racists and conspiracy theorists do exist. Some, having waited decades in deserved obscurity, hope to ride a populist movement like remoras. But there are others, new to political engagement, who have found paranoia and anger intoxicating. They watch Glenn Beck rail against the omnipresent threat of Saul Alinsky, read Ayn Rand's elevation of egotism and contempt for the weak, listen to Ron Paul attacking the Federal Reserve cabal, and suddenly their resentments become ordered into a theory. Such theories, in politics, can act like a drug, causing addiction, euphoria and psychedelic departures from reality.
Important observation from a tea party defender and conservative columnist.
Paul Krugman:
Health insurance premiums are surging — and conservatives fear that the spectacle will reinvigorate the push for reform. On the Fox Business Network, a host chided a vice president of WellPoint, which has told California customers to expect huge rate increases: "You handed the politicians red meat at a time when health care is being discussed. You gave it to them!"
David Brooks:
It could be that Americans actually feel less connected to their leadership class now than they did then, with good reason.
Yep. It may well be.
The Economist:
Broad support from the voters is something that both the health bill and the cap-and-trade bill clearly lack. Democrats could have a health bill tomorrow if the House passed the Senate version. Mr Obama could pass a lot of green regulation by executive order. It is not so much that America is ungovernable, as that Mr Obama has done a lousy job of winning over Republicans and independents to the causes he favours. If, instead of handing over health care to his party’s left wing, he had lived up to his promise to be a bipartisan president and courted conservatives by offering, say, reform of the tort system, he might have got health care through; by giving ground on nuclear power, he may now stand a chance of getting a climate bill. Once Mr Clinton learned the advantages of co-operating with the Republicans, the country was governed better.
I love science fiction, don't you?