Gerald Seib:
Amid the Great Depression of the 1930s, the country moved sharply to the left politically, then stayed there.
Amid the Deep Recession of 2008, the country zigged to the left, but now seems to be zagging back to the right.
Why the difference?
Loss of confidence in big institutions, maybe.
CBS:
Ruth Marcus:
Has Sarah Palin learned anything since she was plucked from obscurity almost two years ago? Not that I can tell.
Jill Lawrence:
Republicans are relying on 30-year-old economic ideas to catapult them to congressional majorities in the November midterm elections. But that's a risky business, given that so many Americans remain strung out with anxiety over money, jobs and health insurance.
LA Times:
President Obama paid a rare visit Tuesday to Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, seeking their support on energy, immigration and other top-priority measures. But he hit a buzz saw of criticism and resentment that bodes poorly for the remainder of his legislative agenda.
In the tense closed-door meeting, Obama told Senate Republicans he did not want legislative business to grind to a halt just because an election was approaching, and asked for their cooperation on ratifying the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, confirming Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court and passing legislation to improve the economy.
But at least one angry Republican accused Obama of treating members of the opposition like political props, saying the president's bipartisan words have repeatedly been followed by partisan deeds on such issues as regulation of Wall Street, healthcare and economic stimulus.
"I told him I thought there was a degree of audacity in him showing up today," said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who accused the administration of sabotaging efforts to write a bipartisan Wall Street bill. "I asked him how he was able to reconcile that duplicity."
Republicans are amazing. Refuse to cooperate, by policy, in writing, then accuse the opposition of refusing to cooperate. This is yet another reason the GOP will do less well than they say they will, despite the above stories. Americans are aware the Republicans have no interest in governing. The GOP will help Democrats get reelected more than Democrats will help Democrats.
Maggie Fox (Reuters):
A "headless" version of the influenza virus protected mice from several different strains of flu and may offer a step toward a so-called universal flu vaccine, researchers reported on Tuesday.
They identified a piece of the virus that appears to be the same even among mutated strains, and found a way to make it into a vaccine.
Years of work lie ahead but if it works in people the way it worked in mice, the new vaccine might transform the way people are now immunized against influenza, the team at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York reported.
Maggie's one of the very good science writers.
Tish Durkin:
As the mother of a child with autism, I have a message for Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the tireless prophet of the theory that vaccines cause autism: please go away.
There is, alas, absolutely no reason to hope that Wakefield will do any such thing. In fact, on Monday, the day he was struck from the medical register in his native United Kingdom, the not-so-good doctor plainly told the "Today" show: "These children are not going away, these parents are not going away, and I am certainly not going away."...
Now, through the miracle of the Internet, I sit in my Irish house and get to know a tribe of people who seem to need to believe that their children have been poisoned on purpose.
Pretty bizarre, but conspiracy theorists are everywhere.