Visual Source: Newseum
Frank Bruni looks at the author of so much of our misery.
Either way, Norquist has emerged as the most visible mouthpiece and muse of the lower-taxes, less-government troops that have played a major role in the debt crisis. And he provides a handy window into them.
His assessment of Obama was succinct: “The president of the United States is a left-wing ideologue.”
His analysis of the Democratic Party’s values and tactics was unambiguous — and uncomplicated by the deficits racked up under Obama’s predecessor.
“Their game plan has always been spend, spend, spend, then come and ask Republicans to be responsible and raise taxes,” he said.
Ah, Grover. The world is so much simpler if you just start with a first principle of having no principles.
The New York Times points out that while we're all distracted by an artificial crisis, there are real economic issues that need attention.
The second-quarter growth number, a feeble 1.3 percent annual rate, is not nearly enough to stop unemployment from rising even higher.
Nor are there persuasive signs that absent more government support, conditions will turn around anytime soon. Indeed, they are bound to worsen if Congress approves deep near-term spending cuts as part of a debt-limit deal while letting relief and recovery measures expire.
Of course, making things
worse is exactly what the GOP wants. If it takes soup lines to give them the ammo they need against Obama, soup lines there will be.
Thomas Friedman whines for the return of the sensible economics of Bush. Poppa Bush. You know, the guy who rightly declared Reagan's approach "voodoo economics," then signed on as it's chief promoter.
Sam Tanenhaus pays a visit to the opinion page from his usual place over in book reviews to talk about the subject that will not die.
But here is a disquieting fact: In one version or another, this conflict, centered on protest against the federal debt, has been going on almost since the beginning of the Republic.
Pollster Stanley B. Greenberg says that voters are not moving to Democrats, even when Republicans have consistently failed to deliver.
It’s perplexing. When unemployment is high, and the rich are getting richer, you would think that voters of average means would flock to progressives, who are supposed to have their interests in mind — and who historically have delivered for them.
During the last half-century or so, when a Democratic president has led the country, people have tended to experience lower unemployment, less inequality and rising income compared with periods of Republican governance. There is a reason, however, that many voters in the developed world are turning away from Democrats, Socialists, liberals and progressives.
...
voters feel ever more estranged from government — and that they associate Democrats with government. If Democrats are going to be encumbered by that link, they need to change voters’ feelings about government.
Kathleen Parker doesn't exactly go along with the script from Boehner and McConnell's press conference today.
Take names. Remember them. The behavior of certain Republicans who call themselves Tea Party conservatives makes them the most destructive posse of misguided “patriots” we’ve seen in recent memory.
If the nation defaults on its financial obligations, the blame belongs to the Tea Party Republicans who fragged their own leader, John Boehner.
Of course, Parker's not saying the GOP was wrong to hold the country hostage and take this moment to give even more to those who have more. She's only sad that Boehner's incompetence held up deliver of the latest fruit basket for billionaires.
George Will continues his ever lengthening and ever stranger vacation from reality, this week splitting his drool cup between admiring the intelligence of Michele Bachmann and longing for a libertarian revolution.
Washington Post Obudsman, Patrick Pexton looks into Jennifer Rubin's posts on the tragedy in Oslo and concludes that an apology is in order. An apology to Rubin.
In a long chat with Rubin last week, I found her forceful and unrepentant, yet not unreasonable. She is not an ogre or a racist. And she does not deserve some of the calumny she got. Some of the e-mail she received was way over the line — ugly, obscene, vile and, worst, containing threats of physical harm.
This brings us back to the shootings in Norway, an act committed by a disturbed man who drew some of his inspiration from extremist Web sites. A blogosphere given to vitriol and hasty judgments ought to consider the possible consequences of its own online attacks.
See, we're the problem, not Rubin. Thank you, Mr. Ombudsman. It's no wonder you're so well respected for your insight and balance.
Eugene Robinson's post this week has already appeared in APR. And look. Here it is again.
Conservatives are on a winning streak because they have a Big Idea that serves as an animating, motivating, unifying force. It happens to be a very bad idea, but it’s better than nothing — which, sadly, is what progressives have.
I have nothing against compromise. The nation is built on compromise. But unless you have a position to compromise
from there's no difference between compromise and surrender, and we're about to surrender. Again.
