Krugman has a well-titled must-read, “The Gullible Center” for all your friends who identify themselves as “centrists” and worship at the church of false equivalence. Among Krugman’s insightful observations: “…Centrists should be lavishing praise on the leading politician who best fits that description — a fellow named Barack Obama…But the “centrists” who weigh in on policy debates are playing a different game. Their self-image, and to a large extent their professional selling point, depends on posing as high-minded types standing between the partisan extremes, bringing together reasonable people from both parties — even if these reasonable people don’t actually exist. And this leaves them unable either to admit how moderate Mr. Obama is or to acknowledge the more or less universal extremism of his opponents on the right.”
The Economist shreds the “slippery slope” arguments against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, interestingly enough from a conservative point of view.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s “Obama levels straight shots at Supreme Court and Ryan budget” has a spot-on comment regarding Obama’s Spring offensive, noting, “Progressives would be wildly irresponsible if they sat by quietly while a conservative Supreme Court majority undid 80 years of jurisprudence. Roosevelt wasn’t a wimp, and Obama has decided that he won’t be one, either. Conservatives are unhappy because they prefer passive, intimidated liberals to the fighting kind.”
Chris Cillizza quotes Democratic pollster Dave Beattie: “A common thread that reflects this populism is the anger at out-of-control big government echoed by the tea party and the anger at out-of-control big business echoed by the Occupy movement,” said Dave Beattie, a Democratic pollster. “The commonality of ‘anti-big’ ties both together.” Except true populism recognizes that “Big government” is more of a political hallucination with respect to the U.S., compared to other industrial democracies.
Wanna help expose the funding behind Super-PAC’s? ProPublica has a way you can do it.
Dems will be encouraged by a Demos report, “Corporations Under Pressure To Curb Political Spending,” noting that Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Kraft have dumped their memberships in ALEC thanks to a corporate accountability campaign led by Color of Change and revelations that ALEC is behind the “stand your ground laws.” A “Shareholder Spring” lies ahead, with actions at Bank of America, Target, Sallie Mae, 3M, and other companies.
I get Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver’s point that amped-up rhetoric like “War on Women’ can turn off some potential swing voters, but I think it’s more for women to decide if it’s too much of an exaggeration. But there’s not much room for doubt that GOP policies contribute to violence toward women.
David M. Shribman’s “The Republican political battles you cannot see” in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette takes a peek at the ‘class struggle’ inside the GOP between the ‘managerial wing’ and the ‘movement conservatives.’ He also notes the internal contradiction of a party “chary of government involvement in the economy but open to government restrictions in social and cultural life,” a bit of a problem for libertarian-leaning Republicans.
Here we go with Romney’s bogus march to the political center. Thomas B. Edsall’s “Romney the Centrist” at the NYT has an analysis.
