Archive for October, 2013

A couple of notes on our political lexicon: “national security” and “entitlements”

The reprieve that ended the government shutdown and forestalled default mandated that Congress come to agreement on a federal budget plan.  As Democrats and Republicans grope toward an elusive Grand compromise, two categories of spending are certain to come under ...

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So, how did the Republicans get so crazy? (II)

In an earlier post (Oct. 7) I asked the question: how did the Republican Party get so crazy? and answered it in part by tracing the gradual triumph of the radical right over the moderate establishment in internal Republican politics.   ...

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The Times and the Republican Civil War

Yesterday’s New York Times had a lengthy article on an intensifying battle for control of the Republican Party.   On one side is the party establishment, which prefers to eschew the kind of extremist tactics that culminated in the party’s embarrassing ...

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Business and the “Conservatives”

Just a quick post today, since I can’t help noting that a front-page article in todays New York Times recalls points that I made earlier this week. The article relates how various business organizations in the US—including such traditionally right-wing ...

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What’s moderate?

Yesterday’s New York Times had a sympathetic front-page feature article on Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, focusing on Dent’s role as one of the small band of Republicans who have indicated a willingness to vote for a “clean” (i.e., no ...

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What’s at Stake

Serious people tend not to read New York Magazine, so I imagine most of my readers haven’t seen Jonathan Chait’s excellent commentary on the current political impasse.  As a service, then, I’m passing on relevant excerpts.  Like Sullivan’s last week, ...

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So, how did the Republicans get so crazy?

The government is largely shut down, and a debt crisis looms.  How did we get into this mess?  Since the mess is entirely due to the Republican Party’s crazed radicalism, the question amounts to “How did the Republican Party get ...

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The Nullification Party

I don’t feel a need to say anything today about the current Washington impasse because the unorthodox conservative Andrew Sullivan has  expressed many of my own views so well and concisely.   Here are excerpts from his blog yesterday: How does one party that ...

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Equivalent Extremisms?

Joe Nocera does a pretty good job on the Republicans in his NY Times op-ed today, but he spoils it near the end with this piece of nonsense: A party controlled by its most extreme faction will ultimately be forced ...

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