- I'm highly wary of ideological purity tests as a means of maintaining partisan loyalty. But perhaps Democrats might want to consider some minimum policy comprehension threshold for politicians who wish to claim to be Democrats. Take Evan Bayh, for instance. Here's someone whose big idea for economic recovery is a spending freeze -- much as the GOP proposed early last year. Quite apart from the issue of whether this is sane economic policy (it isn't) Does Bayh even deserve to call himself a Democrat when his economic ideas grant legitimacy to Republican dogma on taxes and spending? Then there's alleged Democrat Harold Ford, whose four-part economic "plan" is best understood by the following illustration:
- Meanwhile, for the rest of the country not flying around New York in helicopters and receiving estate inheritance, the situation is bleak, and getting worse. The political leadership of the richest country on Earth is incapable of addressing the fact that nearly a third of its population is living at or below 200 percent of the poverty line and that the bulk of this new growth is suburban.
- It's hardly a surprise that Bush-bashing has ceased to be an electoral winner for Democrats (or at least it's perceived that way by party strategists) but that doesn't mean the public shouldn't be reminded that the policies of deregulation, tax cuts, asset bubbles, union-busting and corporate largesse which are the cornerstone of Republican economic management brought about the economic crisis and certainly won't get us out.
- I find it amusing that perhaps the chief innovation of today's movement conservatives, as opposed to their 1950s and 60s forebears, is to gravely warn the world about the threat of global communism in the absence of any actual global communist movement. You see something similar on display with the ceaseless warnings about liberal indoctrination in the academy when all along it was just the inclination of liberals to become university professors in the first place.
- Weekend Remainders: The Obama administration did not have a Plan B; Ben Nelson, unsurprisingly, joins the health care Coward Caucus; Jon Meacham has deep insights into how the public feels about the president; Harry Reid believes ending the filibuster would cripple the U.S. Senate; Simon Johnson recommends Paul Krugman for the Fed chair; The Economist leaps boldly into the 21st century; and imbibe, deeply, from the confessions of Rush Limbaugh.
--Mori Dinauer
