-- Leonard Pitts Jr. in the
Baltimore Sun on some of the consequences of the unhinged blather on the right:
"Unfortunately, for every [blind squirrel Kathleen] Parker or [Bobby "Kenneth"] Jindal, there is a Donald Trump urging revolution or a petition drive advocating secession from the Union. And just when you think you've heard it all, just when you think you could not possibly be more astonished at how panic-stricken and estranged from reality much of the political right now is, there comes word of Henry Hamilton's suicide. [snip]
"Sometimes, they act -- the Hannitys, the O'Reillys, the Trumps, the Limbaughs, the whole conservative political infotainment complex -- as if this were all a game, as if their nonstop litany of half truths, untruths and fear mongering, their echo chamber of studied outrage, practiced panic and intellectual incoherence had no human consequences. Sometimes, they behave as if it were morally permissible -- indeed, morally required -- to say whatever asinine, indefensible, coarse or outrageous thing comes to mind in the name of defeating or diminishing the dreaded left. And never mind that vulnerable people might hear this and shape their beliefs accordingly."
-- E.J Dionne Jr. in the
Kaplan Daily on what a second term might mean for President Obama and the nation:
"Speeding the general economic recovery will solve some of these problems, but Obama needs an unapologetically large and unified program of economic uplift, including policies on taxes, education, training and infrastructure investment. He should also look to how new approaches to innovation, unionization, immigration, trade, research and science can contribute to both growth and justice.
"Obama has already talked about elements of such a program but he needs to go bigger, pull the pieces together and make the New Prosperity the central objective of his second term."
-- Paul Krugman in the
New York Times on Twinkie nostalgia, the "fiscal cliff," and the Rethuglican maker/ moocher id:
"Today, of course, the mansions, armies of servants and yachts are back, bigger than ever — and any hint of policies that might crimp plutocrats’ style is met with cries of 'socialism.' Indeed, the whole Romney campaign was based on the premise that President Obama’s threat to modestly raise taxes on top incomes, plus his temerity in suggesting that some bankers had behaved badly, were crippling the economy. Surely, then, the far less plutocrat-friendly environment of the 1950s must have been an economic disaster, right?
"Actually, some people thought so at the time. Paul Ryan and many other modern conservatives are devotees of Ayn Rand. Well, the collapsing, moocher-infested nation she portrayed in 'Atlas Shrugged,' published in 1957, was basically Dwight Eisenhower’s America."
