Lurching With Abandon
by Bob Herbert
Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He’s lurching right when it suits him, and he’s zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.
There he was in Zanesville, Ohio, pandering to evangelicals by promising not just to maintain the Bush program of investing taxpayer dollars in religious-based initiatives, but to expand it. Separation of church and state? Forget about it.
Wish Upon a Pump
If only we had listened to Carter instead of Reagan
by Richard Cohen
Reaganism — to which Republicans now swear allegiance — has outlived its very short usefulness and ought to be junked. This is not to say that government is the answer to all our ills. It is only to note that if you think the answer is private enterprise, then drive to the nearest gas station and admire the prices brought to you by private companies.
The worst part of Reaganism was its political success. It left behind a coterie of panting acolytes who learned from Reagan himself that optimism, cheerfulness, an embrace of magical thinking and the avoidance of the painful truth was the formula for victory at the polls.
Scorned, Ignored, and Right
by Stephen Pizzo
Have you forgotten what real leadership and real straight talk look and sound like? No wonder.
Well here’s a refreshing refresher course. Back in 1977 the much maligned, President Jimmy Carter, showed genuine leadership and political courage, two traits almost entirely missing from today’s “leaders.” Following the Arab oil boycott of 1973, Carter took a cold, hard look at world oil supplies and declared them a national security threat just waiting to happen. He laid out a vision of what must be done, and done quickly to avoid just such a threat to America’s robust, but excessive, lifestyle. Carter, as was his wonkish wont, laid out both his vision and his solutions in painstaking detail in a prime-time television address.
It was filled with hard truths and bitter pills, neither of which pampered Americans had (and still have) no use for and conservatives scorn as “defeatism” and “surrender.” On a ship of fools it’s always “full speed ahead — and stop with the iceberg business! Yahooooooo.”
|
