E.J. Dionne: The Canary in the GOP Coal Mine

[marmar]

from truthdig:




The Canary in the GOP Coal Mine

Posted on Jun 5, 2011
By E.J. Dionne, Jr.


STRATHAM, N.H.—The bales of hay were stacked strategically in the hope that they’d make it into the television screen. The sturdy white barn nearby provided an image worthy of a Christmas card, the symbol of a solid, calm, industrious and confident country. The slogan behind the candidate, “Believe in America,” did not invite debate.

Whatever the punditocracy may have made of Mitt Romney’s formal announcement of his presidential candidacy last week, we could all give the guy credit for trying to reassure us that not everything in politics has changed.

In an age of media flying circuses where you never know who is running for president and who is just trying to boost book sales and speaking fees, Romney did it the old-fashioned way. He really, really wants to be president, and he offered pretty pictures to encourage us to watch him saying so. It was the venerable liturgy of our civil religion.

Unfortunately for Romney, he barely got his moment in the sun because dark clouds rolled in. Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani showed up in New Hampshire on the former Massachusetts governor’s magical day, underscoring why Romney is plagued by the word “putative,” which almost always appears before the word “front-runner.” ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_canary_in_the_gop_coal_mine_20110605/

[Stuart G]

1. Outstanding K and R

from that article...E.J. wrote,...

"Are we less “free” because we spend money on public schools and student loans, Medicare and Medicaid, police and firefighters, roads and transit, national defense and environmental protection? Would we be “freer” if government spent zero percent of the economy and just stopped doing things? "

[Kolesar]

2. Romney has been backed into defending the absurd position that satirist Steven Colbert expouses

:thumbsup: E. J. Dionne:

Yet it was Romney himself who betrayed contemporary conservatism’s core flaw. “Did you know,” he asked, “that government—federal, state and local—under President Obama, has grown to consume almost 40 percent of our economy? We’re only inches away from ceasing to be a free economy.”

Actually, the federal government of which Obama is in charge “consumes” about a quarter of the economy—and this after a severe recession, when government’s share naturally goes up.

But even granting Romney his addition of spending by all levels of government, the notion that we are “inches away from ceasing to be a free economy” is worse than absurd. It suggests that the only way we measure whether an economy and a country are “free” is by toting up how much government spends.

Are we less “free” because we spend money on public schools and student loans, Medicare and Medicaid, police and firefighters, roads and transit, national defense and environmental protection? Would we be “freer” if government spent zero percent of the economy and just stopped doing things?

:thumbsup: Colbert:

The federal government should spend on two things: (1) national defense and (2) nothing else.