“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
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Lydia Netzer: The Man in the Moon
MOST technological advances are actually just improvements. One thing builds on the next: from shoddy to serviceable, from helpful to amazing. First you had a carriage, then a car, and then an airplane; now you have a jet. You improve on what is there. Technological advances are like that.
Except for the one that involved landing on the Moon. When a human went and stood on the Moon and looked back at the Earth, that was a different kind of breakthrough. Nothing tangible changed when Neil Armstrong’s foot dug into the lunar dust and his eyes turned back at us. We didn’t get faster wheels or smaller machines or more effective medicine. But we changed, fundamentally. What had been unknown, was known. What had been unseen was seen. And our human horizon popped out 200,000 miles. Forever, we would see the Earth differently, because we had seen it from someplace truly foreign.
This is why Mars is important. When we get a human to Mars – in the next few decades, NASA has predicted – our horizon will expand 1,000 times farther, and it will never go back.
New York Times Editorial: The Storm, Again
Tropical Storm Isaac is more than just a logistical inconvenience for Republicans gathered in Tampa: it is a powerful reminder both of Republican incompetence in handling Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, and the party’s no-less-disastrous plans to further cut emergency-related spending.
That is not something you will hear Paul Ryan talk about this week at the convention, nor any of the other lawmakers who make simplistic promises about the power of slashing government spending. But the budgets assembled by Mr. Ryan and warmly embraced by Mitt Romney severely cut spending for emergency preparedness, exactly the kind of money needed in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and scores of other states for this and future storms. [..]
One of the themes of the Tampa convention will be the failure of government, and the prosperity that will result if it is cut to ribbons. But in a different corner of the television screen, the winds of Isaac are a reminder of the necessity of government – its labor, its expertise, its money – in the nation’s most dire moments. It is hard to forget what happened to New Orleans when that Republican philosophy was followed in 2005, and it will be harder still to explain how it might be allowed to happen again.
There is nothing Republicans would rather the American people forget more than George W. Bush, who doesn’t even have a bit-part at the GOP convention opening in Tampa.
But W’s ghost may be there, anyway.
The National Weather Service says tropical storm Isaac is now heading for New Orleans, and Isaac is projected to become a Category 1 hurricane by the time it makes landfall late Monday or early Tuesday.
Isaac is very likely to revive memories of the Bush administration’s monumental incompetence in dealing with the needs of Americans caught in Hurricane Katrina.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: Why Is God Punishing The GOP With Storms? Three Wrath-Provoking Possibilities
When Hurricane Gunter tormented Republicans during their 2008 convention, one of the ecancellations caused by the storm was a speech from outgoing President George W. Bush. He’s the one who famously said he didn’t need to ask his ex-President Dad for advice because “there is a higher Father I appeal to.”
Apparently that Father didn’t find President Bush all that appealing. In fact, the storm’s path shifted away from the convention immediately after his speech was cancelled. Hello, down there, is anybody listening?
This year’s Republican Convention is also being forced to shorten and change its schedule as a fearsome wind and rain bears down from the ocean. “ … A destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet.” The theological world is ablaze with speculation about what might have motivated God to send a hurricane against the Republican Party’s National Convention for the second time in a row.
Okay, maybe it’s not ablaze with speculation. But it should be. After all, it was Republican preacher Pat Robertson who expressed the idea that hurricanes and storms are God’s way of registering disapproval with ghuman behavior. By that reasoning, it’s clear that the GOP has displeased the Supreme Being again mightily this year.
But why? Unlike some, we claim no special answers about the nature of ultimate reality or the Deity, much less the specifics of His preferred policy proposals. But here are three possible sources for all this windborne wrath: [..]
Roger Cohen; Obama’s Team of Idolizers
NEW YORK – When Barack Obama was on the presidential campaign trail the first time, he used the title of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lincoln biography, “Team of Rivals,” to describe the entourage he would seek at the White House, a combative group from across the political spectrum who would challenge his every idea. [..]
Well, four years have passed and Obama has adroitly steered the bankrupted United States he inherited away from the precipice but has not provided a “different future” worthy of the hope invested in him; and that imagined team of rivals became a team, or rather a coterie, of idolizers.
There is only one star in the galaxy at this White House and his name is Barack Obama. Everyone in the Sun King’s court has drunk the Kool-Aid.
Eugene Robinson: The Great Medicare Switcheroo
TAMPA, Fla.-Who knew? In the hall-of-mirrors parallel universe where the Republican National Convention is taking place, the GOP stands tall and proud as the party of Medicare.
I’m still a little confused about the historical timeline in this alternate reality. Was it President Goldwater who signed into law the nation’s health care guarantee for seniors? Was it President Dole who made sure the program remained solvent? Did John McCain win in 2008?
It must be that in RNC World, the past simply doesn’t exist. There is no other explanation for all the Great Society rhetoric coming from Republicans who once claimed to favor small government, limited entitlements and a balanced budget.
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