Punting the Pundits

“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.

Dean Baker: Fun With Paul Ryan and the Washington Post

The Washington Post really really hates Social Security. They hate Medicare almost as much. Therefore they are willing to give its critics space to say almost anything against the program (the real cause of September 11th) no matter how much they have to twist reality to make their case.

Today, Republican Representative Paul Ryan stepped up to the plate. The Post felt the need to give him an oped column after Paul Krugman cruelly subjected Mr. Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future” to a serious analysis last week. This violated the long accepted practice in elite Washington circles of not holding proponents of Social Security and Medicare cuts/privatization accountable for the things they say. It is therefore understandable the Post would quickly give a coveted oped slot to Mr. Ryan to make amends for such a grevious breach of protocol.

The rest of us may not have the power to invent the facts that would be needed to push our policies, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.

snip

Ryan concludes by telling readers that his proposal is “my sincere attempt to break the political paralysis on entitlement reform, to show that this challenge can be met – mathematically and politically – and to challenge those who disagree with my proposal to offer their own.”

In the forgiving spirit of Friday the 13th, I will not count the reference to sincerity as an inaccuracy. The 20 inaccuracies and 4 references to raiding Medicare can speak for themselves. Of course to the seniors who would be unable to afford decent health care if Mr. Ryan’s plan became law, his sincerity won’t make any difference.

But, I am happy to offer my own test of Mr. Ryan’s sincerity. How about giving Medicare beneficiaries the option to buy into the more efficient health care systems in Europe, Japan, and Canada. The beneficiaries and the taxpayers will split the savings. This leaves the current system intact for those who like it, while offering seniors who opt to go elsewhere for their health care the opportunity to pocket tens of thousands of dollars while saving taxpayers money as well. What’s wrong with giving people a choice, Mr. Ryan?

Robert Kuttner: Liberal criticism of Obama is out of tough-love

Liberals have criticized Obama mainly because he is bungling this opportunity, not because he isn’t as leftwing as some might like.

If his governing style and legislative achievements were producing either an economic recovery, or a sense on the part of distressed voters that he is their champion even if Republicans block his efforts, we would be cheering, never mind the details of his health reform.

snip

With his temporizing, Obama has left independent voters perplexed and the Democratic base dispirited. Democrats are now at risk of an epic legislative defeat this November, leaving Obama with even less running room to provide the recovery program that the country needs.

snip

So for the most part, liberals are criticizing our president out of tough love. We dearly want him to succeed. For if he fails, we fail.

And if Robert Gibbs, and the rest of Obama’s too-small insider circle mistake this benign exasperation for ideological purity, they are passing up a chance to rekindle the groundswell of enthusiasm that elected this president. It wouldn’t take all that much.

Eugene Robinson: GOP candidates unpredictable and wacky

The Republican Party’s candidate for governor of Colorado believes that bicycle paths  are “part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty.” The party’s Senate candidate in Nevada wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security — and has called for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations, though not because of the bicycle conspiracy. And the GOP’s Senate candidate in Connecticut once climbed into a professional wrestling ring and kicked a man in the crotch.

I could go on, but you get the point. Democrats may be facing a tough fight this fall, but Republicans are giving them plenty of material to work with.

David Wiegel: Crazy Enough To Win

Why Democrats shouldn’t feel overconfident about beating some of those wacky Republican nominees.

If Democrats think that the Republican Party’s base is committing ritual seppuku  by nominating Senate candidates like Rand Paul in Kentucky, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Ken Buck in Colorado, they have short memories. Four years ago, the smart set was in near-universal agreement: The Democratic base was nominating candidates who couldn’t win.

Nowhere was this more obvious than in New Hampshire. In 2006, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put its weight behind state legislator Jim Craig, seen as the best candidate to take on then-Rep. Jeb Bradley. Craig was challenged in the primary by Carol Shea-Porter, a liberal activist who won some glancing fame for being escorted from a George W. Bush rally wearing a T-shirt that read “Turn Your Back On Bush.”

snip

….Democrats haven’t yet fully engaged. This campaign season has yet to see any truly despicable negative ads, and Republicans in 2010 may be more vulnerable to them than Democrats were in 2006. The “crazy” thing about Carol Shea-Porter was that she passionately opposed the Iraq war. Lucky for her, so did New Hampshire. The “crazy” thing about Angle, by contrast, is that she wants to privatize Social Security, and she’s trying to fight back by disingenuously pretending that she doesn’t.

Still, the success of Shea-Porter-or is it the failure of Jeb Bradley?-should give Democrats pause. “I don’t think anybody in Washington thought I could possibly lose, and I lost,” said Bradley. “For everybody who says Sharron Angle or Rand Paul can’t win, there’s a Jeb Bradley who can prove them wrong.”

Michael Gerson: Republicans are ramping up the birthright battle

The final state to ratify the 14th Amendment was Ohio — in September 2003. The Ohio Legislature had passed the amendment in 1867 but rescinded its approval a year later, claiming it was “contrary to the best interests of the white race.” When Ohio finally rectified this embarrassing bit of history, just one legislator — Republican state Rep. Tom Brinkman from Cincinnati — voted against it. His opposition was viewed as an isolated curiosity.

Now another Ohio politician, Rep. John Boehner, the House minority leader, questions the centerpiece commitment of the 14th Amendment: birthright citizenship. He is joined by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), along with Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Edward Schumacher-Matos: ‘Enforcement first’ has already happened on border with Mexico

We were eight Mexican peasants, one smuggler and me — desperately stretched out in dirt furrows in the night. The Border Patrol helicopter with its huge searchlight kept coming closer. It stopped, hovered and turned the other way.

“Madre,” whispered Pablo, who at 17 was the youngest among us.

We took off running, then crawling past a parked Border Patrol jeep that was so close you could hear the patrol officers as they booked a group they had caught. Finally, two hours after squirming under a fence in Tijuana, we were running down empty streets in San Ysidro, Calif., to a safe house and America.

This was in 1977, and I retell the story from my days as a reporter to make three points as Congress, moving with surprising speed, is sending the president $600 million in emergency border enforcement funding.

One is that the border will never be “sealed,” as some want. Two is that “enforcement first,” which Republican legislators are demanding, has already happened. Three is that illegal immigration won’t stop until there is a temporary worker program and those already here have been legalized.