In Other Times

Modern Moderates
It's interesting to see Obama's political metamorphosis from proud, progressive "community organizer" -- a term that has since been adopted by his opposition as an insult -- to a president who has led the country, as political scientist Keith Poole calculates, as "the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II." (Huffington Post, 2/9/2012)


Among the moderate things that Obama has done are: a nationalized health care program, a massive government stimulus, billions on boutique green energy projects, denying the Keystone oil pipeline, stopping offshore drilling, forcing contraception on Catholic institutions, imposition of massive new regulation on the financial sector, etc.


We simply cannot have an honest political debate in this country if Liberals continue to insist that Obama is a moderate.


Short and Frozen
They also agreed to shorten the terms of collective bargaining agreements, freeze private sector salary increases until unemployment drops below 10 percent from its current 19 percent, loosen job protections in the public sector and by the end of 2015 cut 150,000 jobs from the government payroll of 800,000. (NYT, 2/9/2012)


Do Liberals - including those pushing for recall in Wisconsin - recognize that even in Greece the solution to massive government overspending involves cutting the goodies for public sector employees?


Notional
The notion that Obama wants to turn the United States into a “European-style entitlement society” is laughable. It’s not even a fair description of Europe, which boasts of some highly productive and innovative capitalist economies. (E.J. Dionne, Washington Post, 1/15/2012)


But crisis has given way to a grinding reality for Europe: economic stagnation and even, for much of the Continent, the specter of another downturn less than three years after the last recession ended. (NYT, 2/9/2012)


Liberals love Europe, but they see it through colored lenses.