Monday, November 7, 2011

The GOP Circus

David Remnick:
The Obama-Clinton race in 2008 did not want for spectacle—it was like a full-employment plan for journalists—but, on the whole, it was a revealing contest between serious candidates. Who among the Republicans this time around is serious? Last week, while the carny caravan blared in Iowa, New Hampshire, and beyond, the business of governing in Washington, D.C., included the complexities of reviving a failed economy; Greek and Italian debt debates; the uprising in Yemen; a crisis at UNESCO. Who among the Republicans would set aside pandering rhetoric to convince Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet that a unilateral strike against Iran and its nuclear program is a dangerous idea that courts regional war? Who would set aside magical thinking about tax cuts and propose something more than scams like “9-9-9”? The notion that you can cut everyone’s taxes and fix the deficit belongs to the same Kardashian world in which you can collect wedding gifts without the burdens of marriage—a tempting scenario but, in the end, a hot slice of nothing.
You don’t have to agree with Barack Obama on every particular, or on much at all, to admit that the spectacle of the Republican field is a reflection of the hollowness in the G.O.P. itself.
I would like to believe that half of the country wouldn't actually vote for one of the Republican candidates for president.  I would really like to believe that, but I just can't.  Americans love magical thinking, especially when the alternative is to deal (painfully) with actual problems.  I am extremely concerned about what news we will be facing on the morning of November 7, 2012.

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