"Why are there so few Ted Kennedys in Washington today?" asks the Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib. He answers:
In the past generation, the two parties have sorted out by ideology and by geography. They have moved steadily toward opposite ends of the political spectrum, leaving fewer moderate centrists from either party who can stand on the middle ground where compromises are made and deals are done.
"I think it has everything to do with the ideological polarization of the parties that began in the late '70s and built over a period of time, and the dominance of ideological thinking," says Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution who has studied this evolution. "It has now built to an extent, and to a point, where it becomes extremely difficult for someone to really stray" from either end of the spectrum.
Sen. Kennedy. . . was an unabashed liberal, yes, but also an iconic figure, secure in his place as senator-for-life from Massachusetts and free to set his own course.
2 comments:
Is this a joke?
The reason there are so few Kennedys in Washington today is because "lone nut jobs" -- like those showing up at Presidential town hall meetings on health care with assault weapons -- kept assassinating them.
I'll sit here and wait for the inevitable, if fallacious, "The left is as responsible for creating the murderous atmosphere in politics as the right" response.
Hey Bob,
Jack was killed by a "lone nut job" who was also a Communist sympathizer who lived in Moscow and tried to help Castro.
Bobby was killed by a "lone nut job" in one of the earliest terror incidents stemming from Muslim extremist hatred of US support for Israel.
Teddy knew how to compromise. The entry is about how we need more of that skill in Washington. No joke, I hope we can work across the divide for better health care.
Aloha, Galen
Post a Comment