Your one stop pundit shop.
Gail Collins says there is a bright side about Tuesday's vote in Massachusetts:
Meanwhile, about that bright side: Some commentators have been arguing that having 60 votes in the Senate was really more trouble than it was worth. That once the Democrats hit a filibuster-proof majority, they were saddled with unrealistic hopes.
Now that they’re down to 59 votes, the theory is that we’ll have such modest expectations that we’ll fall down with admiration if the senators manage to get their shoe laces tied in the morning.
My positive thought is that we should appreciate what a good outlet democracy can be for public dissatisfaction.
There was a time when, if people got worried about the way things were going, they would throw a virgin off the side of a cliff. Now they just kill a politician. And only metaphorically! Is this a great country, or what?
Dana Milbank has a round-up of Republican gloating and says:
Even if Republicans were inclined to cooperate with Democrats, there's little political incentive for them to do so. Only 24 percent of Americans have a good amount of confidence in congressional Republicans, according to this month's Washington Post-ABC News poll. With that lowly standing -- even worse than the Democrats' -- Republicans' best hope is that Democrats achieve nothing this year and are punished by voters in November as do-nothing legislators.
E.J. Dionne:
It turns out there were core contradictions in the promises Barack Obama made to the country in 2008. They caught up with his party on Tuesday in Massachusetts. [...]
A related contradiction was between Obama's commitment to sweeping change and his soothing pragmatism that disdains public fights. In the campaign, this allowed him to unite a left that believed in his promises of transformation with a center that appreciated his conciliatory style. [...]
In practice, this meant trying to reform the financial industry while avoiding an open battle with the bankers. As a consequence, Obama is now viewed as coddling Wall Street by those inclined toward populism and as anti-business by the titans of finance. This also involved pursuing a health-reform plan that his political base came to see as too soft on the insurance companies, even as many of the health-care interests tried to bring it down.
And by avoiding arguments over philosophy and ideology -- by failing to offer a pointed and running explanation of why he was reversing the policies of the previous administration -- Obama left independent voters confused about his goals. They saw expanding deficits and high unemployment. Absent a coherent Democratic narrative, they were open to a Republican story that linked the two and blamed the Democrats.
David Ignatius on the "desire to look for causes and assign blame" in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti.
Nicholas Kristof has some frank talk about Haiti:
Americans have also responded with a huge outpouring of assistance, including more than $22 million raised by the Red Cross from text messages alone. But for those with doubts, let’s have a frank discussion of Haiti’s problems:
Why is Haiti so poor? Is it because Haitians are dimwitted or incapable of getting their act together?
Haiti isn’t impoverished because the devil got his due; it’s impoverished partly because of debts due.
Evelyne Trouillot doesn't report on the earthquake in Haiti, she's living it.
Joan Vennochi on why Scott Brown won:
When the Bay State’s liberal establishment gets complacent and arrogant, Bay State voters get angry and frustrated.
When anger and frustration reach a tipping point, voters elect a conservative Democrat like Edward J. King as governor; shift the state into the Republican column by supporting Ronald Reagan; or, as they did for 16 years, elect a succession of Republican governors.
A version of that dynamic elects Republicans nationally. Ideological differences exist between the two parties and are starker beyond Massachusetts. But a universal, nonpartisan disgust develops when the powerful become so arrogant they shut out the people.
From Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill, Democrats are shutting people out and turning voters off.
Dan Payne take on Tuesday's vote:
To say she wasn’t a good communicator is an understatement. As a friend told me, Martha Coakley made Mike Dukakis look like James Brown.