The Chris Moeller Archives

The New York Times only allows you to view 10 articles a month online without paying a fee, and I'm not sure you'll want to waste one of those on today's Thomas Friedman column, but I want to address it anyway. (I can justify it for me because I get a blog post out of it.) Friedman is lamenting that we don't have "a socially moderate and fiscally conservative" candidate like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the presidential race. Yes, Tom, that's the problem with this cursed Obama/Romney race: not enough moderates.

Friedman accuses politicians to both the left and the right of not "speaking honestly" because they refuse to acknowledge what the columnist sees as the dire need to both increase taxes and cut entitlement spending. To Beltway brontosauruses like Friedman, the solution to our problems always lie in the political "center"-- the "center" being whatever is the current middle ground position between the two major parties. Forget that taxation is at its lowest percentage of GDP (14.8% in 2011) since Truman was in office, or that corporate federal taxes are at only 12.1% of profits in 2011, the lowest since 1972. Forget that we've payed, or continue to pay, for five different wars against Muslim children over the last 10 years, the one in Iraq famously endorsed by Friedman. No, Friedman believes we also need to slash Medicare, Social Security, and the food stamps program to balance the federal budget deficit. That's called shared sacrifice, people. The rich give up the jacuzzi on the sun deck of the yacht. The poor give up dinner.

Friedman got a bee in his bonnet because his cell phone kept going out on the DC to NYC commuter train and then the escalator at the parking garage was broken. Can we not finally put an end to this madness by raising the eligibility age for Social Security? To the rescue comes the billionaire mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who purchased the office he currently holds and clears the parks of democracy protesters with his army of thugs.

Only three days ago, the editor of Friedman's paper, Bill Keller, also attacked the idea of partisanship. (Oh no, not another Times article. That leaves eight freebies for April. Seriously, fellas, give up the ghost on the pay wall already.) Keller, who criticizes the efforts of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange to wage war on government secrecy, but willingly piggy-backs on the leaks every round in a bid to keep his journalistic enterprise relevant, made the argument Sunday that the swing voters of the "middle" will once again in 2012 be the voice of reason in electoral politics. Of course, throughout his column, Keller never once attempts to assign labels of right or wrong to any political idea. Per his mission, he's being "objective" and his concern is only the horse race. He does manage to sneak in a jab at Obama for bowing to "the orthodox left," calling the president's support for the (wildly sensible) Buffett (tax) Rule a try-out "for the role of Robin Hood." In his rather comical last line, Keller finally and literally attempts to speak for "the middle." "The role the middle really wants (Obama) to play," says Keller, "is that of president." Presumably unlike his left-wing supporters.

The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates has this to say on the subject: "These op-eds bemoaning partisanship, clutching pearls at the radicalism of Rick Santorum, and praying for candidacy in the mold of Mike Bloomberg always seem a little too close to home. Is it a mistake that they tend to reflect the political biases of a news media that is as freaked out by radical pro-lifers as it is by radical anti-war protesters? I allow that that is a subjective observation, it's mostly based on my 15 years in media. But the person Keller describes sounds suspiciously familiar to me. I've usually referred to him (or her) as 'my editor.'"

---