Centrist Reflections

If my Tea Party endorsement yesterday seemed too extreme, let us pause today to think of the moderates.  Ali Kokmen e-mails:

Perhaps of interest, Esquire magazine gathered a group of former senators -- Bill Bradley, Bob Packwood, Gary Hart, and John Danforth -- under the chairmanship of MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell to devise an actionable plan to balance the federal budget. Freed from the politics that has legistlators always worrying about re-election, they did just that. Interesting read for anyone economics- or pragmatics-minded:

http://www.esquire.com/features/balance-the-budget-findings-1110
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/federal-budget-statistics-1110

(I'm most intrigued by the idea of "medical courts" as part of medical malpractice reform, similar to the way bankruptcies are adjucated in courts. Plus, of course, I'm glad that some mention was made of the idea of transitioning health care from its current fee-for-service system toward a pay-for-performance system.)

I open-mindedly draw attention to the discussion above even though it was chaired by Lawrence O'Donnell, whose show took the facile Todd-mocking position on the C-SPAN2 controversy -- but, again, my detractors will get theirs during my "Month of Haters" blog entries, starting Saturday. 

Meanwhile, Jonathan Funke asked readers of his centrist blog to rank legislators according to their moderation and ended up giving the nod mostly to Democrats.  Moderation is not inherently good, of course: 

•Chuck Blake reminds me that The Daily Show nicely skewered national energy policies as something endorsed by both parties in almost the same language, leading nowhere. 

•David Broder is a well-known, long-respected moderate who nonetheless wrote an insane article two months ago suggesting that Obama pull us out of recession by waging war against Iran.

•And the goofballs interviewed in this funny video no doubt they thought they were defending civil discourse when they reacted with outrage to suggestions Obama is a Keynesian.