The Goons of August

Let it not be said that The Huffington Post isn't being more than blunt and direct when it heads a piece on the role of the Tea Party in America's debt-crisis as "The Goons of August".

"Let us face the momentous truth: The United States has been rendered ungovernable except on the extortionate terms of the far-right.

For the first time in modern history, one of the two major parties is in the hands of a faction so extreme that it is willing to destroy the economy if it doesn't get its way.

And the Tea Party Republicans have a perfect foil in President Barack Obama. The budget deal is the logical conclusion of Obama's premise that the way to make governing partners of the far right is to keep appeasing them. He is the perfect punching bag. He can be blasted both as a far-left liberal and as a weakling.

We did not have to reach this pass. At any of several points in the past two years, a Democratic president could have called out the Republicans on the sheer perversity of the policies they are demanding. Most voters do not want cuts in Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. The Paul Ryan "Roadmap for America's Future" alone, in the hands of a politically competent Democratic president, should have been enough to destroy Republican credibility."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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