Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Visual Source: Newseum

David Leondhardt says we're living in the fiscal hangover from a spending binge?and not just at the government level.

There is no shortage of explanations for the economy?s maddening inability to leave behind the Great Recession and start adding large numbers of jobs: The deficit is too big. The stimulus was flawed. China is overtaking us. Businesses are overregulated. Wall Street is underregulated.

But the real culprit?or at least the main one?has been hiding in plain sight. We are living through a tremendous bust. It isn?t simply a housing bust. It?s a fizzling of the great consumer bubble that was decades in the making.

Nicholas Kristof is well-educated enough to see that education in America is being steadily dismantled.

?Every year we say: ?What can we cut? What can we reduce?? ? said Steve Chiovaro, superintendent of Yamhill-Carlton schools. ?We?ve gotten to the point where we can no longer ?do no harm.? We?re starting to eviscerate education.?

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In higher education, the same drama is unfolding. California?s superb public university system is being undermined by the biggest budget cuts in the state?s history. Tuition is set to rise about 20 percent this year, on top of a 26 percent increase last year, which means that college will become unaffordable for some.

The immediate losers are the students. In the long run, the loser is our country.

Thomas Freidman blames baby-boomers for all our woes. As a boomer, this makes me feel better because, frankly, when's the last time Friedman was right? I expect that answer within a Freidman Unit.

Alex Prud'homme says that the incredible run of storms and tornadoes may be getting all the attention this year, but the real long-term damage is being done day, after day, after day.

Climatologists call drought a ?creeping disaster? because its effects are not felt at once. Others compare drought to a python, which slowly and inexorably squeezes its prey to death.

The great aridification of 2011 began last fall; now temperatures in many states have spiked to more than 100 degrees for days at a stretch. A high pressure system has stalled over the middle of the country, blocking cool air from the north. Texas and New Mexico are drier than in any year on record.

More people died last year from heat than tornadoes, and Rick Perry's prayer sessions don't seem to be tuning in the right station. Unfortunately, with drought this severe, other solutions may be as fruitless as Perry's approach. Read this and worry.

Frank Bruni recounts an amusing incident between a reporter and an Arizona State Senator.

He said that as he sat with Klein just outside the Senate chamber to discuss her gun-toting ways, ?I looked down and saw a red dot on my chest.? He looked up and realized the dot was the laser sight of the Ruger, which she carries in her pocketbook. Although he wasn?t sure just then whether it had bullets in it, she informed him ? after she?d lowered the pistol ? that it always does.

All in good fun, of course. No reason legislators in Arizona should worry about sending the wrong message on firearms. AZ isn't alone. The Republican response to an imaginary attack on gun rights has been an actual dismantling of exiting regulations, and where once GOP candidates were generally found to show their support for gun owners by some PR-heavy hunting, now regularly waving a pistol has become standard.

Kathleen Parker frets that Obama may have pushed health care reform by telling a story that's "not quite true." In fact, she frets so much that she not quite truthful on what the president said?and a long way from truthful in what she says.

Dana Milbank thinks that Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman has the magical property of extreme dullness necessary to negotiate a deal on the deficit. Because who could be better to fix this than George Bush's budget director.  I've got another idea: we get a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling, then work to bring down the deficit without a gun to the nation's collective skull. Okay?

Larry Flynt, yes that Larry Flynt, thinks Rupert Murdoch stepped over the line.

One cannot live off the liberty and benefits of a free press while ignoring the privacy of the people. People such as Murdoch and I, as heads of publishing conglomerates, have a responsibility to maintain and respect this boundary. While Murdoch may understand the significance of what we do under the umbrella of free speech, he may fail to recognize the liability attached to publication. Simply put, he publishes what he wants, apparently regardless of how he gets information and heedless of the responsibility associated with the power he wields.

The Washington Post might have turned to any of a number of more scholarly sources to discuss Murdoch, but at least with Flynt they got close to finding one of the man's true peers.

David Ignatius doesn't take issue with Obama's positions, and doesn't doubt his odds of winning in 2012, but he does worry that Obama's style is an issue for him, for America, and even for the world.

Obama?s news conference Friday was a snapshot of a president with the right instincts but unable to close a deal. If congressional Republicans offer him ?a serious plan? on the deficit, he said, ?I?m ready to move.? That sounded custodial, rather than presidential.

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rather than uniting the country behind a vision for reforming entitlements and taxes, he looks like a man being dragged into church by a firebrand preacher named Eric Cantor. The Republicans look bad, but so does Obama.

Hey, how about the president lead on the idea that we shouldn't work a deal while people are using a self-created deadline to try and force something down our throats? (Sorry, I just have to keep trying.)

The Denver Post tips its editorial hat to the fantastic US women's World Cup soccer team as they head to the finals.

The U.S. team's stunning come-from-behind win over Brazil last Sunday was a sports classic ? men's or women's ? that had everyone talking. The women followed that up with a win over France on Wednesday and on Sunday hope to win their first title since 1999's memorable Rose Bowl clash against China.

Regardless of the outcome, the U.S. team has provided inspiration to not just thousands of young women who dream of playing on a big sporting stage, but a nation of sports fans as well.

I know what I'll be watching today.

A paper published this month says that no matter whether the desire is to get some extra crispy chicken or to get extra crispy with cocaine, built-in salt cravings may be at the heart of addiction.

Primordial instincts that drive animals to seek out salt may be governed by the same mechanism that drives drug addicts to hunt down their fix.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/2TwnozJByUY/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Round-up

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