Tea Party luring US into adventures in irrationality

• 12 October 2010 by Chris Mooney

Compared with what may be in store for the US, George W. Bush’s administration looks positively friendly to science, says Chris Mooney

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827815.100-tea-party-luring-us-into-adventures-in-irrationality.html

How in the hell did we get here — where the GOTV is message “better than the alternative” — when what Democrats have done in the last two years include so many progressive measures done in historic circumstances?

This president has delivered more sweeping, progressive change in 20 months than the previous two Democratic administrations did in 12 years. “When you look at what will last in history,” historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells Rolling Stone, “Obama has more notches on the presidential belt.”

“If you’re looking at the first-two-year legislative record,” says Ornstein, “you really don’t have any rivals since Lyndon Johnson — and that includes Ronald Reagan.”

What’s even more impressive about Obama’s accomplishments, historians say, is the fractious political coalition he had to marshal to victory. “He didn’t have the majority that LBJ had,” says Goodwin. Indeed, Johnson could count on 68 Democratic senators to pass Medicare, Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act. For his part, Franklin Roosevelt had the backing of 69 Senate Democrats when he passed Social Security in 1935. At its zenith, Obama’s governing coalition in the Senate comprised 57 Democrats, a socialist, a Republican turncoat — and Joe Lieberman.

It goes on to discuss what Democrats have accomplished on several fronts — one of which is…

Add it all up, and the Recovery Act is driving more than $200 billion in public and private investment in clean energy — $20 billion more than the Apollo program would have cost in today’s dollars.

The Case for Obama

It’s ironic and hypocritical that the same political candidates, such as Carl Paladino, who campaign by making sensationalistic soundbite claims– then complain when the tabloid media makes a big fuss about the candidates’ horseporn emails, religious intolerance, dabbling in witchcraft, nazi uniform fetishes, gay sex infidelity, and poor anger managment.

Tabloid candidates shouldn’t complain about tabloid coverage.