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We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.
No doubt, Democrats were not exactly warm and fuzzy toward George W. Bush during his presidency. But recall that they worked hand in glove with the Republican president on the No Child Left Behind Act, provided crucial votes in the Senate for his tax cuts, joined with Republicans for all the steps taken after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and supplied the key votes for the Bush administration’s financial bailout at the height of the economic crisis in 2008. The difference is striking.....

The GOP’s evolution has become too much for some longtime Republicans. Former senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraskacalled his party “irresponsible” in an interview with the Financial Times in August, at the height of the debt-ceiling battle. “I think the Republican Party is captive to political movements that are very ideological, that are very narrow,” he said. “I’ve never seen so much intolerance as I see today in American politics.”

And Mike Lofgren, a veteran Republican congressional staffer, wrote an anguished diatribe last year about why he was ending his career on the Hill after nearly three decades. “The Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe,” he wrote on the Truthout Web site.

GannonFan wrote:I'm sure the Dems would love to believe all of that, but the problem is there aren't any moderate Donks left either - both parties are extreme versions of what they used to be. Pretending that it's all one party's fault or trying to measure how much more one party is responsible than the other one is is just something partisans do to deflect the blame away from themselves. I don't remember anyone singing kumbaya together during the W years and when there was bi-partisan agreement it was often on things we look back on and wish there wasn't as much bi-partisan agreements. A pox on both party's houses right now, and on silly attempts like these to say that only one side is to blame. Seriously, kalm, you're starting to slip these days - you're better than this I hope.

kalm wrote:

GannonFan wrote:I'm sure the Dems would love to believe all of that, but the problem is there aren't any moderate Donks left either - both parties are extreme versions of what they used to be. Pretending that it's all one party's fault or trying to measure how much more one party is responsible than the other one is is just something partisans do to deflect the blame away from themselves. I don't remember anyone singing kumbaya together during the W years and when there was bi-partisan agreement it was often on things we look back on and wish there wasn't as much bi-partisan agreements. A pox on both party's houses right now, and on silly attempts like these to say that only one side is to blame. Seriously, kalm, you're starting to slip these days - you're better than this I hope.

The two authors are experienced career pundits and centrists. Norm Ornstein works for the American Enterprise Institute for criminy sakes. Of course both sides have extremists, but the donks in, in general, have moved to the right in my lifetime and conk leadership has moved even further right.

Don't hate me for being a realist Ganny. Kalm reports, and you decide.

Baldy wrote:

kalm wrote:
The two authors are experienced career pundits and centrists. Norm Ornstein works for the American Enterprise Institute for criminy sakes. Of course both sides have extremists, but the donks in, in general, have moved to the right in my lifetime and conk leadership has moved even further right.

Don't hate me for being a realist Ganny. Kalm reports, and you decide.

Mann works at Brookings, and has only worked for Donks his entire life in Washington.
Ornstein is a token at AEI and the pro-Obama, pro-Franken, pro-Frank voice there.

Please...

GannonFan wrote:I'm sure the Dems would love to believe all of that, but the problem is there aren't any moderate Donks left either - both parties are extreme versions of what they used to be. Pretending that it's all one party's fault or trying to measure how much more one party is responsible than the other one is is just something partisans do to deflect the blame away from themselves. I don't remember anyone singing kumbaya together during the W years and when there was bi-partisan agreement it was often on things we look back on and wish there wasn't as much bi-partisan agreements. A pox on both party's houses right now, and on silly attempts like these to say that only one side is to blame. Seriously, kalm, you're starting to slip these days - you're better than this I hope.

Ivytalk wrote:

Baldy wrote:


Mann works at Brookings, and has only worked for Donks his entire life in Washington.
Ornstein is a token at AEI and the pro-Obama, pro-Franken, pro-Frank voice there.

Please...

These guys are self-described centrists only. If you want a real "moderate conk," with genuine Republican ties (Ornstein and Mann are both dyed-in-the-wool Donks), David Brooks of the NYT would be a better choice, but he's covering more social-cultural issues than political economy these days.

Pwns wrote:I'm not overly happy the way the repubs handled the debt ceiling situation, but really, is ignoring the problem the way the democrats are really any better? They have yet to come up with any ideas to try and get the budget deficit under control. Is having bad ideas really any worse than having no ideas at all?

Cluck U wrote:"We Won't March Against Obama:
Congressional Black Caucus members unhappy over African-American unemployment “probably would be marching on the White House” if Barack Obama were not the president , according to the group’s Chairman Emanuel Cleaver.

"If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” the Missouri Democrat told The Miami Herald on Sunday."

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/clea ... /id/411529" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


"As the president, he had told Kyl after the Arizonan raised objections to the notion of a tax credit for people who don’t pay income taxes, Obama told Cantor this morning that "on some of these issues we’re just going to have ideological differences."
The president added, "I won. So I think on that one, I trump you.""
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... president/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Yeah, kalm...the Left isn't going to extremes.

AZGrizFan wrote:

Cluck U wrote:"We Won't March Against Obama:
Congressional Black Caucus members unhappy over African-American unemployment “probably would be marching on the White House” if Barack Obama were not the president , according to the group’s Chairman Emanuel Cleaver.

"If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” the Missouri Democrat told The Miami Herald on Sunday."

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/clea ... /id/411529" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


"As the president, he had told Kyl after the Arizonan raised objections to the notion of a tax credit for people who don’t pay income taxes, Obama told Cantor this morning that "on some of these issues we’re just going to have ideological differences."
The president added, "I won. So I think on that one, I trump you.""
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... president/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Yeah, kalm...the Left isn't going to extremes.

Nor are they divisive.

It's settled science, apparently.

kalm wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
Nor are they divisive.

It's settled science, apparently.

The article acknowledges this. Take for instance that whackadoodle and traitor to his party...oops I mean country, Chuck Hagel.

HI54UNI wrote:

kalm wrote:
The article acknowledges this. Take for instance that whackadoodle and traitor to his party...oops I mean country, Chuck Hagel.

Chuck Hagel is a media whore. His bashing the party was to try and get favor with the D's. He wanted to be VP or SecDef so bad he would do anything. The only bigger media whore is Chuck Schumer.

kalm wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
Nor are they divisive.

It's settled science, apparently.

The article acknowledges this. Take for instance that whackadoodle and traitor to his party...oops I mean country, Chuck Hagel.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

kalm wrote:

Ivytalk wrote:
These guys are self-described centrists only. If you want a real "moderate conk," with genuine Republican ties (Ornstein and Mann are both dyed-in-the-wool Donks), David Brooks of the NYT would be a better choice, but he's covering more social-cultural issues than political economy these days.

And the Brookings Institute is left leaning and...also...wait for it, wait for it...centrist! Dunh, dunh, dunh.

You guys crack me up.



But I agree that Brooks is a moderate conk.

kalm wrote:

Pwns wrote:I'm not overly happy the way the repubs handled the debt ceiling situation, but really, is ignoring the problem the way the democrats are really any better? They have yet to come up with any ideas to try and get the budget deficit under control. Is having bad ideas really any worse than having no ideas at all?

Agree completely. But the rhetoric from the right is far superior.

Wedgebuster wrote:The tea baggers, riding on the crest of the hate wave have used the anti-Obama at any cost mantra to disenfranchise any moderate conks that might have been out there. They either have to sit silent to avoid the risk of being labeled a nigger loving commie, or get out of the party altogether.

UNI88 wrote:

Wedgebuster wrote:The tea baggers, riding on the crest of the hate wave have used the anti-Obama at any cost mantra to disenfranchise any moderate conks that might have been out there. They either have to sit silent to avoid the risk of being labeled a nigger loving commie, or get out of the party altogether.

I call BS on this one. I can reasonably be considered a moderate conk and I could give a sh!t what the Tea Party thinks. While I don't like the direction that the Tea Party and evangelicals are dragging the Republican Party, I don't see anything from the other side that I find any more appealing. The reality is that I've been disenfranchised by both sides, they're both devolving into juvenile, intransigent ideologues.

UNI88 wrote:

Wedgebuster wrote:The tea baggers, riding on the crest of the hate wave have used the anti-Obama at any cost mantra to disenfranchise any moderate conks that might have been out there. They either have to sit silent to avoid the risk of being labeled a nigger loving commie, or get out of the party altogether.

I call BS on this one. I can reasonably be considered a moderate conk and I could give a sh!t what the Tea Party thinks. While I don't like the direction that the Tea Party and evangelicals are dragging the Republican Party, I don't see anything from the other side that I find any more appealing. The reality is that I've been disenfranchised by both sides, they're both devolving into juvenile, intransigent ideologues.

Five men, at least three of them anarchists, plotted to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, but there was no danger to the public because the explosives were inoperable and were controlled by an undercover FBI employee, the agency said Tuesday in announcing the men's arrests.

Wedgebuster wrote:

UNI88 wrote:
I call BS on this one. I can reasonably be considered a moderate conk and I could give a sh!t what the Tea Party thinks. While I don't like the direction that the Tea Party and evangelicals are dragging the Republican Party, I don't see anything from the other side that I find any more appealing. The reality is that I've been disenfranchised by both sides, they're both devolving into juvenile, intransigent ideologues.

Call BS all you want, Romney is afraid to confront the loud mouths of the tea bag movement for fear of losing the interest of the party whackos, who apparently are now calling the shots in the GOP. So you say you are not afraid to speak out, what about the apparent nominee??

Moderate republicans are not speaking out, because they are afraid to.

AZGrizFan wrote:

Wedgebuster wrote:
Call BS all you want, Romney is afraid to confront the loud mouths of the tea bag movement for fear of losing the interest of the party whackos, who apparently are now calling the shots in the GOP. So you say you are not afraid to speak out, what about the apparent nominee??

Moderate republicans are not speaking out, because they are afraid to.

You can't possibly be that blindly partisan to NOT see that happening on the other side of the aisle?