The Guardians of Functioning Washington have noticed that the GOP is getting wacky and are alarmed about it all of a sudden. Washington might start not functioning after the election! The political center is gone! Could this analysis be mistaken? Let me count the ways!
One: You can put the start date anywhere you like, but, uh, Washington has NOT BEEN WORKING for some time now. Take the last two years, please! Imaging a future where the GOP will not cooperate with Democrats in the project of governing does not take a WHOLE lot of imagination. The politics of NO, or is it HELL NO, have been about as defined, announced and manifest as you could want. Sure there's room for MORE crazy talk, always is, but in terms of legislative rigor mortis, the GOP's waxlike form has been shimmering in its glass coffin since 2008, and is even included on many D.C. tours now.
Two: THE CENTER HAS NOT DISAPPEARED! Where is it, then? The Obama administration! The radical rescue of the economy straight out of Economics 101, designed and administered by the WALL STREET ELITE! The radical redesign of the health-care system lifted from Leninist MITT ROMNEY! Confiscatory tax policies of extending the BUSH middle-class TAX CUTS! A DEFICIT commission (that the GOP won't support)! Offshore drilling! Nuclear power! A SURGE in Afghanistan! CAP AND TRADE: formerly known as the REPUBLICAN MARKET-BASED approach to climate change. Come on! Let's stop pretending here. The Democrats have moved right and ARE THE CENTER. The left is on its fainting couch of disillusionment over it and may stay home election day and let the new corporate-financed Tea Party maniacs vote in their dystopian melange of frustration and fear, and OH! trust in corporations! Can we at least start accurately describing what is going on here? --Tom Toles
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/?hpid=opinionsbox1