He describes the malady:
"What you need to understand about political commentary these days — including the de facto commentary that poses as news analysis, or even reporting — is that most of the people doing it have both a professional and an emotional stake in portraying the two parties as symmetric, equally good or bad on policy issues and general behavior. To stray from this pose of even-handedness is to be labeled a partisan — and to admit that the parties aren’t the same, after all, would mean admitting that you’ve been wrong about the most basic features of the situation for years."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/paul-ryan-centrist-crush/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
Frank Bruni's recent column displays this very professional centrist malady. It's a generally good post about the GOP's anarchistic revolt against all establishment and leadership and how this may be the time the rules of primary election are broken despite all the confident predictions of the pundits.
"OVER the last two decades, through Bob Dole and George W. Bush and John McCain and Mitt Romney, it has become an article of faith that the Republican presidential nominee is a person blessed by, or acceptable to, the party’s establishment, meaning the elders, the bankers, the cool heads, the deep pockets."
"There’s mess along the way — brief tantrums by restive voters, fleeting triumphs by renegade candidates — but order and obeisance in the end."
"Is this the election cycle when that changes?"
"The twilight of the Republican elite?"
"Donald Trump’s stamina and the ascendance of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina suggest as much. The three of them, who have led national polls since mid-September, aren’t just political outsiders, which is the label hung on them most frequently. They’re instruments of protest by Republican voters unwilling to heed the prompts and protocol that they’re expected to."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/opinion/sunday/the-republicans-ugly-revolt.html?_r=1
"For Republicans (and perhaps for Democrats, too) this is a season of rebellion, as the chaos in the House of Representatives vividly illustrates. A consequential share of the Republican majority there have made it clear that they will not bow to precedent, not follow any conventional script, not have anyone foisted on them. No, they’ll do the foisting themselves."
Did you catch that? It's just one half sentence but it annoys me as its classic professional centrist cant.
I'm sorry but there is just no comparison between today's Democrat and Republican parties. In both their clownish GOP House and in their primary the GOP is in full anarchistic revolt against all institutional leaders.
The Dem primary is not at all this. Sure, Bernie as a 'democratic socialist'-which I'd like to hear him unpack-is outside the party system-which is a strike against him in my book. Ideology matters but so does party.
But while Bernie may be a party outsider he is not at all an institutional outsider. Sorry, it's a GOP meme that you want people in the cockpits of leadership with absolutely not experience at all.
"What you need to understand about political commentary these days — including the de facto commentary that poses as news analysis, or even reporting — is that most of the people doing it have both a professional and an emotional stake in portraying the two parties as symmetric, equally good or bad on policy issues and general behavior. To stray from this pose of even-handedness is to be labeled a partisan — and to admit that the parties aren’t the same, after all, would mean admitting that you’ve been wrong about the most basic features of the situation for years."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/paul-ryan-centrist-crush/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
Frank Bruni's recent column displays this very professional centrist malady. It's a generally good post about the GOP's anarchistic revolt against all establishment and leadership and how this may be the time the rules of primary election are broken despite all the confident predictions of the pundits.
"OVER the last two decades, through Bob Dole and George W. Bush and John McCain and Mitt Romney, it has become an article of faith that the Republican presidential nominee is a person blessed by, or acceptable to, the party’s establishment, meaning the elders, the bankers, the cool heads, the deep pockets."
"There’s mess along the way — brief tantrums by restive voters, fleeting triumphs by renegade candidates — but order and obeisance in the end."
"Is this the election cycle when that changes?"
"The twilight of the Republican elite?"
"Donald Trump’s stamina and the ascendance of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina suggest as much. The three of them, who have led national polls since mid-September, aren’t just political outsiders, which is the label hung on them most frequently. They’re instruments of protest by Republican voters unwilling to heed the prompts and protocol that they’re expected to."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/opinion/sunday/the-republicans-ugly-revolt.html?_r=1
So this is good. He's acknowledging something that most Beltway pundits like him have tried desperately to obscure-that this primary cycle so far hasn't followed the normal pattern.
Maybe at some point it does but there is no sign whatsoever that this is happening as yet. For instance, most of the media has been talking about a nonexistent surge of Marco Rubio for weeks. Like see this top of the page Politico story about how life in the top tier is testing Rubio.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/rubios-frontrunner-presidential-campaign-reminder-214628
The only problem is: he's not in the top tier, the media just thinks he should be as by process of elimination he is the only seemingly half way viable mainstream candidate left-with Jeb's struggles.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-rubio-surge-exists-nowhere-except.html?showComment=1444516751669#c1370654832864847725
But maybe the price for Bruni of breaching one Beltway sacred cow-admit that it's at least possible that this time is different in the GOP primary and it's at least certainly not business as usual he has to give in to Krugman's professional centrist syndrome and out of the blue introduce a false equivalence.
Did you catch that? It's just one half sentence but it annoys me as its classic professional centrist cant.
I'm sorry but there is just no comparison between today's Democrat and Republican parties. In both their clownish GOP House and in their primary the GOP is in full anarchistic revolt against all institutional leaders.
The Dem primary is not at all this. Sure, Bernie as a 'democratic socialist'-which I'd like to hear him unpack-is outside the party system-which is a strike against him in my book. Ideology matters but so does party.
But while Bernie may be a party outsider he is not at all an institutional outsider. Sorry, it's a GOP meme that you want people in the cockpits of leadership with absolutely not experience at all.
If you compare the Dem candidates to the GOP candidates the Dems all have a great deal of elective institutional experience while in the GOP the top three leaders have zero experience between them.
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