News Corp and Watergate

Are there comparisons to be made between the Murdoch News Corp. hacking scandal and the Nixon administrations Watergate scandal? Albeit this is the media not a sitting US President, yet the gravity, consequence and nefarious nature resonates. Illicit payments, attempts at cover-up, wiretapping / hacking, desire for power control and leaders who insulate themselves from "specific knowledge" of illegal activity.

Will there be a smoking gun?

Why Mitt Romney should be the Republican Nominee

Mitt Romney should be the Republican’s choice to challenge President Obama in 2012. Why?

In my opinion he should have been the choice in 2008. He might actually have won. But at a minimum the debate between Obama and Romney around what is best for America would have started closer to the middle as opposed to on the left and right ideological fringe.

Our country needs a principled centrist debate about real solutions to the real needs and real problems in 2012. The kind where neither side is beholden to focus mostly on issues important only to a nut bag extreme base. This exists on both sides and it is time the left and right of center voices debate and be heard.

Both these men have moderate governance backgrounds demonstrating a willingness to reject their ideological base in favor of solving real problems. Although there might be little evidence of this during the primary season, it would be unavoidable in the general election.

Where is the compromise?

It looks like we might once again miss an opportunity to take a major step toward solving our countries fiscal problems. First of all everyone in Washington has understood for some time that the debt ceiling will be raised. Although the idea of hinging tax and spending policy to raising the debt ceiling felt too political to me at first, the far reaching bi partisan debt reduction agreement that Speaker Boehner and President Obama put together earlier in the week felt more like... perhaps this is a good time to force the issue. The deal was a darn good start and sure looked like it had promise. It kind of felt like Tip O’Neal and Ronald Regan were back.

But clearly the “tax pledge” signers in congress have put themselves in a box and can’t compromise even if it means getting a whole lot of what they say they want. No one likes taxes but arguably there are some pretty egregious holes in our tax code that favor those who clearly are not using the advantage to create jobs.

What pledge? Now we elect and send them down there with a script? Why don’t we just take the word compromise out of the dictionary?

The “everything on the table” approach that Obama and Boehner were after seemed like a pretty good compromise for addressing real problems. A great way for both sides to take on many of the entitlement cuts we need right now along with balancing the budget. But unfortunately Speaker Boehner had to back away. I don't blame him as his reach seems limited. But for Eric Cantor and the rest of the legislative body to let this opportunity slide because of a tax pledge is more than annoying and frankly irresponsible. So I guess we continue to stay politically safe, hold onto power and in search of the perfect ideological solution for our small base while letting our country continue to deteriorate. What do you call that? How about stupid...