Bob Kuttner Should Be Your Favorite Columnist

American Prospect founder Bob Kuttner writes a regular column for the Boston Globe, and consistently provides some of the most incisive analysis out there that never - ever - gets gummed up by Beltway groupthink like so many others (make sure to check out his new American Prospect cover piece). His column this week on the filibuster deal is particularly thought provoking: he comes down on the side of those who believe the deal wasn't as good as everyone wants it to be (something I initially explored in a previous post). And he says it shows how the GOP has mastered the art of appearing moderate, while lunging far to the right of the American electorate.

The deal is a problem because it "guarantees an up-or-down floor vote on three of the most reactionary judges ever to come before the Senate," writes Kuttner, while "Frist is free to revive the nuclear option any time he likes."

Worse, the Republicans who cut the "deal" are now being trumpeted by the Beltway media as "moderates." But, as Kuttner notes, "if these Republicans were genuinely moderates, they would not just be providing this parliamentary fig leaf; they would be voting against confirmation of these extremist nominees when they come up for a floor vote...If you want to look for profiles in courage, see whether 'moderate' Republicans like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, John McCain of Arizona, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island actually oppose any of these nominees. For the most part, these people posture moderate and then do Bush's bidding."

I think Kuttner is on to something, though I'm still not sure who this "deal" is a win or loss for in the long term (and by the way, for those of you who have criticized me for analyzing both sides of the deal, I would like to remind you that it is OK to withhold long-term judgement sometimes - one of the worst features of the 24-hour news cycle is the supposed requirement to have an instant, strident opinion, no matter how complex the issue). But Kuttner's piece is more important than just a debate about the filibuster "deal" - it gets us to the bigger story: the whole definition of "moderation" is being butchered.

The media keeps pushing a myth "that the country wants moderate policies but that both parties are at fault for moving to the extremes." In fact, as Kuttner notes, "the Democrats have moved steadily to the center on issues of social outlay, progressive taxation, and deregulation, while Bush has worked to energize his party's most extremist interest groups." In other words, Democrats have "moderated" on the issues the public wants MORE progressive policies, while the Republicans have moved farther to the right on the policies the public wants them to be more restrained on. And yet the portrayal of this reality is consistently blurred by the Establishment media who rarely - if ever - conveys this dynamic in its constant frothing about "moderates." And that permits the entire political debate in this country to shift far to the right of where most Americans are.