Opinion: In today’s pages: Bad Republicans, bad moms, bad Clinton lobbyists
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In today’s opinion pages, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson acknowledges that today’s situation in Sacramento is different from the Newt Gingrich Congress of 1995-96, because there are no GOP moderates to prod their leaders into reversing their demand for cuts. And he acknowledges, obliquely, that it’s different because Bill Clinton was president then, and there’s someone else as governor of California now (psst: It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he’s a Republican). But he still thinks Democrats in the Legislature should act like Clinton did back then and call the bluff of, well, someone, and reject the current budget deal. If only Gavin Newsom or Jerry Brown tells them to do it. And then Republicans will apologize and raise taxes.
The provisions in California’s Constitution that require a two-thirds vote to pass the state’s budget and all tax increases were always something of a booby trap, and in the current crop of legislative Republicans -- a minority party with just over one-third representation in both houses -- it found its boobies.
Are we even allowed to say that?
More Clinton: Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, sees shadowy Clinton operatives behond the coup in Honduras, and he calls on President Obama, and perhaps his secretary of state, whoever that may be, to freeze Honduran assets in the U.S. to force the nation to reinstate its ousted president.
Elsewhere, columnist Meghan Daum takes on elderly would-be mothers who use medical science to get pregnant, and then aren’t around to riase their kids. Here’s the money quote:
Having a kid later in life is great if that’s your thing. But, come on -- no one with a kid in Pampers should be in Depends.
On the editorial page, we cheer the Senate for standing up to the gun lobby. And we grudgingly admit that Democrats, too, play politics when selecting U.S. attorneys, but we insist that all political pressure must be off once the lawyer is in office.
But it’s all a matter of Opinion.
Photo: Max Whittaker / Getty Images