I caught a few minutes of the Joint Economic Committee hearings with Fed chief Bernanke on C-SPAN yesterday, and if they’re typical, it does not bode well for the republic. The Republican members were sharply ideological and nasty while the Democratic ‘opposition’ was bumbling, parochial and confused. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur might be a very nice lady from Toledo, but mistaking Bernanke for the former head of Goldman Sachs (um, that would be Treasury Secretary Paulsen) looked amateurish. I mean it’s an honest mistake—if you’re a taxi driver.
Other Democrats droned on about their pet projects, obviously eyeing the next staff-written press release. Meanwhile, the Republicans were taking in the big picture, arguing for more tax cuts or prompting Bernanke to say things economic were neither good nor bad ‘but thinking makes them so.’
It was a short but quite devastating lesson in the difference between the two parties and why Bush gets away with bloody mayhem. If one of the Democrats had managed to put questions that reflected a cogent and inclusive critique of what has gone wrong with our economy and how it could be put right, I didn’t see it. Only then could the party could lay claim to being an alternative. As it stood yesterday, they seemed quite comfortable letting the grown-ups handle things.
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I have shied away from predicting anything in this immensely unpredictable political season. But a few events recently have led me to suspect that the excitement will be over fairly soon.
Amazing as it seems, Romney and Clinton represent the kinds of safely meaningless kinda-sorta postures that a few gazillion dollars can ease down the throats of the voters. There will no doubt be more enthusiasm around this or that other candidate, but from my current perspective it looks like the whole exercise will soon be turning us right back off and we’ll preparing ourselves for some major nose-holding come November. I hope I’m wrong.
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