Sunday, January 18, 2004

Polarization pisses off paleocons

More unhappy campers with the neocons driving the GOP bus ...

'Each year the evidence becomes more striking that the center is falling out of American politics, at least in Congress, where Democrats increasingly reflect the party's more liberal wing and Republicans increasingly represent their party's most conservative tendencies.

Christie Whitman offers compelling arguments for the importance of rebuilding 'The Vital Republican Center' (NYT Op-Ed, Jan. 12). In particular, progressive, market-based environmental policies of the sort championed by President Bush's father remain a quintessential moderate Republican approach.

Why should Republicans abdicate responsibility for environmental protection and cede this potentially powerful political issue to Democrats? This makes as much sense as Democrats' sometime willingness to turn over the Bible and the American flag to their Republican rivals.

ROBERT N. STAVINS
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 13, 2004
The writer is professor of business and government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

... Things fall apart, the center will not hold.
The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

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