Where are the raging moderates?

The above is a question that I keep wondering about. The crazy right has already taken over the GOP, promising to dump any candidate who dares to even talk to a Democrat. The crazy left is threatening to do the same to the Dems, although there is definitely a wider range of positions there than in the GOP. On TV and in print, you get the same thing, crazy rage from the outer edges of the spectrum, with very little fact or pragmatism.

So, where are the raging moderates? The best we have is Thomas Friedman of the NY Times, who writes today about this very subject. What we need is more good policy, less dogma. More research and fact, less blind faith in political idea. Meanwhile, our politicians bring us just the opposite.

Take health care. The rational thing would have been for the politicians to agree that our health care system is an expensive, unjustifiable mess that is on the way to bankrupting the country. Then, we could have gotten a much better bill. Instead, we got one party negotiating with itself, while the GOP decided it was in their best political interest to say no, even at the risk of keeping an unsustainable status quo.

We get the same thing when it comes to the federal budget. Something must be done about entitlements, particularly Medicare, or we will be bankrupt about the time I'm supposed to get Medicare. But, because we have no raging moderates, we get Republicans who think tax cuts are the answer to all problems, and Dems who see any attempt to cut government spending as heresy. Look at what the GOP says about a reasonable Republican like Alan Simpson agreeing to work with the Obama administration on this problem.

Oh, and as for health care, it appears that the GOP claim that the bill just passed went against the wishes of the majority of Americans, take a look at this USA Today poll on the subject. It appears more Americans support the bill than oppose it. And, the behavior of the GOP is viewed most negatively during the process. Somebody tell Fox News that the tea parties represent a small percentage of the country, not the majority. They seem to think we are all ignorant racist cranks, because that is all they allow on their network.