Missing Nixon?

Dysfunctional systems can be local or national. Corporate influence follows the same pattern.

As Paul Krugman notes:

Part of the answer is that the right-wing fringe, which has always been around — as an article by the historian Rick Perlstein puts it, “crazy is a pre-existing condition” — has now, in effect, taken over one of our two major parties. Moderate Republicans, the sort of people with whom one might have been able to negotiate a health care deal, have either been driven out of the party or intimidated into silence. Whom are Democrats supposed to reach out to, when Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who was supposed to be the linchpin of any deal, helped feed the “death panel” lies?

Go and read the column in today's NYTimes.

And then there's Matt Bai, who takes a look at the political landscape and declares town hall meetings dead as a form of dialogue.