A Polar Wind from Congress

That blows nobody any good.

I gotta digest this article on the increasing polarization of the Congress a bit. It conflicts a bit with what I thought before -- indeed, I read an article years ago in the NYT talking about the decrease in moderates in both parties -- problem being that it treated both parties the same while the article's data showed that Republicans went from perhaps 1/3 or 1/2 moderates to like 90% farther right, while the Dems went from something like 1/2 moderate to 60% polarized farther left -- meaning they still had more moderates than the Republicans.

Of course, judging where someone is in a spectrum in a specific way against a static measure is almost meaningless by definition, as knowledge and times change. Nevertheless, I hardly feel like the Left has gotten More Left as much as the Right has gotten More Right -- and though it's easy to just say that's my own bias or lack of self-insight, I didn't make up that NYT article (I just don't have time to find it.)

Anyway. Read the article.

-J

N.B. I really don't feel like finding the links, but it seems like Sarah Palin might be, oh, let's say 80 or 90% not to blame for the "Wasilla charging rape victims for their rape kits." One can, and many do, argue that she had the responsibility to know about it and stop it, and that she hired a sheriff who she should've known was going to do this, but it's far from as if she ordered it, and there's no direct evidence she knew about it. So she can at least plausibly by thought to not have paid adequate attention to the details of her (not overly large) town as Mayor, but she's hardly the seeming monster that one thinks of when one thinks of someone purposefully instituting a policy like that. It doesn't change that I think she's utterly unqualified, but it's important to dislike people for the right, facts-as-well-as-you-can-determine them reasons, rather than for expedient or truthy reasons.