Republicans do have some good points

Wed. Jan. 18, 2012:


Although there is much to complain about
[cf. Jan. 17's http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/south-carolina-debate-fact-check/  AND
Jan. 18's lead NYT editorial "Preaching Division in South Carolina"]
in the Republican party's nominating field & process so far, it is high time to point out that Republicans deserve serious credit on certain matters:

1.  By almost any measure, labor unions' past successes in achieving big-industry & government-workers' contracts with outsized wages, benefits, early-retirement packages, do need to be reined in;

2.  The USA's ongoing national debt, and annual budget deficits which feed that ongoing debt, do indeed need to be addressed.  And, the press needs to do a much better job of educating the person-on-the-street on the difference between national debt and annual deficit, because most of the "99%" don't have a clue!
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If only Republicans had avoided reckless trashing of collective bargaining a la ideologue Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.
If only Republican ideologues in Congress could acknowledge that sharp slashing on government spending [and therefore on consumers' spending & taxpaying!] during an already gasping economy would be counterproductive,
and that the wealthy 1% should, like Warren Buffett, patriotically pay slightly higher taxes instead of claiming they should be exempt "because they are 'job creators.'"

If only Republican [and back in the Bush years, the Democrats!] candidates would campaign on legitimate issue stances, instead of a parade of lies -- Obama the non-leader, Obama the pessimist, Obama the international apologizer, Obama the food stamp president, etc. etc. etc.].
After all, there are plenty of real mistakes that Obama has made.  Why not just focus on them, and tell us how you will change them?  For example:  Romney now says that under Obama, Iran will build nuclear weapons, but in a Romney administration Iran will not.  Pure demagoguery, red meat for the ignorant -- short on truth, absent on "hows."

Final thought of the day:  Proliferation of anonymous sourcing in newspapers, like,
"according to two people with direct knowledge of the plans who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly."  Or, "anonymity, because of the ongoing investigation."