Christiane Amanpour just might have heard it all in her career as a journalist.
She was primarily a foreign correspondent in nearly 20 years with CNN, doing most of her work in the Middle East. She had to dodge a lot of bullets and bombs.
Thus, I would think that a tour of Wisconsin town hall meetings with Rep. Paul Ryan would be relatively tame by comparison.
But it wasn't. Not when Ryan told Amanpour that the deficit will be "the greatest topic of the 2012 election."
Excuse me?
I'm inclined to agree with Jonathan Cohn, who writes in The New Republic that the emphasis is on the wrong thing.
"[T]he trouble isn't that the economy is deteriorating," he writes. "It's that the economy hasn't recovered from the deterioration that took place in 2008 and 2009."
His argument is that the economy needs a boost.
My argument is that such a boost will come when anything and everything that can be done to encourage job creation is being done.
It's the same argument, really. Cohn essentially says that millions of Americans still need jobs — and both parties are wasting precious time arguing about the deficit.
The importance of the jobs situation should be obvious to someone like the president, who fancies himself to be as politically sure–footed as they come. Yet he has launched a re–election campaign that openly appeals to three groups that played prominent roles in 2008 — young voters, blacks and Hispanics — even though all three continue to suffer.
It is as frustrating — and pointless — as the bickering between the Republicans and Democrats about what can be done to lower gas prices. Jeff Mason of Reuters calls it "symbolism and sympathy" — and, although he directs his criticism largely at the president, it could apply to congressional Republicans as well.
It's the way politics is played in America these days, no matter which party is in control. There's always a smoke screen to divert attention from the things that need to be discussed, and I fear 2012 will be no different.
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