This is not balance.
In his column, Dionne makes some good points about how the GOP budget under Paul Ryan is a radical document and pretty much everything most sentient people with fourth grade reading and math skills have been saying since it came out.
But he falls victim to the Myth of the Moderate. Many political scientists, when evaluating the political spectrum say that there is no such thing as "moderate". There is "radical", "liberal", "conservative" and "reactionary". But "moderate" is not a political viewpoint but an attitude. An aloofness.
Many "moderates" simply don't pay attention. These are the fabled independent swing voters that we obsess about every four years. Another phrase for them is low information voter. They get fed a steady stream of "horse race" stories as they half heartedly watch the evening news waiting for Wheel of Fortune to come on. They see a bunch of He Said/She Said stories that suggest tht a pox on both their houses.
Dionne's point, and it might be right, is that the GOP, Medicare killing budget should strip the blinders from their eyes. That they should see the naked extremism of the GOP for what it is.
But then you get Mark Halperin praising the "courage" of Paul Ryan and Andrew Sullivan praising its "seriousness" because it has (non-sensical) numbers in it. You will get horse race and process stories on the looming shutdown. A few people will point out that the Tea Party hates government and wants it shut down anyway. That the GOP kept changing their numbers whenever Democrats moved in their direction. That they're holding the budget hostage to defund Planned Parenthood.
But those moderates... They either won't notice or won't understand. Not at the levels the evidence thrust into their face would suggest.
Maybe those socially conservative Midwestern union members will finally wake up and realize that every time they vote for a "Pro-Life" conservative, they're really voting for a Pro-Plutocrat ideologue who wants to shower benefits on the rich and cut everyone else's benefits and wages.
Maybe.
But the defining characteristic of the "moderate" is their desire to be above the fray. Their desire to declare a pox on both houses.
The fact that their own house is being razed seems not to enter their mental picture.
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