Thursday, July 08, 2004

No Kidding: The Washington Post made a startling discovery a couple months ago -- Bush and Kerry often agree on the issues. In fact, most politicians do.

More broadly, many Republicans and Democrats in recent years have gradually coalesced, in broad terms, around a similar set of ideas: tax cuts instead of tax increases; global trade instead of protectionism; greater accountability in public school classrooms; internationalism instead of isolationism; and deficit reduction, at least as a spoken goal.

Of course, there are some contentious issues, such as abortion. But even that doesn't get brought up too often. For example, Clinton famously pledged that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare," and Bush admitted that the country isn't ready to outlaw abortion.

So the parties nitpick over little things, like partial-birth abortion, and argue over shades of gray. For the most part, we don't disagree on our goals. We merely quibble over which route to take to best meet those goals. This is called consensus. This is called (here it comes) moderation.

That's not to say everybody agrees with the moderate approach. There are extremists on both sides. Unfortunately, it's the extremists making the most noise. But the tug-o-war so far keeps ending in a stalemate, keeping our elected representatives on the straight and narrow. There are just too many roadblocks in government for one brand of extremism to win out -- thank God for checks and balances.

Don't get me wrong, we still have some tough choices ahead of us. This November we have to pick which guy we'll get to blame for whatever goes wrong during the next four years.

But the accusations of lying/warmongering and appeasement can be put to rest. We're all playing for the same team after all.