Tom Friedman says President Obama should admit “that he made a mistake in spurning his own deficit reduction commission, chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, and is now adopting Simpson-Bowles — which already has Republican and Democratic support — as his long-term fiscal plan to be phased in after a near-term stimulus. If he did that, he would win politically and create a national consensus that would trump his opponents, right and left.”
“My gut says that if the president lays out such a plan — one that begins
with him taking all the political risks on himself and then demanding
the G.O.P. and his own party follow — he will be both defining himself
and the future in a way that would earn him so much centrist support and
respect that it would leave every possible Republican opponent in the
dust, no matter how obstructionist they are or want to be.”
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