Pundits Pan 'Pledge to America'

Well, except the 'National Review'
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 23, 2010 1:52 PM CDT
Pundits Pan 'Pledge to America'
House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, left, holds up a copy of the GOP agenda, "A Pledge to America", Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010, at a lumber yard thirty miles from the Capitol.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The reviews are in for House Republicans' new "Pledge to America," and mostly they ain't pretty. Here's what people are saying:

  • Erick Erickson of RedState hates it, calling it “a series of compromises and milquetoast rhetorical flourishes in search of unanimity among House Republicans. … It is full of mom tested, kid approved pablum.”
  • “When you get past the adjectives and soaring language” you’re left with policies that would jack up the deficit, take health insurance away from millions, and suck demand out of the economy, writes Ezra Klein of the Washington Post. They assert that “America is an idea.” Yeah, well, “it’s also a country. It needs to be governed.”

  • “Alas, ‘The Pledge’ is pretty easy to make fun of,” writes Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic. Besides, the Republicans can’t “pledge” anything—realistically, they won’t have a governing majority.
  • But the National Review is buying in, calling the Pledge bolder than the Contract with America, committing Republicans to “a broad conservative agenda that, if implemented, would make the federal government significantly smaller, Congress more accountable, and America more prosperous.”
(More Pledge to America stories.)

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