Our most recent Gilded Age — where even the Middle Class could pretend they were wealthy, what with maxing out credit cards and taking second mortgages — crashed quickly in 2008.

 But the Gilded Age of Politics lives on.

 Excess is the word in our political world.

 So Russell Pearce succeeds with SB 1070, then pushes for even more.  And those who opposed him?  “Unpatriotic.”  “UnAmerican.” 

 The anti-abortion folks here in AZ win a few victories, and pretty soon, they’re pushing the phony Religious Freedom law.

 The Excess, of course, exists in the political media, too.

 Anyone watching the vast majority of MSNBC or Fox News for, well, news, is fooling himself.

 These two channels traffic in rhetorical excess.

 So on MSNBC, we have panelists sure that Daniel Zimmerman is racist.  Their proof, of course, is a racial epithet they’re sure they hear on the 911 tape.

 Except, of course, it wasn’t.  But it fit neatly into the MSNBC Narrative of the Trayvon Martin shooting.

 And Fox tells us — again and again and again — that we now have the highest corporate tax in the world.

 Except they forget to mention that unlike countries with lower rates, we have so many exemptions and loopholes that the effective corporate tax rate is, in reality, about 18%, far from the highest. 

 Nor do their talking heads tell us the  countries with the lowest rates include Iceland, Ireland, and Greece — not exactly models of prosperous economies.

 And our politicians engage in it on a regular basis:  The name-calling goes beyond juvenile.  Both sides are guilty.  Whatever the issue, we can be sure that both sides will overreach, take it one step (or a  thousand steps) too far.

 The most recent example:  President Obama at a speech yesterday saying, “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

 A not so subtle dig at Gazillionaire Mitt Romney.  And pointless.

 However the President was brought up, he is now a part of the 1% in this country, just the Silver Spoon Mitt.

 I guess we doomed to more months — years, eternity! — of the Age of Excess.

 That’s our culture.  Ugh.