Oh brother.

Impending “fiscal cliffs.” Unprecedented national debt. Trillion-dollar annual deficits.

These are the great issues of our day, like it or not. We cannot wish them away. About their resolution, the nation has two choices: We can do nothing (or too little) and let the consequences roll over us as they are now in Greece and Spain. Or, we can act.

If the great issue of your day is the deficit, congratulations, you are privileged. And if you think the United States is economically similar to Greece and Spain and that austerity is a good thing to do in a recession, you should really just shut up and go away because you have no clue what you’re talking about. But luckily for the AZ Republic ed board, they get a platform from which to spout their privileged oblivious idiocy and have it be taken seriously. It was clear when I watched the ed board interview of Richard Carmona and Jeff Flake for US Senate race endorsement that Flake was the preferred candidate from the get-go. They grilled Carmona relentlessly while treating Flake tenderly and spent easily 2/3 of the interview twaddling over spending and earmarks, which is seen as Flake’s wheelhouse. Naturally, since Republic endorsements these days are advanced etiquette competitions, the editors found it necessary to let readers know that Flake “shined” at the interview with his well-known “affability”. And I think we can safely forecast the Republic’s Presidential endorsement from this:

With the exception of Rep. Paul Ryan, perhaps no candidate for federal office in this election cycle is more committed to forcing sanity back into the nation’s finances.

Yeah, the willingness to starve grandmas is a good indicator of one’s commitment to fiscal sanity. The Republic says that Carmona would be a good candidate for a different, more prosperous time but that “recession-weary Arizonans scarcely need reminding that these are not the economically full-throttle days of Reagan or Clinton.” Right, so elect the guy who wants to starve grandmas with Paul Ryan and refuses to bring job-generating federal projects to Arizona. Good call, geniuses.