Right On The Right

In an elaborate editorial relating to Romney's Presidential Announcement, James Pinkerton of Newsday hits on a couple key issues. Romney's a transformer, and Romney's an innovator. These things will be keys to Mitt's success in the coming months. Read it. Excerpt:

But, in the meantime, the next president will have to grapple first with public-sector issues. The universal health-care program that Romney enacted in Massachusetts was a deft compromise, sitting snugly between the social-contract imperative to get everyone covered and the equally strong need to avoid bureaucratic socialism.

So when he said on Tuesday, "If there ever was a time when innovation and transformation were needed in government, it is now," Romney was accurately describing the need to overhaul the doddering status quo in health care, education and homeland security - just for starters.

He was also correct when he added, "I do not believe Washington can be transformed from within by a lifelong politician." To put it another way, does anybody really believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton or John McCain, for example, have demonstrated the capacity to look upon the current mess with fresh eyes?