Sunday Roundup

This was not a good week for those in the media who insist on looking at every issue using the exhausted left vs. right framing. First, Barney Frank and Ron Paul took to HuffPost, making the case that substantial cuts in the bloated defense budget must be a central part of the deficit reduction debate currently raging in Washington. Then David Boies and Ted Olson, who fought it out in Bush v. Gore, discussed their joint battle to make gay marriage legal during a compelling session at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Finally -- and most surprisingly -- Ann Coulter, following the path already trod by George Will and the Cato Institute, warned that the war in Afghanistan "isn't likely to turn out well" and criticized today's GOP for making "permanent war" one of the "irreducible requirements of Republicanism." The sell-by date on "right vs. left" has definitely expired.