The American Spectator : Mau-Mauing the Free Press

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Mau-Mauing the Free Press

By Daniel Oliver on 8.3.10 @ 6:08AM

Par for the course from an Obama appointee and former host to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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And: “Please don’t put your faith in market forces. It’s a popular idea: that Adam Smith’s invisible hand would do a better job of designing [health] care than leaders with plans can.”

And this: “A progressive policy regime will control and rationalize financing — control supply.”

There are many more Berwick quotes — Henninger’s piece is one of the most important to be published this year — and they clearly demonstrate the mindset of this administration and its cronies, and, no doubt, of the experts who would be involved in “designing” journalism for the American people.

Berwick, of course, is talking about health care, which is important: it is one-sixth of the U.S. economy. But is it as important as journalism? Surely not. Journalism is what permits a democracy to function in any polity larger than a village. That’s why the Founding Fathers included freedom of the press in the First Amendment.

All the more reason, then — for socialists like Berwick and Bollinger and Obama — to have government finance the press. That will enable the leaders of a progressive policy regime to design the proper configuration of the free-press system, which a free market has failed to do.

Besides, putting government in charge of the press may be the only way to get Obama’s popularity numbers up.

On the other hand, that hasn’t worked for Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

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About the Author

Daniel Oliver is a Senior Director of White House Writers Group in Washington, D.C. He served as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Ronald Reagan.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (63) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

E.Patrick Mosman| 8.3.10 @ 7:24AM

Recently another New York City University President, NYU in this case, pontificated on the Charlie Rose show on how a chosen elite would monitor and control free speech.
Mr Sexton said "if I were able to do this, I would create a broad-based
group across the political spectrum that would take as its mandate an insistence on -- on nuanced conversation and would begin to speak out not about the content but about the process of conversation as engaged in by people with ambition."
Here is a University President proposing to award the mantle of speech control censor and controller to a panel of selected so-called educated elite to monitor and inhibit free speech by the majority of citizens of the USA. George Orwell in "Animal Farm' foretold of a similar take-over under the slogan "All animals or equal except some are more equal than others". While he excludes content for now any form of control is a slippery slope to total control. A more dangerous threat to the future is the almost total lack of content rich reasoned discourse on University and College Campuses which are in the control of liberal left administration, faculty and student bodies.

Deborah D | 8.3.10 @ 8:07AM

It's not surprising this type of thinking is coming from university presidents. They're the ones (with a little help, I'm sure, from a far left faculty) who have initiated speech codes on college campuses. They just want to bring their own sense of censorship to the country at large. (And why should we peons object to that...they are soooo much smarter than the rest of us, ya know.) Too bad they can't teach common sense on college campuses...there seems to be a great lack of that. Wake up, folks, these are our bettors and they can't wait until they can prove it to us.

Alan Brooks| 8.3.10 @ 9:47AM

You appear to have conveniently left out how Bollinger rightly insulted Ma-boob Imawhackjob at Columbia.

George S| 8.3.10 @ 12:43PM

As long as we are on the subject of convenience, who was it that invited Ahmadinejad to Columbia?

alert1201| 8.3.10 @ 7:31AM

This is another perfect example of the ivory tower, air headed elites in this country trying to stamp down the common man. To think a university president could be so stupid baffles me.

Alvin| 8.3.10 @ 7:56AM

It shouldn't baffle thee, brother. Did not William Buckley say it'd be to our advantage to be governed by a group drawn at random from the Boston telephone book than by a committee of the Harvard faculty? And when was this? 1960s?

alert1201| 8.3.10 @ 8:58AM

You're right, Alvin, it should not baffle me, but it still does. Stupidity always does.

gyspsy| 8.3.10 @ 3:52PM

the rich get bailouts
the poor get handouts
the middle class pays for it all

No more bailouts!!!
Too Big To FAIL = Too Dumb To SURVIVE

ggoblue| 8.3.10 @ 7:52AM

lee bollinger...mr affirmative action at the university of michigan...

he's got 90 days to accomplish his goal...

Deborah D | 8.3.10 @ 8:12AM

Bollinger likes free speech so much he had Iranian President Ahmadinejad there to speak a couple of years back. They're so tolerant at Columbia University, you know. That's where the Frankfort School is -- started by communists in the 1930's. Isn't Columbia where Obama sought out the "Marxist professors"? I think so.

Deborah D | 8.3.10 @ 8:16AM

Oh, the Frankfort School is where political correctness and multiculturalism came from. Makes sense that a Columbia University president would want to establish a politically correct newspaper industry as well. (As if they aren't politically correct enough.)

Deborah D | 8.3.10 @ 8:20AM

I miswrote -- the Frankfort School is no longer there -- it moved back to Frankfort in the 1950's, but their pollution of ideas stayed.

WilliamInWien| 8.3.10 @ 8:22AM

Why NPR? In way too many carpools during my commuting days, NPR was the radio station of choice. Why? Well, NPR was "sophisticated", its announcers just reported the facts in almost monotone voices. NPR did not have the annoying advertisements (except the companies/organizations that made NPR possible). NPR was the "thinking persons" station and (true) they covered a subject in more depth than other news shows. After a while, you just sat back and absorbed what NPR put out or a carpool member would start a conversation agreeing with the NPR perspective. Hey, without NPR, all we would have are those profit driven, noisy and sometimes emotional "other" news/commentary shows . Please......

JP| 8.3.10 @ 9:10AM

William,
You've fallen for NPR's faux urbanity and "seriousness". NPR hides its partisanship behind a wall of over-credentialed "experts" who, when push comes to shove always toe the party line. Whether it is Global Warming, labor relations, foreign affairs, or politics, NPR always comes out sounding like ALGORE, Robert Reich, the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, or Madeline Albright. NPR is smart in one regard; they know had to brand themselves. The "thinking person's" station knows how to pet the vanity of mindless yuppies.

Albert| 8.3.10 @ 4:04PM

The few times I have listened to NPR, the announcers were petty, confrontational, ill-informed, arrogant, and heavily partisan. But then, this was in San Francisco, so maybe it's supposed to be that way.

davelnaf| 8.3.10 @ 8:32AM

It never ceases to amaze that the twenty percent of Americans who call themselves liberal never tire of pushing their views on the eighty percent of us who are not.

And what can one say about the real intelligence of people who believe that Obama’s far-left agenda has every chance of taking root and remaking the American landscape in the liberal image despite the fact that their president and his agenda is sinking daily in the polls?

Of course, Obama will be turned out of office in 2012 and most, if not all, of his agenda will have been dismantled by then. And, thankfully, long before this we will see liberals, like Bollinger, returned to the sanatorium from which they were mistakenly released.

JP| 8.3.10 @ 8:32AM

Aging Baby-Boomers like Dr Bollinger reveal how out of touch they are when the offer up statements like he does without a hint of irony. Anyone who with even a modicum of historical curiosity know that during the Golden Age of newspapers (the early 1900s through the 1940s) saw journalists routinely savage politicans. One New York daily printed in 1930 wrote that FDR was a raving lunatic who was kept locked up in a room, where he sat and cut-out doilies; still another said that FDR's mental health was so poor that he would without warning begin to howl uncontrollably at a moment's notice. Menckin referred to him as Der Fuhrer, while another pundit called him a crippled SOB. These were just a few of the more "enlightened" opinions of a man destined to become the most successfull politican in our history.

The idea that we live in an age where "dangerous thoughts" exist because the newspapers are failing is absurd. If the Times or Post wishes to re-capture its lost audiences it only need to print freely on the politicans, rougues and other celebrities who irritate us so throughly. Bollinger is nothing but a party hack. If he was alive in 1921 he wouldn't be able to get a job in a newspaper's mailroom.

During the years when cities like Chicago, Philly, New York, St Louis, and Boston had 4-6 dailies one could find a whole host of opinions, facts, and stories covering everything from petty crime, sports, gossip, to elections and political news. Yes, much of what was written wouldn't pass muster today. But, people bought them becuase they were not boring. If the federal goverment begins subsidizing newspapers, those newspapers would be about as interesting as the public service announcments we see on TV.

Doctor Right| 8.3.10 @ 8:41AM

What the hell does this moron (Lee Bollinger) know about running the New York State Federal Reserve bank????

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.3.10 @ 9:11AM

Doctor,
Bollinger is far from being a moron. Sadly, he is a man on a mission to ensconce himself with the "ruling class".
Will PRAVDA be the catalyst?

daddio| 8.3.10 @ 9:15AM

When the government supports media, we get Pravda. We are almost there now. But guess what? They can have government controlled media if they want, but the people's voices will not be silenced! People will continue to talk and find new ways to communicate their ideas. They cannot stop us.

FastJohnny| 8.3.10 @ 9:35AM

NPR, while informative on how the other side thinks is tailor made for college students. Think about it, the mentality of the listener is geared toward left wing thought and immaturity of experience in the real world.

Ahh, to be young and liberal...it shows you have a heart, but when the reality of life sinks in...to be older and conservative...it shows you have a brain.

WilliamInWien| 8.3.10 @ 9:40AM

JP! William has not fallen for NPR. I guess I should have been more direct, but I was mocking the "class" of people who are addicted to NPR. My own opinion is that many of the NPR staff could not hold a job in a real news organization and I used to hold my nose when NPR trotted out Daniel Schorr (RIP) for his "expert" commentary. I cannot fathom why any part of my taxes should go to NPR. If NPR is the great and necessary, it should be financially supported by its "avid" listeners.

Pete| 8.3.10 @ 10:31AM

Said Dr. Berwick: "I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do."

Read that over and over again. They think they are better than everyone who is not in their elite club. You could make real money by trapping a few of these contemptable elitists and allowing regular citizens to give them open palmed slaps to the face.

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 11:27AM

Dr. Berwick has a long record of actually saving taxpayers money.

But that's neither here nor there. The idea that the government should be subsidizing journalists is idiotic and incompatible with the very concept of a free press. Journalists in this country are already way too shy about critizing the government-I imagine it's one of the reasons nobody reads the newspaper anymore. I can't see how getting money from the government would make them more willing to challenge it.

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.3.10 @ 11:42AM

DRed,
You are still stuck on stupid. Beewick saves tax-payer money just like Blondie used to save Dagwood money!
Berwick should NOT have tax-payer money to "save". Its our damned money.

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 11:44AM

But we have Medicaid and Medicare already. Shouldn't we try to run them efficiently?

Ned| 8.3.10 @ 12:23PM

NO! We should be trying to come up with a mechanism to wean America off of Medicaid and Medicare, and return those functions to the old doctor/patient relationship... "who pays" should NOT be allowed to expand into "who decides", and that is where we are at now... yes, we need some mechanism to provide health care to the truly indigent and the "barely making it"... but federal government is NOT that mechanism...

Of course, one of the ways to wean us would be to go after the 10% (15%? 20% nobody knows) of Medicare/Medicaid spending that is out-right fraud...

Always keep in mind (to paraphrase the Gipper) that more government isn't the solution, it's the problem...

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 12:38PM

Also try to remember that St. Ronnie increased the size of the Federal Government. (I'm not saying that was good or bad, just saying he didn't practice what he preached)

Deborah D | 8.3.10 @ 4:06PM

"St. Ronnie" had a Democrat Congress. Just sayin'.

George S| 8.3.10 @ 12:34PM

Why aren't they run effectively? Because it is a lot of work to operate a health care system effectively that meets everyone's needs (for both beneficiaries and taxpayers). The proper oversight of Medicare by congress would take up ALL of their time -- how many part time hospital or insurance CEO's are there? So if congress spends all of its time running Medicare, how does that buy them votes or expand Democrat power? It doesn't, it becomes a drag. And that's why those programs are in the toilet (among others) because congress is like a child with a puppy it no longer wants to take care of because it interferes with playtime activities.

And now we have ObamaCare. What are the odds the government will pay for your hip replacement when that money could be better spent on union pension shoring? Then you'll be asking why can't that system be run more efficiently as you maneuver those pliers around your rotten molar. Count the votes, that's the whole story.

Albert| 8.3.10 @ 4:07PM

As I try to tell my wife, you can go broke saving money.

uncle curmudgeon| 8.3.10 @ 12:50PM

It is so regretable that so many of you hold to these erroneous beliefs after all that Big Barry has done for you. But because Big Barry loves you he will not punish you (as you so richly deserve) but will surround you in His loving embrace of proper thought. All repeat now: "Big Barry has always given us our health care. It has always been the best health care. America has always been the enemy we have fought against. We love Big Barry." (rats hit face here).

Clinton nee Publius | 8.3.10 @ 12:28PM

We can trust the government. The track record of the modern era shows us that government only has our interests at heart and all this talk about ulterior motives may be a little bit specious. Mr. Obama has never lied, never acted in a partisan manner, has never promoted division or racism, has never acted callously or out of spite and has been virtuous, pious and thrifty.

Then I woke up covered in sweat and realized I had been dreaming and was back in the nightmare again.

gypsy| 8.3.10 @ 3:57PM

there is no such thing as the government: just a ratpack of lying swindlers who want to spend your money and run your life

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.3.10 @ 12:36PM

Clinton,
(smile)

George True| 8.3.10 @ 12:42PM

DRed: What examples can you point to regarding Berwick saving taxpayers money? If that is true, I would like to know about it. I suspect, though, that upon examination it would be found not to be true.

As far as running Medicare and Medicaid efficiently, what makes you think Berwick has some magic wand that would make him able to run it more efficiently than previous CMS administrators?

Here's an interesting fact. As recently as two to three years ago, CMS was trying to get as many seniors on Medicare Advantage programs as possible. That's right, the programs run by the private insurance companies. Why? very simple. CMS was paying out LESS money every month to the insurance companies for every person on Medicare Advantage than they were paying each month for the people they were covering in-house on original Medicare. And at the same time, the insurance companies were giving the Medicare Advantage enrollees an average of $1,000 more benefit per year in the form of lower co-pays and deductibles.

How is such a thing possible? Simple. Government is very inefficient. The insurance companies were able to hold their overhead to about 17-20%, whereas CMS had an overhead of about 34-37%. The insurance companies were able to offer better benefits to the enrollees AND make a profit at the same time.

That is why Obama bad-mouthed Medicare Advantage so much, and demonized the insurance companies who ran it. It was an embarrassment that could not be tolerated to have private insurance companies doing a better job running Medicare that the government could do. Obamacare mandates that Medicare Advantage will be phased out. And Berwick is Obama's chief cheerleader in denouncing those evil Medicare Advantage plans run by those evil insurance companies.

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 2:06PM

George, you're right. I misspoke. I should have said hospitals, not tax payers.

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers for Medicare Advantage. It cost the goverment more money to pay for beneficiaries on Medicare Advantage than it did for the equivalent coverage for regular Medicare.

John II| 8.3.10 @ 2:12PM

Great post. The real issue underlying such devilishly complex matters of policy is as old as the Republic--and, over the past three or four generations, in growing danger of being totally swamped. The issue is what IS and what IS NOT a proper function of the state.

And the answer, I believe, is fairly simple in outline. That which the state does well is a proper function; that which the state does poorly is NOT a proper function.

Almost everyone agrees, for example, that military defense, police and fire protection, a third-party court system, and management of public lands are proper functions of the state. And one measure of the propriety is the fact that such functions attract an extraordinarily competent and dedicated workforce, in which the standards of employment are high and slackers are rare.

On the other hand, most social services-- including K-12 education and to one extent or another in proportion to their fabled inefficiencies and corruptions and slacker workforces--are NOT proper functions of the state.

Health care seems to me to be one of those rare functions that straddle the divide. Paramedical emergency services, for example, arguably are a proper function of the state, as would be the provision of insurance support against the devastating expense of long-term or catastrophic illness. But the ordinary health maintenance and medical treatment that make up the bulk of physicians' work are NOT proper functions of the state--precisely because socialized health care systems don't work financially and provide shabby care.

Given its current degenerate leadership pandering to the lowest instincts, America is in an extremely dangerous political and economic situation just now precisely because the issue of what is and what is not proper to the state--and the clear discernment of the distinction from generations of experience--is almost completely buried under the complex social consequences of bad choices and bad civic habits. Who among today's politicians has the insight, much less the courage, to question such bad ideas as Social Security and public education? And even if financial catastrophe forces such issues in the years ahead, does the nation any longer have the moral fiber to sustain sensible reform?

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 2:23PM

John II,

You don't think it's a good idea for the state to educate its people?

I do agree with you, however, when you say we seem to be losing the power to debate the nature of the state and state services rationally. I'm less of a libertarian than you are (obviously), but I admit that one of the problems with social welfare programs is that both our politicians and our body politic seem incapable of discussion when it's apparent that some sort of service must be reduced.

John II| 8.3.10 @ 3:18PM

"You don't think it's a good idea for the state to educate its people?"

No. And I'm no libertarian. For one thing, the people don't belong to the state, DReddie; the state belongs to the people. Sorry, but your choice of words is very revealing--and an illustration of the evolved mindset I was alluding to when I said the real issue is now all but buried under an avalanche of "social services" that have reduced most of us to something resembling the Eloi in H.G. Wells's "Time Machine" (and Wells himself was a lefty advocate of Eloi-engendering public policies).

I think the idea of public education was superficially plausible when Horace Mann started pushing it in 1839, and one may argued forcefully that the system at least keeps the occurrence of juvenile delinquency down by keeping kids off the streets. But, apart from the rich (and the great majority of our politicians, including your socialist hero Professor Obama) who send their kids to private schools, I'm acquainted with many, many very impressive people who either homeschool or send their kids to private schools at great personal sacrifice.

That kind of sacrifice and devotion is what makes for a strong civic order and a free people. Public education, with its illusion of being "free," is deeply corrupting, even before we get into the issue of the shabbiness of the education itself; it takes a grave responsibility away from parents, which greatly reduces their dignity and abrades their resourcefulness. The current lefty assaults on the family would be unmanageable, if not unthinkable, without the corrupting public education system.

It WOULD be in the interest of the people for the state (which belongs to the people, remember?) to provide the means for all families to send their kids to the private school of their choice, and I don't have the same trouble with the concept of community colleges and state universities--which over time would again attract greater talent (and much less in the way of PC imbecilities) after a generation or two of private arrangements for K-12.

But K-12 public education, like Social Security, has turned out to have been a bad idea for the basic reason I suggested: it's not a proper function of the state. A treacherously bad idea to the extent that it fosters a public mindset that can't recognize it as a bad idea.

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 3:32PM

ha. Obama is about as much of a hero of mine as he is a socialist.

If it was affordable for the government to provide the means for all families to send children to private schools of their choice, you wouldn't get an argument from me.

Which lefty assaults on the family are you talking about?

gyspsy| 8.3.10 @ 4:08PM

how about the lefty assault that says my underaged daughters school can refer her to an abortion clinic without my knowledge or consent? How about the welfare state that has totally emasculated poor males in every ghettoin America -- do you think fatherless children are an accident? How about the whopping tax increases over the past forty years to pay for that bloated welfare state -- do you think that MAYBE thats why every middle class family now MUST have two income earners? Yeah, that places no strain at all on families!

You sir are allergic to reality and common sense

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 4:24PM

The federal income tax is at its lowest levels in about 30 years. As far as abortion notifications, either move or work to get your state to change its laws on notification.

John II| 8.3.10 @ 4:41PM

The Professor is indeed a socialist, DReddie--trust me: I've been listening to his kind (and the kind who most influenced him) for more than 50 years now--i.e., for longer than the Professor himself has existed.

As to whether he's your hero, I confess I overstepped my bounds (or perhaps overbounded my steps), and yet your supposition that he is not a socialist is surely one of the insistent marks of those to whom he is a hero. I suppose that issue will forever remain unknown except to God and to your pet cocker spaniel, if you confide in the latter.

But I think you're forgetting that an America in which there are only private K-12 schools would be an America in which the state could readily afford financial support for those families who otherwise truly could not make the tuition payments. Remember, the state would no longer be running the schools, so that, as day follows night, the schools would therefore be run much more cheaply and efficiently, so that the per-student cost of the system (judging from the current differences between private and public school budgets) would roughly be cut in half. I consider such economic benefits, however, to be of secondary import; my chief concern, as always, is cultural.

You see, DReddie, you keep losing track of the point I originally made. When the state does what is not proper to the state, all sorts of stupid and corrupt things happen which hurt all of us and our progeny. Your own unreflectively grandiose view of the state's range of functions leads me to conclude, logically, that Professor Obama is among your heroes.

Myself, I like the late John Wayne. Boy, those were the good ol' days, when men were men, ladies were lady-like albeit tough, and a five-dollar cigar cost a nickel.

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 4:50PM

Nobody who holds Obama's grandiose ideas of executive power would ever be a hero of mine.

So what do you do when the state does something not proper to the state, but it's wildly popular with the people, who are the state?

John II| 8.3.10 @ 5:15PM

Okay, I'll take your word for it. And thanks, DReddie--now you're getting warmer, and I don't have an answer. That too was part of my point.

The people aren't the state either, by the way; the state is a distinct entity, an instrument that belongs to the people. But your language once again indirectly reveals the problem. Apparently, one of the effects of the state doing lots and lots of things improper to the state is the gradual dissolution of the distinction I just made, so that too many of the people dissolve into a mindless identification with the state.

At any rate, that's what folks like Trollope and Chesterton and Zamyatin and Huxley and Orwell spent a century warning us about in their dystopian novels. And I take it as significant that, after 40 years of teaching literature in college, I'm finding fewer and fewer and fewer students familiar with any of those names, much less with the ideas articulated.

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 5:24PM

Orwell? Do you teach the Road to Wigan Pier? I hope you're not indoctrinating our children with socialist propaganda.

John II| 8.3.10 @ 6:51PM

No--except I WOULD teach it for its brilliant passages describing the Lefty type, if I thought it relevant to classical literature. In fact, I don't teach any of the aforementioned; my point was merely that I can no longer expect them to know what I'm referring to if I try to use any of it as a point of comparison when I'm teaching, for example, Lucian or Apuleius. I was just thinking of what used to be standard fare in high school English classes--what I could count on their knowing. And don't get me started on the OTHER stuff they don't know.

DRed| 8.3.10 @ 7:06PM

Yeah, the stuff about the unwashed vegetarians is great. Still holds true today.

John II| 8.3.10 @ 9:32PM

Well--DAMN, DReddie! If you know what THAT's about, get on board with us troglodytes. The rest is just passing minutiae. I mean, we've gotta bring down the Obamanation, and THEN we can get back to more subtle disagreements, after we've saved the Republic for good drinking and good argument!

I plumb reckon. Ken--where the hell are you when I need you? Margie? JP? I've got a fish on the line! The boy's one of us and just doesn't know it yet!

[Pay no attention to that last outburst, DReddie. Just keep posting.]

michigander_sandusky| 8.3.10 @ 1:06PM

We in Michigan are so glad Bollinger took his sorry ass liberal self out of our great state. We then had the good sense to vote in a ballot initiative that overturned the hideous affirmative action process in determining admission to our state universities. Goodbye and good riddance to a supreme jackass!

2 Gunz, AZ| 8.3.10 @ 1:47PM

Ah, yes, once again the ruling class knows what's best for us....

Radegunda| 8.3.10 @ 2:10PM

Remember when leftists were screaming in outrage about "censorship" when a government agency decided not to spend taxpayers' money on certain offensive "artworks" of highly dubious artistic merit?

In so doing, they handily refuted, in advance, their own argument that government funding does not involve government control.

dw| 8.3.10 @ 2:17PM

This is just another way for the marxist to dig their tentacles into the destruction of the American private sector. The left knows its influence is waning and must now create a template for justifying and thus maintaining government (read that democratic) control over the message to the peons. These people will do anything to spread their marxism and count on mass ignorance guided by targeted messaging to accomplish that.
Beware of the smiling leftist holding out hope with one hand while concealing a knife with the other.
That knife will find your back and once embedded you will not be able to remove it.
All and any policies that these types promote that involves government control must be rejected in principal. If it is something they want then it is automatically bad for our freedom. They can no longer be trusted.

Bob Miller| 8.3.10 @ 2:46PM

If the government both subsidized journalists and told us who these were, it would help us decide whom to ignore.

Deborah D | 8.3.10 @ 4:32PM

Yes, but why should I want my tax dollars to subsidize journalists -- whether they are ones I want to ignore or not?

Roy| 8.3.10 @ 2:58PM

Remember the Volksempfänger?
The radios manufactured by the Nazi'z so every household could listen to their propaganda?
Funny thing is anyone living in occupied countries was punished with death for listening to any radio what so ever. Any Radio!
If Rush or Levin suddenly goes off the air we'll know what time it is.

Chris| 8.3.10 @ 3:35PM

Go easy on Columbia University.

It is still smarting from its prematurely grant of the Bancroft Award to Michael Bellisiles for "The Arming of America" because it liked the book's erroneous thesis that our country's interest in firearms is a creation of the 20th century.

The professor lost his tenure at his own university (Emory University, I believe) for perpetrating an academic fraud that Columbia University bought into hook, line and sinker.

Deborah D | 8.3.10 @ 4:34PM

But, but, but -- they're so000 smart! Thanks for this reminder. I'd forgotten this.

Jim O'Brien| 8.3.10 @ 3:54PM

Bollinger would have been very comfortable and suited to the position of editor-in-chief of Pravda or Isvestia in the former USSR. The effete academic elite are out of touch with reality. They think more government control is preferable to free enterprise, no matter what the activity, topic, or problem. Apparently Bollinger is too naive to realize that the government could turn on him too. He has learned little or nothing from history. And to think that people send their kids to be educated by people like Bollinger, and pay $200,000 or more for an undergraduate degree! If the Founding Fathers had been educated in today's universities, neither the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence would have been written. This country would not exist.

Pat| 8.3.10 @ 4:51PM

Funny, Detroit’s mainstream media had a completely different take on this author’s quip charging the Obama administration with “Madoffing GM’s bondholers in favor of its union supporters ” – their view of the matter during the President’s recent visit: Obama saved millions of jobs as well as the American auto industry. But has anything really changed in Motown? Just the other day, GM’s senior executives, sitting alongside the White House advisors they report to, met at the negotiating table with various UAW big wigs to avoid a wildcat strike at the Hamtramck assembly plant. GM threatened to immediately raise the average hourly wage of union employees by 45%. The UAW angrily countered by threatening to contribute an additional $2 million to the Democratic Party this year.

After a short break to let tempers cool down, GM came back with a proposal to increase hourly wages by only 40% but to increase future pension payments by 37%. The UAW wasn’t mollified by this modest offer and threatened to increase this year’s contribution to the Democrats by an additional $3 million. So, the government’s takeover of GM hasn’t really altered the tension between management and labor, GM’s management is still giving in to labor, with only a little encouragement from their White House controllers. And the UAW’s leadership is still fighting for the working stiff, taking their members’ mandatory union contributions and giving the money, minus their modest commission, to the Democrats. However, it does our taxpayer hearts good to see a little bit of the former rough and tumble union negotiations returning to Detroit after a long absence.

Marc Jeric| 8.3.10 @ 7:23PM

I once calculated that Medicare patients visited a doctor 35 times per year on the average. That smells like a fraud - by doctors whi bill the system. One Washington DC doctor billed the Medicaid for an average of 60 patients per workday. Government has nobody to check those extraordinary numbers.

MAJ Mike| 8.4.10 @ 4:23PM

It's hard to imagine a subsidized NY Times or Washington Post becoming even slavish to this administration. They seem to have reached a critical mass of obsequious fawning which the introduction of massive amounts of federal cash could not possibly increase.

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