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Saturday, August 22, 2009
Palin was not Wrong, Part Two
Posted by on 8.22.09 @ 9:50AM
Martin Feldstein, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that, “ObamaCare is all about rationing.”
He says, “The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report in June explaining the Obama administration's goal of reducing projected health spending by 30% over the next two decades. That reduction would be achieved by eliminating "high cost, low-value treatments," by "implementing a set of performance measures that all providers would adopt," and by "directly targeting individual providers . . . (and other) high-end outliers." In other words, using a British-style NICE board to determine what services are cost effective, and disallow those that are not.
Now, you can be for this or against this, but it is disingenuous to argue that Palin was completely wrong in warning about this cost-based rationing. What kind of democratic process is it that asks the American people to accept this approach, while pretending this is not what the administration is trying to do?
Americans may decide that such rationing is worthwhile, but they should not be fooled into thinking it is the only way to control costs. Mr. Feldstein points out one alternative. He writes, “The rising cost of medical treatments would not be such a large burden on future budgets if the government reduced its share in the financing of health services. Raising the existing Medicare and Medicaid deductibles and coinsurance would slow the growth of these programs without resorting to rationing. Physicians and their patients would continue to decide which tests and other services they believe are worth the cost.”
If the people were allowed to vote on which approach they would prefer, I wonder which would win?
Britain's NHS: Fulfilling Targets Rather than Treating Patients
Posted by on 8.22.09 @ 5:29AM
We can all agree that America's health care is an inefficient amalgam of private and public with at times anomalous and unfair results. But where the government provides almost half of the funding and drives the rest of the system through the tax system, such problems are inevitable. The question is whether increasing political control would improve the treatment of patients--which is, after all, the purpose of the health care system The answer to that question is no.
Unfortunately, increased governmental control almost certainly would put political before patient priorities. We certainly see that in Great Britain. Consider this astonishing story from the Daily Telegraph (it's a couple months old, but I just came across it):
People arriving at Accident and Emergency departments with symptoms which could indicate the aggressive spread of the disease are waiting weeks for diagnosis and treatment while "routine" cases are prioritised.
Hospital managers told researchers that treating desperately sick patients more quickly would "reflect badly" on their performance against Government cancer targets which only cover those referred to specialists by GPs.
Doctors, patients groups and politicians were appalled by what one described as a "breathtaking admission" which confirmed their "very worst fears" about how far the NHS target culture has gone in distorting clinical priorities.
The point is not to demonize the British system. But obviously the NHS has to fulfill political targets and respond to bureaucratic priorities, which often have nothing to do with, or even actively subvert the objective of, providing quality patient care. And it is far harder for British patients to escape the system when it miscarries so badly.
We can't afford to make a similar mistake here.
Should the Oil Company Executives Go on Trial?
Posted by on 8.22.09 @ 4:18AM
Obama science guru John Holdren isn't sure. Michael Egnor, writing for the Science & Public Policy Initiative, reports on a television show last year when Holdren was asked about trying company executive for "crimes against humanity" for doubting global warming:
I couldn't really say. I'm not qualified to assess what the heads of oil companies, past or present, have done in this domain. My understanding is that Exxon, in particular, did fund a variety of small think tanks to generate what amounts to propaganda against understanding of what climate change was doing and the human role in causing it. Whether that sort of activity really constitutes crimes against humanity is something for those more embedded in the legal system than I to judge ...
Maybe Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will get to rule on the case.
North Koreans Know How to Party!
Posted by on 8.22.09 @ 3:55AM
Two North Korean diplomats traveled to New Mexico to meet with Gov. Bill Richardson. They took a different route home.
After holding rare talks with a prominent US governor, a diplomatic duo from the reclusive state of North Korea is off to see another side of the United States -- Las Vegas.
A senior US official confirmed on condition of anonymity Friday that the two North Korean diplomats had told US authorities they planned "personal travel" in America's casino capital as well as in Los Angeles.
The US official declined further details on the travel of the pair, who are accredited at the United Nations and require special permission to go beyond a 25-mile (40-kilometer) radius of New York City.
The diplomats, Kim Myong-Gil and Paek Jong-Ho, held two days of talks this week in the southwestern state of New Mexico with Governor Bill Richardson, a former UN envoy and longtime go-between for North Korea.
Ain't life great for people who live in the workers' paradise of North Korea?!
Friday, August 21, 2009
Rand Paul Money Bombs Kentucky
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 1:46PM
Yesterday Rand Paul's online "money bomb" raised more than $430,000 in honor of his father Ron Paul's birthday and, more importantly, to fund his campaign for the Republican senatorial nomination in Kentucky. The campaign has now raised more than $680,000 in total, mostly from small donors. Paul supporters hope to raise $2 million to wrest the nomination away from party favorite Trey Grayson.
The Politics of the Politics of Fear
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 11:18AM
The buzz is building over a new supposed tell-all by former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, "The Test of Our Times". The book, however, directly contradicts the fast moving media message that the Bush White House tried to manipulate Homeland Security threat levels for partisan gain.
In promotional materials distributed by his publisher in advance of the September debut, and in the subsequent media orgy, a narrative has developed. George Bush, the story goes, through John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld pressured Tom Ridge to increase the threat level ahead of the 2004 presidential election in order to gain politically. Ridge refused and, as a result, subsequently retired. A neat little package tied in a bow, that, and a delicious second-helping of Bush-derangement syndrome for all the right people. A recipe, you might be forgiven for adding, for book sales.
A salacious story, if true. Verifying the accuracy, however, requires unraveling layers upon layers of spin.
Let's start at the end. The summary above is what most Americans are hearing in sound bite form or reading in newspapers and blogs. For example, the dramatic telling from the Washington Post below:
Former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, the first director of the Department of Homeland Security, says that he was pressured by other agency heads to raise the national security-threat level on the eve of the 2004 presidential election -- a move he rejected as having political undertones.The disclosure comes in promotional materials for Ridge's new book, due out Sept. 1, in which he writes that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft tried to pressure him to raise the threat level.
"After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector," Ridge writes in the book, "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege ... and How We Can Be Safe Again," according to publishers Thomas Dunne Books.
He submitted his resignation within the month.
Stirring. Likewise, the following from the Christian Science Monitor's Vote Blog:
For those who had their doubts about the politics behind the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism,” Tom Ridge’s new book will fuel long-held suspicions.
The former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, who was the first head of the Department of Homeland Security, says two top Bush officials – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft – pressured him to up the terror alert level before the 2004 election, according to promotional materials by publisher Macmillan.
Vote Blog's headline reads "Tom Ridge kisses and tells on Bush’s ‘terror levels.'" The scare quotes on "terror levels" are the blog equivalent of threat level orange, if you aren't familiar.
I asked Donald Rumsfeld's office if they had any comment on the allegations above. The entire statement is below the fold, but here's a choice excerpt.
"We have no idea what Tom Ridge's book actually says. The storyline advanced by his publisher seemingly to sell copies of the book is nonsense. During the fall of 2004, Osama bin Laden and an American member of al-Qaida released videotapes that said in no uncertain terms that al-Qaida intended to launch more attacks against Americans. 'The streets of America will run red with blood,' al-Qaida warned. Given those facts, it would seem reasonable for senior administration officials to discuss the threat level. Indeed, it would have been irresponsible had that discussion not taken place."
What the book actually says would seem to be the question. Most of the press regarding the allegations cite the promotional materials from the publisher. Considering the stir they've caused, one can only assume the pitch will be lightning hot. Right?
He details the obstacles faced in his new post—often within the administration itself—as well as the failures of Congress to provide for critical homeland security needs, and the irresponsible use of terrorism by both parties to curry favors with voters. Ridge also reveals: • How the DHS was pressured to connect homeland security to the international “war on terror”• How Ridge effectively thwarted a plan to raise the national security alert just before the 2004 Election• How Ridge had pushed for a plan (defeated because of turf wars) to integrate DHS and FEMA disaster management in New Orleans and other areas before Hurricane Katrina
Emphasis added. While certainly the general basis of the press frenzy exists, it's hardly the explosive confession you might have expected. It doesn't even, in fact, have a quote from the actual book. I, however, do.
"In spite of allegations of playing politics, as time went on, our office was more often than not the most reluctant to raise the threat level. Despite perception to the contrary, the White House couldn't, as a matter of course, call us up and say, 'Go to orange, Tom.'"
Interesting. That quote is from the chapter titled "The Politics of Terrorism, Part I," however, which is not the chapter apparently cited in the press frenzy. The story most people are discussing is one in which Ridge was allegedly pressured by Ashcroft and Rumsfeld, not George Bush. The story is recounted in a later chapter "The Politics of Terrorism, Part II."
In October of 2004, a videotaped message from Osama Bin Laden surfaced. There were mere days until the election. There was, of course, a Homeland Security meeting. According to Ridge, an internal consensus was reached that they did not need to raise the threat level to orange. Security was heightened already in advance of the election, but had not been officially designated as a new threat level. Then the decision was brought to a security meeting with the FBI, the State Department, the Defense Department and so on. According to Ridge, Ashcroft argues for raising the threat level, while Ridge argues against. Here is the apparent money quote:
"I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?'"
He wondered. "There was no consensus reached at that session, and we took it upon ourselves to keep it that way," he concludes, which I can only assume is what we are supposed to call "thwarting" a "plan" to raise the alert level.
It is possible, at this point, that you find none of this very definitive. But that is OK, because Tom Ridge has a definitive statement for you. Earlier in the book, addressing the allegations that political pressure had been applied to raise threat levels, Ridge has this to say:
"Let me make it very clear. I was never directed to do so no matter how many analysts, pundits or critics say so."
That is very clear indeed, Secretary Ridge.
Below, please find the full statement from the office of Donald Rumsfeld. A call to Tom Ridge's publicist was not immediately returned.
Continue reading…Stand and Deliver, Bob
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 10:36AM
A couple of days ago I explained on the main site how the Southern Governors Association will hear a heavy dose of global warming alarmism this weekend at their annual meeting. Not mentioned in the piece is the fact that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat environoiac, will step down as SGA chairman while Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican, takes the helm. The transition presents the opportunity for some climate reality to be injected into the proceedings, as AP notes:
Riley says the governors will also be discussing how federal issues, such as cap-and-trade energy legislation, will affect the region. He says southern companies have relatively cheap energy and cap-and-trade legislation could raise their costs 40 percent.
The way these things usually go, it's almost always about the costs and there's little, if any, discussion that the proposed legislation will do nothing to affect global climate. But something is better than nothing -- that is, if Riley decides to go there.
Update 11:35 a.m.: The Daily Press in Newport News says Riley is not attending SGA, which makes no sense at all given his impending higher profile with the group. If the newspaper is correct, then only Mississippi's Haley Barbour and Georgia's Sonny Perdue provide the only possible anti-cap-and-trade voices at the summit. Unsurprisingly, the Schwarzeneggerish alarmist Charlie Crist of Florida is skipping the meeting, given his new political aspirations.
And to correct/update something I reported at Globalwarming.org last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has not been a member of the Southern Governors Association (or the Western Governors Association) since 2002 (even though both orgs like to claim him), according to a staffer I spoke to, who explained, "He quickly realized that all those groups were about is how to make government bigger."
Cross-posted at Globalwarming.org.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 10:31AM
- A Tribute to Terrorism: Convicted Lockerbie bomber gets heroic welcome in Tripoli (CNN)
- Child molester given Viagra under NHS (DailyMail)
- Throwing them under the tractor: Labor unions, Congress, Chavez, allied against free trade with Colombia (Heritage)
- Good news for Osama: 51% of American adults say war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting (Washington Post)
Should Government Decide on Our Health Care?
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 10:18AM
Nat Hentoff is a man of the Left who long wrote for the Village Voice. But he always was a man of principle--he defended free speech for all and vigorously opposed abortion despite much discomfort among his supposed allies.
Now he looks at the Democratic health care reform proposals:
I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama's desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) - as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill - decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive. Watch for that life-decider in the final bill. It's already in the stimulus bill signed into law.
The members of that ultimate federal board will themselves not have examined or seen the patient in question. For another example of the growing, tumultuous resistance to "Dr. Obama," particularly among seniors, there is a July 29 Washington Times editorial citing a line from a report written by a key adviser to Obama on cost-efficient health care, prominent bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel).
Emanuel writes about rationing health care for older Americans that "allocation (of medical care) by age is not invidious discrimination." (The Lancet, January 2009) He calls this form of rationing - which is fundamental to Obamacare goals - "the complete lives system." You see, at 65 or older, you've had more life years than a 25-year-old. As such, the latter can be more deserving of cost-efficient health care than older folks.
No matter what Congress does when it returns from its recess, rationing is a basic part of Obama's eventual master health care plan. Here is what Obama said in an April 28 New York Times interview (quoted in Washington Times July 9 editorial) in which he describes a government end-of-life services guide for the citizenry as we get to a certain age, or are in a certain grave condition. Our government will undertake, he says, a "very difficult democratic conversation" about how "the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care" costs.
Which provides yet another reason to say "no thanks" to government control of health care.
Iran Appoints Suspected Terrorist to be Defense Minister
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 9:58AM
Eli Lake reports:
Ahmad Vahidi, nominated Thursday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to serve as Iran's defense minister, is a suspected international terrorist sought by Interpol in connection with a deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina.
Mr. Vahidi, a former commander of the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard known as the Quds Force, was one of 15 men and three women named to Cabinet posts by Mr. Ahmadinejad as he begins his second term in office. The choice is likely to further chill relations between Iran and the international community, especially Israel.
Dems on Capitol Hill Getting Nervous
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 9:28AM
Political analyst Charlie Cook delivers bad news for the Dems. According to Politico:
Charlie Cook, one of the best political handicappers in the business, sent out a special update to Cook Political Report subscribers Thursday that should send shivers down Democratic spines.
Reviewing recent polling and the 2010 election landscape, Cook can envision a scenario in which Democratic House losses could exceed 20 seats.
"These data confirm anecdotal evidence, and our own view, that the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Today, The Cook Political Report's Congressional election model, based on individual races, is pointing toward a net Democratic loss of between six and 12 seats, but our sense, factoring in macro-political dynamics is that this is far too low," he wrote.
"Many veteran Congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats."
Obama Poll Ratings Continue to Drop
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 7:03AM
The Prez has gone negative. I suspect that wasn't the sort of change he envisioned when he was running for office!
President Barack Obama's popularity has plummeted to a record low, with just 45 percent of voters now approving of his performance, according to the latest Zogby International poll.
Asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president's job performance, just 45.3 percent of likely voters say they approve. That compares with 50.5 percent who disapprove of the job Obama is doing.
The results are a strong indication that contentious national debate over healthcare reform has taken a major toll on the president's popularity.
Afghanistan as a German Election Issue
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 6:26AM
The German Free Democrats, expected to form a center-right coalition with Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU amalgam if current polls hold true in the upcoming election, have called for a speedy exit from Afghanistan.
After ignoring the issue of Afghanistan for much of the federal election campaign so far, the Free Democrats, an opposition party that hopes to join Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives in the next government, have called for a plan to bring home the 4,500 German troops serving in the NATO force there.
In doing so, the party has broken ranks with most of the major parties, which have tried to keep the issue of Germany's controversial Afghan presence out of the public eye.
"The next government must formulate a precise plan that spells out how a pull-out of the German Army over the coming years would look," Jürgen Koppelin, a federal legislator and defense expert for the Free Democrats, said in a newspaper interview Wednesday. "Our soldiers in Afghanistan and their families need to know that the mission will end."
By raising the issue now, the Free Democrats may be trying to show their foreign policy credentials, particularly since they hope to take over the Foreign Ministry if they win enough votes to form the next coalition with Mrs. Merkel, who is favored to retain the chancellery. So far, foreign policy issues have played no role in this campaign, which has yet to get going in force.
The Free Democrats have also tapped into the public mood, which may win them more votes.
The Obama administration may be hoping that the Euriopeans will do more in Afghanistan, but they almost certainly will be doing not just less, but far less, over the next year or two.
Christian Karen Under Fire in Burma
Posted by on 8.21.09 @ 5:56AM
Although public attention in Burma focuses on Nobel Laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi and her worthy struggle for democracy, the military junta has been even more brutal in the ongoing wars in the eastern part of the nation. Unfortunately, the Karen, a largely Christian group which has struggled for autonomy for decades, continues to lose ground.
For the first time in at least a decade, Myanmar's central government controls most of its own border with Thailand. By the standards of most countries this might not be considered a major accomplishment. But Myanmar has been fighting ethnic Karen rebels along the mountainous border for nearly as long as it has existed as an independent country.
The Myanmar military and a local proxy militia undertook an assault in June that led to the capture of seven military camps run by the Karen National Union, a rebel group that once so dominated parts of the 1,100-mile Thailand-Myanmar border that it collected customs duties at its own checkpoints.
The June offensive surprised the Karen forces partly because it took place during the muddy monsoon season, usually a time of a climate-induced truce. Hundreds of rebels fled into the jungles infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
The Karen have led one of the most resilient insurgencies in Asia. They once proposed to their British colonial overlords that they create an independent "Karenistan." But they now appear understaffed, under-equipped and divided, according to Bertil Lintner, a Thailand-based expert on ethnic groups in Myanmar, formerly called Burma. "They have lost most of their military strength," he said.
The main losers of the most recent fighting, however, were not combatants but villagers, many of them children, forced to flee their homes in the remote and impoverished Karen hills. The Karen Human Rights Group, an organization that monitors the conflict, counted 4,862 villagers who crossed to the Thai side of the border, where already crowded refugee camps hold more than 120,000 people.
There's not much that can be done to help the Karen on the battlefield. But organizations which help relieve the suffering of Karen refugees deserve support. One of my favorite, with which I've traveled extensively, is Christian Freedom International.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
How Can You Trust a Man Who Wears Both a Belt and Suspenders?
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 5:42PM
How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can't even trust his own pants.
-Henry Fonda in Sergio Leone's 1968 epic Once Upon A Time in the West
* * * * *
During today's DNC pep rally for socialist healthcare, President Obama said:
I continue to support a public option. I think it's important. But it's just one component. Insurance reforms are also needed. Insurance reforms are the belt, the public option is the suspenders.
Not exactly the best use of metaphor. Who wears both a belt and suspenders?
One definition of a belt-and-suspenders man is "a man with something to hide."
Ah, now I get it.
The Protest Most of Us Didn't See
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 4:56PM
Tea parties. Health care town halls. "Energy Citizen" rallies.
The rest of the country has seen these (or will) to one degree or another, but nearly two weeks ago some Utahns who are fed up with federal government control of their lands (67 percent) staged a protest in Salt Lake City. The local media covered it, but most of the rest of us missed it. And the Deseret News wrote a pretty good lede:
Stretching to both sides of the street, thousands marched up State Street to the Capitol on Saturday hoping for one thing: their American rights.
Farmers, hunters and all types of outdoor enthusiasts upset over the continued closure of forests and other lands gathered on the steps and lawn of the Capitol with resolve etched across their faces.
"If you want to see what it's like to live in a socialist regime, go to southern Utah," said Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, who organized the Take Back Utah 2009 march and rally. "The federal government controls everything."
When have you ever heard a major newspaper describe property use advocates as people who pursue "their American rights?"
Noel is an impressive guy and a tough character. He just recovered from cancer last year and now he's back mixing it up again. As the Salt Lake Tribune explained:
Noel, who worked for nearly 20 years for the [Bureau of Land Management] as a lands specialist before quitting in disgust when the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was established by then-President Bill Clinton, said he hoped the event would energize Utahns who might not have time to backpack into scenic parts of the state for two weeks but want to access public lands.
"This is more than about recreation, it's about farming and mining and keeping revenues generated by the lands of Utah," Noel said. "This is a beginning. We have got to be extreme in the way we take back these public lands."
The demonstration was a reaction to the excessive favor the courts and BLM have given to groups like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (empowered by a Swiss billionaire and shrouded in its own controversies), Earth First!, and other environmental activists, who believe any human use or enjoyment of the land is a blight. The extremists said the demonstrators have "selfish motives," as though their motives of denying affordable resources and good employment for less difficult living are unselfish, all to benefit soulless creatures, rocks and dirt. I'm sure the animals and the creek pebbles appreciate the gesture.
Brand new Governor Gary Herbert, who replaced the departing Jon Huntsman Jr. (ambassador to China), explains further:
ObamaCare Online Pep Rally Set for 2:30 Eastern Today
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 2:24PM
(poster parody from ThePeoplesCube.com)
Desperate to save ObamaCare, Organizing for America, the Saul Alinsky community organizing branch of the Democratic National Committee, is hosting an online forum with President Obama today at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. You can watch online at http://my.barackobama.com/watch. Here is the schedule according to the above linked website:
Program Begins at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time
The President will update supporters on the fight to pass real health insurance reform. He'll lay out our strategy and message going forward and answer questions from supporters like you.
2:30 Program Begins
• Addisu Demissie, Political Director, Organizing for America
• Governor Tim Kaine, Chairman, Democratic National Committee
• Jeremy Bird, Deputy Director, Organizing for America
• Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)
• Beth Kimbriel, OFA Volunteer from Chester, Virginia
• Mitch Stewart, Director, Organizing for America
2:45 President Barack Obama
The Politics Behind Ted Kennedy's Plea
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 1:17PM
The Washington Post makes note of a letter from ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy asking Massachusetts lawmakers to more rapidly fill his Senate seat should a vacancy occur. "I strongly support that law and the principle that the people should elect their senator," Kennedy wrote in the letter. "I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election."
Rather unaccountably, the Post doesn't mention why the state law was changed in 2004 to get rid of interim gubernatorial appointments: Democrats were afraid that if John Kerry won that year's presidential election, Mitt Romney would name a Republican to succeed him in the Senate. Republicans who have been appointed to countywide elected offices by GOP governors have a decent track record at the ballot box in the next election, unlike the sacrificial lambs the Bay State GOP recruits to take on Democratic incumbents.
Massachusetts has a Democratic governor now, however, so state Democrats have nothing to fear from an interim senator. And all the better for Kennedy to influence the selection of his replacement.
Obama the Theocrat
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 12:49PM
Yesterday President Obama tried to boost his religious credentials with religious groups. While he was aiming for a theocratic-style impression, I think, he came across as a bumbling, lying demagogue.
From yesterday's blogtalkradio address sponsored by 30 religious groups:
I know there's been a lot of misinformation in this debate. And there are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness.
This was said without any hint of sarcasm. My guess is that the phrase "bearing false witness" is not part of Obama's everyday vocabulary.
You've heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion. Not true.
These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation. And that is that we look out for one another. That I am my brother's keeper and my sister's keeper. And in the wealthiest nation on earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call.
The first line is an out-and-out lie. Unless Obama is right here commiting to vetoing health care reform legislation unless a Hyde Amendment-sytle provision prohibiting funding for abortions is added, it's very black-and-white. The AP headline: "Gov't insurance would allow coverage for abortion."
(Note that in the second paragraph he imputes the worst possible motives to his opponents -- they're trying to prevent people from fulfilling a core moral obligation.)
Continue reading…Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 12:38PM
- Justice served? Scotland lets convicted terrorist who killed 189 Americans go free (New York Times)
- An inconvenient statistic: Earth's temperature has dropped over 10 years (McClatchy Newspapers)
- Green Collar Crime: several arrested in England for allegedly committing $63 million in carbon tax fraud (New York Times)
- Military appropriations bill includes $14.4 million to build a chapel in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. No collection plate? (Citizens Against Government Waste)
Depression Era Returns to NC
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 11:41AM
Beverly Perdue, a Democratic governor with one of the lowest (if not the lowest) approval ratings in the country, has posted a series of Q&A videos in which she addresses concerns of her North Carolina constituents. Today, in her answer to a public school teacher who complains about state budget cutbacks which has led to teacher assistant firings, Perdue said this year's "toughest budget challenge" was "maybe even as tough as what happened in the Great Depression."
Undoubtedly she was just "emotionalizing" the issue -- so much more palatable than "exaggerating" or "lying."
Hat tip: Asheville talk show host Matt Mittan (via Facebook).
Two Views of the GOP
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 10:58AM
On the main site, I argue that the Republicans are starting to reap the political benefits of being the party out of power at a time when a lot of Americans aren't happy with the way things are going. For an alternative viewpoint, you can read Harold Meyerson on the incredible shrinking GOP and Joe Klein on the Republicans as a party of nihilists.
Disgrace
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 10:20AM
The Scottish government has decided to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on "compassionate grounds" so that he could spend the last few months of his life with his family in Libya as he dies of cancer. This is so utterly despicable that it's beyond words. The government has just given this animal the opportunity that he denied to the families of 270 innocent people he murdered.
Running Against Health Care
Posted by on 8.20.09 @ 9:29AM
This YouTube video, which links liberal Kansas Republican Jim Barnett with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, has been making the rounds on national and Kansas blogs. Jim Barnett is a liberal Republican who lost a gubernatorial bid against Sebelius by a landslide, only to then team with her in 2008 in an attempt to pass a big government health care plan in Kansas.
The video strikes me as interesting for two reasons:
1. Kathleen Sebelius, the once popular Kansas governor, has finally entered "Nancy Pelosi territory." Clearly, her support of ObamaCare has made her a radioactive figure whom candidates -- in Kansas, at least -- are attempting to "run against." You can tell you have become unpopular when you become the focus of these types of videos and candidates begin asking you not to come to the district and campaign for them...
2. Kansas-1, the Congressional seat Jim Barnett is hoping to represent, is one of the most Republican seats in the nation. Clearly, this is a chance to elect a solid conservative Congressman like State Senator Tim Huelskamp, for example. Huelskamp has a solid ten-year conservative voting record, whereas Barnett is part of the moderate GOP establishment in Topeka.
... Last quarter, Barnett donated $100,000 to his own campaign. It will be interesting to see whether or not conservative groups sit on the sidelines and allow a liberal Republican to buy this race.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Y'all Can Stop Going to Town Halls Now
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 5:53PM
Forget AARP. AMA who? The Big O says he's got Big G's endorsement!
At least we don't have a theocrat in office anymore, right?
Imagine You Are a Doctor
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 5:43PM
Much of the discussion regarding the government health care proposals has been directed toward the prudence of the ideas. But what about doctors and their moral rights in the process? I took that on in the latest Acton Commentary. Here's an excerpt:
Imagine that you are a physician. You have made it through four years of college on a steady diet of biology, chemistry, and calculus, four years of medical school so demanding that you have no life outside of school, and at least three years of residency in which you have regularly worked 100 hours a week for a very low salary. You have been the first to get up and the last to go home. And somewhere in there your third decade of life, commonly known as your "twenties" (normally a fun time), has disappeared. Along the way, you have probably racked up an astronomical personal debt because there is no time to work a second job to help pay it off. The first professional hurdle you set out to clear will be six figures accumulating interest. Forget family. If you have a spouse at this point, he or she is probably full of resentment at never seeing you.
After all this, have you made your way to an easy job? No. You are likely spending four days a week seeing patients, another day in surgery, taking a 24 hour call every four days, and working one weekend out of every four. The only time you are ever off is when another doctor can be found to cover your responsibilities while you are out. The job itself is rewarding, but incredibly difficult. You see patients and listen to them explain their symptoms. Using your knowledge, you have to figure out what is wrong with them and which of the many options for treatment you should choose. If you are a specialist who performs surgeries, you have to cut into another human being with a blade and try to correct what is wrong inside the body. It's stressful work.
Bad things happen in the cold rooms of the hospital. Patients in surgery might begin to bleed so fast you have maybe five minutes to figure out how to stop it and prevent their death. Sometimes, you open up a patient and see that things are so bad you can do nothing other than close them back up and give them the awful news. And don't ever make a mistake or even appear to have made a mistake. American medicine has been so successful that patients have unrealistic expectations for their own safety in the midst of inherently risky activities like cutting a body open and manipulating vital organs. Trial lawyers feed on those expectations to create an entire industry designed to capitalize on apparent errors. The industry works because jurors, who typically have no life experience or training to help them understand the practice of medicine, can be convinced to award giant sums to plaintiffs for errors made in some of the most difficult work imaginable. The existence of the malpractice bar has changed the way you practice medicine. You have to raise prices to pay for expensive malpractice insurance. You're induced to order excessive tests to defend against the accusations of a litigator. You will stay up late many nights updating patient charts and trying to make sure every piece of documentation is complete.
Now imagine how you would feel if the rest of us got together and proposed that the government should become the primary client for medical services. As part of the deal, the government will determine how much you will be paid. Lawyers, business executives, electricians, and plumbers (to name but a few) will all be allowed to command what the market will pay for their services-but not you. Simply because it is possible that a majority may be found who think this scheme is a good idea, you may lose all the benefits of offering your services in a free economy.
Is this situation really fair? Have your fellow citizens honored your inherent rights and freedoms? They have not, and this why a public option is so offensive. It represents a move by a majority of citizens to control the economic well-being of a person who has endured extraordinary hardship and trials in order to become a much-needed provider of medical services.
Radley Balko Explains It All
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 5:24PM
It's borderline disconcerting to see someone diagnose almost everything wrong with American politics in a single mighty blog post, but--let's face it--if anyone was going to do it, it was probably going to be Radley Balko (or Gene Healy!).
Here's how it went down: Balko points out the flaws of logic in the Whole Foods boycott supposedly gaining momentum after CEO John Mackey wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal laying out some health care reform alternatives short of socialization. Mackey haters take the ill-advised step of visiting Balko's wonderful Agitator site to electronically shout at him. After a reasonable grace period, Balko hands them their backsides. (Which was followed up by another good summation at Reason.)
Crux:
Mackey didn’t deliberately offend his customers, as some have suggested. He didn’t spit in your face, or, as one commenter so delicately put it, he didn’t “squeeze a turd in [your] punch bowl.” He just overestimated you.
I think this is where a hip young lady of, say, five years ago would interject, "Oh, snap!"
An Entertaining Look at Canadian Health Care
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 5:18PM
Hat tip for the cite to my Cato Institute colleague Michael Cannon, who has been working overtime against Obamacare.
Liberal Anti-Semitism
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 4:08PM
To further Robert Goldberg's point, here's a selection of signs from liberal anti-war rallies, courtesy of Zombietime.
Town Halls and Bigots
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 3:34PM
Regarding the effort to smear people who attend town hall health care meetings as anti-Semites: Have these people forgotten how MoveOn and DailyKos provided a safe haven for anti-Semites during the Lebanon war in 2006 and beyond? Here are my articles to refresh their memory.
They have failed to clean up their cesspool. Instead they seek out LaRouchite and far Right, unmedicated kooks and to run a viral smear campaign.
Oh, and let's not forget how Team Obama managed to house Tony McPeak, whose classic "Jewish lobby perspective" was rewarded with a top campaign position. AmSpec broke that story and Team O been walking back those comments ever since.
Another Inauspicious Omen: Gersonism Revisited
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 2:59PM
No sooner do I get through hammering David Frum for his errors than I turn around to discover that we are to be afflicted with new plagues from the Duke of Dull, that eminent Master of Mediocrity, Michael Gerson.
Not content merely to waste newsprint with his boring biweekly forays to the frontiers of obviousness on the op-ed pages of The Washington Post, the Titan of Tedium has now combined with former Bush deputy Peter Wehner to subject the unwitting subscribers of Commentary to a potentially lethal soporific entitled, "The Path to Republican Revival."
This is a classic example of what inevitably happens when bureaucrats attempt journalism. At nearly 5,000 words, this massive malodorous manure pile might be mined like a Comstock Lode of idiocy, yet its telling point is this bland sentence:
Republicans will also have to put forth a comprehensive reform agenda.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. How many times do we need to tell the policy wonks that, in opposition, conservatives ought not be too specific in offering alternatives to the policies of Obama, Pelosi, Reid et al.? Given the current powerlessness of the GOP, it is their duty as the opposition to remind Americans daily that the Democrats are leading the country straight to hell.
Republicans need not, and arguably should not, offer their own roadmap to heaven, which can then be picked apart at leisure by the Democrats' own policy wonks. In opposition, the GOP should instead concentrate on fomenting resistance to the incumbent party's agenda, campaigning on a pledge to reverse course, and be content that the policy specifics of that promised reversal will be hashed out after the Democrats are dismounted.
The Gerson/Wehner call for a "comprehensive reform agenda" is patent nonsense, the exact opposite of sound opposition strategy, a make-work project for underemployed former Bushlings.
Gerson, readers will recall, was chief of the Bush White House speechwriting shop, in which he glory-hogged all the credit while mismanaging the talents of better writers. Matthew Scully has related that tale, and our straying friend David Frum was among Scully's co-sufferers under the Gerson regime. And in that, Frum certainly deserves our sympathy.
Whatever David Frum's errors, they are at least usually interesting errors. By contrast, Gersonism is a Brompton cocktail of bad writing in service of bad ideas, a surefire formula for Republican suicide.
Specter on Health Care '94 vs. '09
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 1:58PM
Pat Toomey's campaign has put together this video contrasting Arlen Specter's metamorphosis from being an staunch opponent of of Hillarycare in 1994 to a proponent of government-run health care now that he's seeking the Democratic nomination:
The Great J-Lo/So-So Summit....
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 1:46PM
Hallelujah!
(Full disclosure: Wit lifted.)
Support For Health Care Bill Drops Even Further Without Gov't Plan
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 1:29PM
A new Rasmussen poll shows that without the inclusion of a government-run plan, support for health care legislation drops to 34 percent, with 57 percent opposed. Dropping the measure does not win over those already skeptical of the legislation, it errodes support among liberals. It's important to remember that all of those people that are on the left fighting for health care legislation -- the unions, the activists, etc. -- are fighting for the inclusion of a government-run plan. If Obama drops the idea, in other words, he loses the most passionate defenders of health care legislation -- the people making the calls, organizing rallies, and signing petitions -- and the most intense sentiment is among those who oppose his policies. Rasmussen found that without the government plan, just 9 percent of people say they would "strongly favor" legislation, compared with 26 pecent who expressed strong support just a week ago.
Re: Cindy Sheehan Is Right
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 1:24PM
The antiwar movement should also be a cautionary tale for those taking part in the tea parties and other anti-spending rallies, which were bascially nonexistent during Bush's big spending, borrowing, and bailouts. The left used opposition to the Iraq war mainly as a recruiting tool for their various causes (while the respectable center-left and neo-left mostly supported the war until it became unpopular). It was, as York reports and Sheehan admits, mostly an anti-Bush, anti-Republican movement. For the tea partiers to have any real success fighting the growth of government, they have to be more than an anti-Obama, anti-Democrat movement.
Marc Lamont Hill's O'Reilly Mistakes
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 1:04PM
One of the regulars on Bill O'Reilly's show is Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, who will be joining Columbia University's faculty this fall.
An amiable liberal, Dr. Hill is always earnest and occasionally provocative with his take on things racial. While his sparring with O'Reilly is frequently interesting, and Hill is doubtless a smart guy, when he makes as many factual errors in one night as he did last night discussing a Specter health care reform town meeting in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, he should be called out.
Dr. Hill apparently attended Specter's meeting (I was outside talking to the crowd, Hill was inside). In discussing this with O'Reilly he made three factual errors, using his mistakes to attribute racism to the crowd. This is wrong.
Mistake # 1: Apparently there were "birthers" in the Specter crowd, those who have this thing about questioning Obama's legitimacy to be president based on his supposed birth not in Hawaii but outside the U.S. Dr. Hill than laid this at the feet of racism, saying that such an allegation only pops up against the nation's lone black president.
This is not true. Chester Alan Arthur, the nation's 21st president, was born (so it was insisted) in Vermont. In fact his father owned a farm some fifteen miles over the border in Canada. When Arthur ran as James Garfield's running-mate in 1880, a New York lawyer named Arthur Hinman was hired by Democrats to investigate. Hinman claimed Arthur came to America from Ireland when he was fourteen, and hence was not eligible to be on a presidential ticket. When this proved to be a political non-starter, the allegation was changed to say he was born in Canada. As with Obama, the allegations were dismissed after investigation by reporters of the day. Still, they were made repeatedly. Hinman would go on to publish a book entitled, How A British Subject Became President of the United States.
So Obama is in fact not the first president to face this treatment, and Arthur was your basic portly white guy Republican. The allegations Hill says he heard in Lebanon were not unique and not racial.
Mistake #2: Hill attributed the age of the protesters -- in their 70s and 80s -- and the fact that "30 or 40 years ago" they were voting Republican as a sign of racism. This is stunningly bad history.
Lebanon is a solidly Republican area. It is that because Central Pennsylvania was a huge source of support for Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party of which he is viewed in these parts as the founding father -- and which was decidedly pro-civil rights. Indeed, during the 1960s, the two prominent Republicans in Pennsylvania -- U.S. Senator Hugh Scott and Governor William Scranton -- were huge liberal Republican supporters of civil rights and both very popular in Central Pennsylvania. To impute racism to people who would have been among their strongest supporters and who voted Republican because they self-identified with Lincoln is egregiously bad Pennsylvania history. Dr. Hill should know better.
Mistake # 3: Dr. Hill was upset because people in the Specter meeting referred to President Obama as "that guy" or "that man." Surely Hill should know that Franklin Roosevelt's critics famously referred to him derisively as "that man in the White House."
If Obama supporters want to tout the President as another FDR, it is silly to attribute precisely the same kind of criticism FDR received, right down to the derogatory nickname, as something racial. It is, in its own uniquely American fashion, extremely presidential.
Here's hoping Dr. Hill cracks the books a bit more before he says things like this on O'Reilly.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 12:47PM
- Elections do have consequences -- Axelrod's AKPD Message and Media gets $24 million in healthcare reform commercials. (Politico)
- Iranian-made rockets found in Basra, maybe if we post this link on Twitter they'll stop smuggling weapons across the border to kill Americans. (USA Today)
- ACT says 77% of children need to be left behind. Less than a quarter of high school grads ready for college. (Wall Street Journal)
- The socialism work ethic: NHS employees take 50% more sick holidays than private sector counterparts (Timesonline)
- Town Hall Must Watch: Barney Frank tells constituent "trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it."
Cindy Sheehan Is Right
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 12:03PM
I never thought I would agree with Cindy Sheehan but she actually said something that makes sense.
The Washington Examiner's Byron York says the antiwar movement that stirred up trouble during the Bush administration wasn't really an antiwar movement at all: it was an anti-Bush movement.
York shared his thesis with antiwar activist Sheehan that the antiwar movement has slipped into hibernation because President Bush left office, and she was honest enough to admit she agreed with him. She sent him the following email):
I read your column about the "anti-war" movement and I can't believe I am saying this, but I mostly agree with you.
The "anti-war" "left" was used by the Democratic Party. I like to call it the "anti-Republican War" movement.
While I agree with you about the hypocrisy of such sites as the DailyKos, I have known for a long time that the Democrats are equally responsible with the Republicans. That's why I left the party in May 2007 and that's why I ran for Congress against Nancy Pelosi in 2008.
I have my own radio show, "Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox," and I was out on a four-month book tour promoting the fact that it's not about Democrats or Republicans, but it's about the system.
Even if I am surrounded by a thousand, or no one, I am still working for peace.
Sincerely,
Cindy Sheehan
The Reconciliation Bluff
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 11:50AM
While the White House has been floating the idea of using reconciliation to pass health care legislation with a simple majority of 51 votes, it should be seen as an empty threat. Let's even set aside the fact that it would be a declaration of war that would shut down the Senate, that it would remove any pretense that Obama is a post-partisan president, and that ramming an unpopular bill down the throats of the public is not a politically astute move. Even if Democrats wanted to risk all of that for the greater goal of passing health care legislation, they couldn't do it.
The budget reconciliation procedure has to be used for tax and spending matters, meaning that if the White House wanted to pass a bill in this matter, they'd have to drop provisions that are central to Democratic proposals. So, for instance, Democrats wouldn't be able to create health insurance exchanges, to force insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions, create a new government-run plan, pass the health, wellness and prevention provisions, and so forth. Nobody remotely serious thinks that you'd be able to pass comprehensive legislation in this manner. Democratic Sen. Kent Contrad has said, "The Senate parliamentarian said to us that if you try to write substantive health reform in reconciliation, you'll end up with Swiss cheese." Even liberal bloggers Kevin Drum and Ezra Klein have poured cold water on the idea. While Klein says that Democrats may still be able to move the ball down the field with reconciliation by passing some watered down legislation, I don't think that makes any sense. For one, I don't see how it would be worth Democrats risking all of the political blowback they'd suffer by using reconciliation just to end up with a swiss cheese bill. And beyond that, if Democrats are going to pass a bill without a government plan anyway, then liberals may as well drop their objections and vote for a compromise measure that they can pass the clean way.
So, with that said, I wouldn't get too excited by this talk of reconciliation. It's just an act of chest-pounding from a desperate White House that is watching its top legislative goal get ripped apart by infighting within its own party. I call bluff.
Trey Grayson Narrowly Leads in Kentucky
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 11:34AM
To follow up on yesterday's polling results in the Kentucky Democratic and Republican primaries for Senate, there's also new data on head-to-head matchups between the potential nominees. Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R) beats Attorney General Jack Conway by 43 percent to 38 percent. He edges Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo (D) by 46 percent to 40 percent. Rand Paul, Grayson's closest Republican opponent, would lose to Conway by 43 percent to 38 percent. The younger Dr. Paul trails Mogniardo by just 43 percent to 41 percent, which is within the margin of error.
A few takeaways: Nobody is at or above 50 percent. The stronger Democrat in the primary is the weaker one in head-to-head matchups. And Rand Paul is polling competitively despite being a relatively unknown candidate, potentially making him the most viable bona fide Ron Paul Republican since his dad.
White House Mystery: The Left Acts Like the Left
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 9:06AM
The Obama administration says it didn't see it coming. Reports the Washington Post:
President Obama's advisers acknowledged Tuesday that they were unprepared for the intraparty rift that occurred over the fate of a proposed public health insurance program, a firestorm that has left the White House searching for a way to reclaim the initiative on the president's top legislative priority.
Administration officials insisted that they have not shied away from their support for a public option to compete with private insurance companies, an idea they said Obama still prefers to see in a final bill.
But at a time when the president had hoped to be selling middle-class voters on how insurance reforms would benefit them, the White House instead finds itself mired in a Democratic Party feud over an issue it never intended to spotlight.
"I don't understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo," said a senior White House adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We've gotten to this point where health care on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don't understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is health-care reform."
"It's a mystifying thing," he added. "We're forgetting why we are in this."
The Left certainly isn't forgetting its objectives.
So much for the Revolution!
Robert Novak's Achievement: Eroding Trust in Government
Posted by on 8.19.09 @ 8:18AM
Tim Carney,a former staffer for celebrated conservative journalist Bob Novak, points out one of Novak's greatest achievement--undercutting support for government. Explains Carney:
With his columns, Novak helped foster a salutary skepticism of government and reinforced the distrust of power that lies at the core of American liberty.
Much of Novak's work involved tracking political horse races and getting inside dirt on candidates and elections. But Novak also loved digging into the bowels of the legislative and executive branches, and showing readers how the sausage is actually made.
In these days, when the president (like his predecessors) calls his critics "naysayers" and "cynics" and says the day for skepticism of government is past - and when even many conservatives believe that government is responsible for solving all of the nation's problems - Novak's lesson is indispensable.
There are many reasons to miss Novak, a genuinely nice fellow who was a great reporter and principled conservative. His achievement in exposing the realities in Washington is one of the most important reasons.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
In Honor of Robert Novak
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 6:30PM
At our magazine's annual dinner late last fall, we at The American Spectator paid special tribute to our distinguished and devoted friend Bob Novak. We've posted a special link to the video shown at the dinner. You can watch it here.
Right-Wing Geezers Unite!
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 6:16PM
Smart-alecky young whippersnappers need an occasional reminder about showing proper respect to their elders. Having embraced my inner curmudgeon, I was pleased to see that nice young lad. John Hawkins, kindly correcting the myth "that old people can't figure out new technology":
Many people believe, erroneously, that old people can't figure out new technology. This was something that came up while I was at RightOnline.
Does this really make any sense? While there may be SOME physiological changes that make it harder to "teach an old dog new tricks," they can't be too significant given the number of older, tech savvy people that are out there.
Personally, having done technical support, I have come to this conclusion: Old people tend to be bad at learning new technology because they believe that they're supposed to be bad at learning new technology. That's it. . . .
Read the whole thing. Despite my advanced age, incipient senescence hasn't prevented me from learning basic HTML and a few other tricks with these computer gizmos and Internet contraptions. And because I recently made the acquaintance of Barbara Espinosa (my new "BFF," as the kids say), I thought I should offer young Hawkins some old-fashioned advice about addressing ladyfolks:
Oh, and being a married geezer of 49 myself, I don't mind being called "old." Ms. Espinosa, on the other hand, lists her Facebook status as "single," and she would probably prefer that a handsome bachelor like Mr. Hawkins call her "darling." Or "sweetheart." Just not "old."
You youngsters will have to excuse me now, but this blogging stuff gets me so plumb tuckered out I need a nap.
Kentucky Senate Race Update
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 6:07PM
A new poll shows the Kentucky Senate race to replace retiring Republican Jim Bunning competitive in both primaries. On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo leads Attorney General Jack Conway by 39 percent to 31 percent. For the Republicans, Secretary of State Trey Grayson leads Rand Paul by 37 percent to 26 percent. Although down 11 points, that's not a bad showing for Paul, who is a first-time candidate who has only been campaigning for three months. If his "money bomb" goes well this week, the Republican race could well tigthten.
August Revolting
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 5:04PM
During the August Congressional recess, Democrats have been sounding more and more like King Louis XVI as portrayed by Mel Brooks in History of the World, Part I:
Count de Monet: “The People Are Revolting!”
Louis XVI: “You said it -- they stink on ice!”
And we know how that turned out.
August Revolting
By Asher Embry
Thankfully the August recess hasn’t been august.
Town halls have left the Democrats entirely nonplussed.
Pelosi’s crew has failed to understand, it’s no surprise,
That in these “angry mobs” our true democracy still lies.
Obama tried to rule by force, the old Chicago way.
We’ve shown we won’t accept that; we insist we have our
say.
And Reid’s been calling each of us a useless “evil-monger.”
But each time they belittle us it only makes us stronger.
The camel’s back’s been broken; health “reform” was just the
straw.
Town halls unleashed the people’s power, ablaze with shock and
awe.
The message that we’re sending to each Democratic hack:
It never was your government; we’re going to take it
back!
(You can read more of Asher Embry's Political Verse at www.politicalverse.com.)
Rose Friedman and the Iraq Debate
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 3:48PM
You might not think there is a tie-in between the late Rose Friedman and the intraconservative debate over Iraq, but there is -- the Friedmans personified it. In this charming 2006 joint interview in the Wall Street Journal (earlier linked by Phil), Milton Friedman reveals that he opposed the Iraq invasion while Rose Friedman was a staunch supporter of the war. "We don't agree. This is the first thing to come along in our lives, of the deep things, that we don't agree on," Mrs. Friedman said. "We have disagreed on little things, obviously--such as, I don't want to go out to dinner, he wants to go out--but big issues, this is the first one!"
Another Bob Novak Tribute
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 3:20PM
TAS contributor Joseph Duggan, himself a storied newspaperman and journalist, offered a few thoughts on Bob Novak's life following the publication of The Prince of Darkness in 2007. Read his thoughts here.
For TAS's review of the Novak memoir, click here.
Bob Novak: One of My Favorite 'Unpatriotic Conservatives'
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 2:49PM
Reading and writing obituary tributes to the great journalist Robert Novak will, no doubt, provide most of the day's work for myself and others who admired Novak and his work. My young friend Richard Spencer recalls the famous question asked by Pat Moynihan, after Novak -- of Jewish ancestry and a secular upbringing -- had converted to Catholicism:
"Now that we have made Novak a Catholic, do you think we can make him a Christian?"
Novak made many friends during the course of his long career because he was never afraid to make enemies. When I heard the news of his death today, I remembered the first time I met Novak, at a May 2002 foreign policy forum sponsored by Pat Buchanan's American Cause organization. And when I Googled Novak's name along with the name of Georgie Ann Geyer, the Washington Times columnist whom I recalled as one of his co-panelists that day, I found this report of the event:
Not surprisingly, the public debate won little press attention, probably because it actually applied reason to matters much of the press doesn't want reasoned out.
Mr. Buchanan. . . sided with columnist Robert Novak against Richard Perle of the American Enterprise Institute and Middle East expert Reuel Gerecht, formerly with the CIA, at a debate sponsored by Mr. Buchanan's think tank, the American Cause. The first topic debated was "Should the U.S. invade Iraq?"
The case for invasion was made by Mr. Perle and Mr. Gerecht, who argued that Iraq is seeking or already has weapons of mass destruction, that it may give these weapons to terrorist groups, and that terrorists armed with them might then launch massive attacks on the United States or other American targets that would make Sept. 11 look like a fender bender on the Beltway. Mr. Perle was also emphatic that Iraq already supports terrorism and may have had a role in the Sept. 11 attacks themselves.
Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Novak questioned all of the above. The two journalists demanded to know what Saddam Hussein had done to threaten the United States or its extensions abroad and what evidence there is for Iraqi support for terrorism today. . . .
Mr. Buchanan's point was that by the logic of his opponents, we should invade anywhere and everywhere a foreign government is doing something we don't like or something that might someday somehow threaten us. That's a formula for perpetual war -- and his opponents said little to distance themselves from it.
It was Novak's criticism of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, and especially his agreement with Buchanan on that subject, that earned him inclusion in David Frum's notorious 2003 catalog of "Unpatriotic Conservatives."
Since then, Frum has gone on to attack others, including Mark Levin. This seems to demonstrate a lamentable habit on the part of Frum, whom I wish to regard as a friend. As a result of the Bush policy -- and the rhetoric that attended the political defense of that policy -- every consideration of the U.S. position in the Middle East became a crude referendum on anti-Semitism, so that all dissenters were suspected of being closet Jew-haters in "unpatriotic" allegiance with terrorists.
This Manichean rhetorical escalation was both unfortunate and unjust, even if some of the dissenters (including Buchanan) had unwisely given their critics ammunition with which to arm accusations of mala fides. When discussions of policy become clouded by such damaging insinuations, when disagreement is cited as evidence of moral inferiority -- can anyone but a child molester be worse than an anti-Semite? -- then honest discussion becomes impossible. We see much the same problem at work today, when every critic of the Obama administration risks the charge of "racism," which is often implied even when it is not made openly.
My own feelings of friendship toward Frum, considering that he once did me a favor when I badly needed it, have caused me tremendous angst, given his repeated attacks on others whom I also consider friends.
Today, of course, Novak can no longer be harmed by accusations that he, born a Jew, was guilty of aiding and abetting anti-Semites. Whatever his faults and errors, Bob Novak now awaits the judgment of a higher authority than David Frum. Let us pray that Frum will now pause to consider that he, too, shall one day be judged by the same authority.
Americans Prefer U.S. Health Care
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 2:32PM
Newt Gingrich's Center for Health Transformation polled Americans about their attitude towards medical care. There was little belief in a crisis or enthusiasm for nationalizing care.
2. If you or your family were to face a major medical problem, such as heart-related issues, cancer, or some other potentially serious illness, and you could go anywhere in the world to seek treatment, based on the current healthcare systems as you know them, in which country would you first seek medical care?
United States: 79% Canada: 5% Germany: 3% England: 3% Japan: 0% Some other country: 5% No opinion: 5%
Health reform, yes. Obamaesque health reform, no.
Fiorina to Explore Challenge of Boxer
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 2:00PM
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO amd McCain campaign adviser Carly Fiorina has announced she would explore a challenge to California Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010. A July poll found Fiorina within four points of Boxer in a head-to-head match up, results that were touted by Sen. John Cornyn, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. But to get a chance at Boxer, Fiorina will first have to fend off a primary challenge from conservative assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who had tough words for her at a breakfast talk last week that was hosted by The American Spectator.
Rose Friedman, RIP
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 1:30PM
Rose Friedman, a talented free market economist who frequently collaborated with her husband, Milton, has passed away. The Friedman Foundation pays tribute. In 2006, the WSJ interviewed the couple, who met at a graduate economics class at the University of Chicago in 1932, becuase the professor arranged the seating alphabetically, and her maiden name was Director.
Remembering Bob Novak
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 12:54PM
When I was still new to The American Spectator, I put together a conference of the magazine's young writers. Bob Novak graciously agreed to be the keynote speaker. It was my first foray into anything like event planning, so of course it went anything but smoothly. Attendance was sparser than anticipated and many people were late, making the event look a bit small for its venue.
Novak wasn't bothered by any of this. He still spoke like he was addressing a crowd of 500 people, telling old stories and giving advice. Novak stayed at the podium after the speech to take questions, which even the other panelists were eager to ask. When it came time to move to the next part of the program, Novak insisted on taking one more question. "Let's let one of the young writers get in one more question," he said.
Remembering his old boss, my friend Tim Carney recounts that Novak's position on the Iraq war was a source of consternation to many conservatives. But to other conservatives, it was a source of inspiration. A real reporter and a real conservative, Robert Novak was one of a kind. R.I.P.
Government Plan Or Bust
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 12:04PM
Sixty liberal Democrats in the House have sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying that they would not vote for any health care bill that did not include a government-run plan. It reads, in part:
We stand in strong opposition to your statement that the public option is “not the essential element” of comprehensive reform. The opportunity to improve access to healthcare is a onetime opportunity. Americans deserve reform that is real-not smoke and mirrors. We cannot rely solely on the insurance companies’ good faith efforts to provide for our constituents. A robust public option is essential, if we are to ensure that all Americans can receive healthcare that is accessible, guaranteed and of high-quality.
And by "robust" liberals typically mean a plan that pays low, Medicare-like reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals.
On Sunday, Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad said, "The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option. There never have been...So to continue to chase that rabbit I think is just a wasted effort."
Put this together and we could be heading toward a scenario in which a bill can't get through the House without a government-run plan, and can't get through the Senate with one.
Bob Novak, RIP
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 11:48AM
Tim Carney remembers his former boss here. A selection of his past Spectator writings here.
Saved or Created
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 11:34AM
A picture worth a thousand words:
From indeed.com, a job search engine, comes this list of best and worst cities in which to find a job. The blue chairs represent job openings in a city. The orange men represent unemployed people. Washington, D.C. is a great place to start a job search, with six job openings posted for every one unemployed person. Jacksonville is the only other city with more job openings than unemployed. It only gets worse from there, bottoming out with Detroit, which has 18 unemployed workers for every job opening.
Via techcrunch.
"I Support Climate Change"
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 11:22AM
Some more fun with Arlen Specter. He is generally well received by this liberal audience as he recites his new lines as a Democratic senator, but Specter gets some laughs for a climate change answer that shows he's still a little rusty at playing netroots darling.
One Out of Every 17 Americans is Crazy
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 11:22AM
Just six percent (6%) of voters nationwide now expect their own taxes to go down during the Obama years.
It's good that the number is going down. But who are the people who make up this loony six percent?
The European Model: The U.S.
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 11:10AM
The left wants to adopt a European model. But what if the European model is to reform their system to look more like ours? In The Weekly Standard, Stanley Goldfarb investigates the example of the Netherlands. The Dutch are reforming their centralized health care system to allow profit-seeking insurers, and taking other free-market steps. Goldfarb asks:
The OECD has polled Europeans who regularly utilize health care about their satisfaction with their healthcare system. In 2003, 45.2% of the respondents in 15 nations in the European Union expressed dissatisfaction. While similar numbers of patients express dissatisfaction with the United States system, are we willing to embark on an experiment with a potential outcome to create a system that not only leaves us pretty much at a similar degree of satisfaction but one that has angered and polarized our entire nation? Can't we wait to see how the Massachussetts plan turns out before we commit the whole nation to a similar approach? Can't we learn from countries like the Netherlands where competition, incentives, and privatization are seen as the means to efficiency and high patient satisfaction?
Flip Side of the Coyne
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 11:06AM
Jerry A. Coyne is at it again, with another mammoth review of a book on the topic of evolution and belief in God in The New Republic. It's 8,000 words, so I haven't had time to read it, but I'm sure that the theme is similar to the last one, which provoked some interesting reactions. The theme is that the fact of Darwinian evolution precludes the existence of God.
I wasn't convinced by the 10,000 words in his earlier essay, so I'm guessing that when I get around to reading it I won't find this one convincing, either (Robert Wright, whose book is the one Coyne is reviewing, writes in the comments, "I don't recognize the book depicted in this review--and I wrote the book! Within a few days I'll have a reply online that documents Jerry Coyne's flagrant misrepresentations of my argument").
The problem Coyne's arguments is that they more or less boil down to "I'm a super-smart scientist, smarter than you, therefore God doesn't exist." It's a time-honored approach, but his tone is slightly too concialiatory (skip to about :50 in the clip):
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 10:59AM
- Clunkers are crushing charities (Red State)
- Trouble in organic paradise: the left boycotts Whole Foods over CEO's comments on public option (Wall Street Journal)
- "The proper German." Xenophobia is on the rise again (Jerusalem Post)
- Cao "leaning" towards public plan if it doesn't pay for abortions (The Times-Picayune)
Read Ben Stein, Lose Your Job
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 10:30AM
Look out, the thought police are hard at work. From Slate's Dear Prudence column:
Albuquerque, N.M.: I manage an accounting department. Recently, my boss showed me an e-mail from a worker who reports to me. The e-mail indicated that the writer believed my boss was of the same opinion and would enjoy a rant by Ben Stein against the president of the United States. She was sufficiently savvy as to NOT send me a copy. My boss, a very kind and gentle man who does not like conflict, was appalled, as was I. How could this employee be so misguided as to think my boss would enjoy that e-mail? [...] I now think very differently about this reliable worker. I hesitate to clue her in that sending this type of e-mail is, well, just plain stupid, because I have been protecting her against layoff. Knowing her true political opinions, I am no longer inclined to protect her. I would not want her to suspect the true reason for being part of the next layoff. Am I being reasonable?
Too bad the flag@whitehouse.gov is no more; the underling's email is exactly the kind of "fishy email" that they would have loved.
My only hope is that "Albuquerque"'s boss's boss hates Dear Prudence, and decides to fire her ("Albuquerque") upon being forwarded this Dear Prudence column.
I'm guessing that the Ben Stein article in question was this one, "We've Figured Him Out," from July. It was the most widely-read article we've this year, I think, so I hope that there aren't vast legions of readers out there in danger of losing their jobs because they forwarded the article in the workplace.
But Prudence comes through in the clutch:
.... How insidious to maneuver to lay her off because you realize you have the chance to punish someone whose views you find repugnant. I assume this would be the kind of thing that would appall you if people on the other end of the spectrum were doing it.
Palin Obsession Disorder
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 10:10AM
I've criticized Sarah Palin in the past, but haven't had much to say about her since she left office and became a private citizen. However, she obviously continues to drive liberals berzerk. Today, Richard Cohen has an article entitled "Palin's Red Menace" that seeks to compare Palin to Sen. Joe McCarthy, basing his argument on a Wikipedia definition of "McCarthyism." But McCarthy was a U.S. Senator who was holding hearings stemming from his accusations, while Palin is just posting stuff on Facebook. She represents a threat to nobody, and if liberals ignored her, she wouldn't receive much attention. But more than 9 months after the election, the left continues to be obsessed with proving Palin a stupid, dishonest, and very bad woman. And as long as they do that, it will trigger a counter-reaction by the right, and perpetuate her political celebrity status.
And by the way, I should remind Cohen that it wasn't Palin, but Nancy Pelosi, who branded citizens who disagreed with her as "un-American."
A Specter Flip on Card Check
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 9:08AM
Yesterday the Hill reported that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Pennsylvania to raise funds for recently minted Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter. (And to think it was less than six years ago that Specter was enlisting the support of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Rick Santorum.) Obama will go to bat for Specter on Sept. 15 and the details of the Biden event are still being worked out.
Just three days before this announcement, Specter seemed to flip on card check. When he bolted the Republican Party earlier this year, Specter said he would not change his position on the legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act. On April 28, he vowed: "I will not be an automatic 60th vote and I would illustrate that by my position on employees' choice, also known as card check. I think it is a bad deal and I am opposed to it and would not vote to invoke cloture."
But on August 14, Ari Melber of the Nation asked Specter, "Is it fair to say that on the climate legislation, on Employees Free Choice, on the public option health care plan, these are all areas where you would be voting with the majority for cloture to have straight up or down votes?" Specter replied, "Yes. No doubt about those three issues. At all."
No doubt about voting for cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act? Specter's apparent flip raises questions of a quid pro quo, in which the senator who said "I have not traded my vote in the past and I would not do so now" gets in line exchange for stepped up White House support. Or perhaps both his most recent EFCA change of heart and the Obama-Biden fundraisers are due to feeling the heat from liberal primary challenger Joe Sestak. After all, the normally pro-union Specter's opposition to card check was in response to a conservative Republican primary challenge by Pat Toomey.
UPDATE: A group called the Workplace Fairness Institute is out with a petition and fairly damning video asking Specter to clarify his position.
Allies No More
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 8:36AM
House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner has gone after the pharmaceutical lobby PhRMA for signing onto the Obama health care takeover plan. Wrote Boehner to PhRMA head (and former Republican congressman) Billy Tauzin:
Appeasement rarely works as a conflict resolution strategy. This is as true in the arena of policymaking as it is in schoolyards across
America. When a bully asks for your lunch money, you may have no choice but to fork it over. But cutting a deal with the bully is a
different story, particularly if the "deal" means helping him steal others' money as the price of protecting your own.The simple truth is, two wrongs don't make a right. And the short-sighted health care deal PhRMA struck with the Obama Administration at your urging provides confirmation of this time-tested maxim on an epic and tragic scale.
The blood is starting to flow. When the Democratic betrayal comes--and betrayal is inevitable--the pharmaceutical industry might find few friends left on the GOP side of the aisle willing to come to its aid.
AARP Takes a Hit on Health Care
Posted by on 8.18.09 @ 8:31AM
Reports Mark Tapscott over at the Washington Examiner:
Earlier this month, I reported that a revolt was breaking out among AARP's 40-million members in response to the enthusiastic and extensive lobbying by the group's Washington leadership on behalf of Obamacare. Now, other media are beginning to notice and we are starting to get a trickle of numbers that hint at the magnitude of the outrage among AARP's members.
CBS News reported Monday that a top AARP official admits the organization has lost at least 60,000 members who specifically cited the Obamacare issue as their reason for leaving. And the CBS report also noted a spike in new membership at a conservative rival to the AARP, the American Seniors Association.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Frum Attacks Levin, Silent on Moyers
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 6:12PM
Did you hear about the latest episode involving talk radio host and NYT bestselling author Mark Levin?
The guy went out and said the President and his friends were engaged in a "ruthless war" of "unmitigated plunder of the public trust." Winding up in a serious rant he assailed "the purchase of votes, the corruption of elections officials, the bribing of legislatures…and the flagrant disregard of laws" that "threatened the very foundations of democracy." He even got religion, saying it was time to "drive the money changers out of the temples of democracy." Later he went the inevitable Hitler route as well, using the dictator's infamous book Mein Kampf to compare to liberals he said were using "deception and disinformation against enemies, real or imagined."
Wow. Strong stuff. Ruthless war, unlimited plunder, corruption, bribes, Mein Kampf.
What was remarkable about all of this was the way David Frum of the New Majority so quickly got on Levin's case. Calling Levin part of the "Reckless Right," he said Levin's remarks were "outrageous" and would inspire people to show up with guns at Obama rallies.
Then he said…
Oh. Sorry. My mistake.
Those quotes above? They were actually made not by Mark Levin in 2009 but by PBS TV host Bill Moyers back in 2007 when he was addressing the General Synod of the United Church of Christ -- the same day a speech from a then-Senator named Barack Obama was delivered to the same audience on "The Politics of Conscience." Moyers was talking about George Bush, and Obama seemed not mind. The riff about Hitler and Mein Kampf was elsewhere and compared them, of course, not to liberals but to -- yes -- the Pentagon.
Interestingly, David Frum had nothing to say about this kind of rhetoric from Moyers when he appeared Friday night on the, well, Bill Moyers program "Bill Moyers Journal." Nope. The cat apparently had Frum's tongue.
Moyers remarks were made after it had become public that the Secret Service had begun an investigation of a man they say brought a gun to a rally featuring then-President George W. Bush. This is the same Moyers who engineered the famous "Daisy" TV commercial in 1964 that said, in the words of its target, "Barry Goldwater would blow up the world if he became President of the United States." Hey, no reckless stuff there, Right?
The point here is not Moyers, who seems not to have changed his ways whether he was inciting rage in 1964 or 2007. The point isn't even "what if somebody had shot Barry Goldwater or George Bush" because of Moyers.
The point here is that second, people who act violently are responsible for their own acts.
But if we're headed for a discussion about violence directed against presidents, since Messrs. Frum and Moyers opened the discussion, it's worth noting that three of the four men who assassinated presidents were -- yes indeed -- men of the left. Charles Guiteau, who shot James Garfield, is known to history as the "disappointed office seeker" -- which is to say a guy who didn't get a job he felt owed. The others -- John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln) was furious at the "tyrant" Lincoln for his military victory over the Democratic Party's backbone, the slaveholding aristocracy. Leon Czolgosz, McKinley's assailant, was a fervent socialist and anarchist. JFK's Lee Harvey Oswald was famously a would-be defector to the Soviet Union and an ardent fan of Castro. Other would-be shooters include Giuseppe Zangara, who managed to kill the Mayor of Chicago when he was riding in a car with FDR. Said the furious assassin at his trial:" "I have the gun in my hand. I kill kings and presidents first and next all capitalists." Likewise was the attempt to kill Truman done by left-leaning Puerto Rican nationalists, two attempts against Ford by radicalized women, and the attempt on Reagan done to impress the left-leaning actress Jodie Foster.
In other words, violence like this has historically been driven by leftists. That said, it is little short of crazy to be blaming this kind of thing on anyone other than those who do the violence.
But first and foremost, it is not just insultingly despicable -- disgraceful -- for Frum to disparage Levin, Limbaugh, and others for inviting violence. To put up a link to Levin on the Hannity show where Levin makes it crystal clear he is talking about a political war -- then pretend he said something else is little short of nutty. But if that's Frum's text, to remain silent while sitting across a TV set from Moyers -- who has done exactly what Frum professes to be so disturbed about -- shows a considerable measure of bootlicking gutlessness.
Yes, Bill. No, Bill. Thanks for having me on the show, Bill. Did I miss anything, Bill?
Respectfully, David, you did. You left your integrity on the set.
Rep. Weiner Says Dropping Gov't Plan Could Cost 100 Votes
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 5:01PM
Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York said on CNBC that any bill that did not include a government-run plan could lose 100 votes in the House of Representatives.
“The president does seem like he’s moving away from the public plan and if he does, he’s not going to pass a bill," Weiner, an advocate of a single-payer system, said, "because there are simply too many people in Washington who feel that the public plan was the only way that you effectively bring some downward pressure on prices and if he says, ‘Well, we’re not gonna have that,’ then I’m really not quite sure what we’re doing here.”
Asked if he would not vote for a bill that did not include a government plan, Weiner said, “Not only I, but I think there’s probably about 100 members of the House who believe for various reasons that you need to have something to bring down prices otherwise basically what you’re doing is you’re keeping the cost arc." He added, "I think as it was, the public plan had been watered down so much, so if the President thinks he’s cutting a deal to get Senate votes, he’s probably losing House votes."
Via Kos.
Now That's Change
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 4:02PM
A headline on RealClearPolitics: "Obama seeks to rally support for the war." The link is to this Reuters story on the Good War in Afghanistan, of course -- a war that made sense when its objective was to rout those who harbored the 9/11 murderers but makes less sense now that its objective seems to be elastic. Obama as war president: Freedom is on the march!
Co-Op Politics
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 3:40PM
Cato's Michael Cannon has explained:
It makes no difference whether a new program adopts a “co-operative” model or any other. The government possesses so many tools for subsidizing its own program and increasing costs for private insurers—and has such a long history of subsidizing and protecting favored enterprises—that unfair advantages are inevitable.
Meanwhile, Robert Reich has attacked the idea from the left, arguing that co-ops "won't have the scale or authority to do what a public option would do."
Whichever argument you agree with (I'm with Cannon), the one thing that's perfectly clear is that the co-op idea isn't very viable as a compromise from a purely political perspective. Free market advocates see it as a government-run plan by another name, while liberals view it as a toothless cop out. The co-op idea is the result of a typical Washington dealmaking culture that tries to split the difference in any policy dispute, but it simply does not have a constituency outside of the Finance Committee of the U.S. Senate.
Down Goes flag@whitehouse.com
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 2:00PM
...and not a moment too soon. Politico reports that the email address the White House had set up to collect "fishy" claims about Obamacare, for who knows what purpose, has been shut down.
Why is it shut down? Is it that they had collected enough "chain emails" and reports of "casual conversations" to go on? Or is it because of Camille Paglia's evisceration of the scheme:
The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.
I can easily imagine Robert Gibbs weeping inconsolably in a darkened White House press room after reading this. Maybe now that the email address is inoperative he and Obama can suppress the memory and pretend the whole disgraceful episode never happened.
Public Option or Not, It's Still Government-Run
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 1:03PM
Earlier I wrote about the Obama administration's possible backing off of the inclusion of a so-called "public option" in health care legislation. But what's important to emphasize is that even without the creation of a new government plan, we could still be stuck with a government-run health care system. First off, at this point, we don't know how this idea of a non-profit co-op would work -- under some versions, it could easily become a de facto government plan. Even setting that aside, however, the reality is still troubling. The remaining parts of the proposals in Congress would leave us with a system in which government mandates that individuals buy insurance or pay a tax and that employers offer insurance or pay a tax. Then government would have to define what constitutes insurance. Medicaid would be expanded dramatically. The government would be providing subsidies to individuals to purchase insurance, but even if individuals don't qualify for subsidies, at least under the House bill, they would be forced to purchase their insurance from a government-run exchange. And though the policies offered at this exchange would be nominally "private" they would be designed by government bureaucrats. In the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions bill, a new Medical Advisory Council would be tasked with defining “qualifying” coverage; in the House bill, all Americans are required to have coverage that is deemed “acceptable” by a Health Choices Commissioner. No doubt, the creation of a new government-run plan is the easiest way for the country to evolve into a pure single-payer system, but even without one, the proposals being considered would give us a system in which individuals would be forced to purchase government-designed insurance polices from a government store.
Life Without the Public Option
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 12:57PM
If the public option really is in serious trouble -- and I've heard from a number of people on Capitol Hill that it is -- then liberals like those in the Congressional Progressive Caucus will supplant the Blue Dogs as the key players in the health care debate. A scaled-down plan that includes insurance exchanges, an individual mandate, expanded Medicaid, and other subsidies would actually get the Democrats a good way toward reshaping health care policy along the lines they prefer, with the public option remaining as the next incremental step.
But would liberals in Congress vote for such a stripped-down bill? Almost as important, would liberals outside of Congress rally behind such a plan? It would leave single-payer advocates once again in the position of having to support something like Bill Clinton's "managed competion" idea from the 1990s. If the public option is a tough sell now, it would be even harder to pass after the Democrats lose at least a few seats in 2010 and so soon after a health care bill of some kind has been passed. Finally, if progressives outside of Washington make the public option their litmus test, the grassroots activism will all end up being against the bill rather than for it. Which means that in addition to having problems winning over liberals, some Blue Dogs might end up voting against a more modest reform anyway.
All of this would probably be unwise, because the slow and steady march toward a greater federal role in health care has always been more successful than attempts to pursue sweeping reforms in one fell swoop. But there are good reasons to wonder if the more politically possible version of Obamacare might actually prove to be politically impossible.
Tom DeLay Tapped for Dancing with the Stars
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 11:17AM
Bring on the jokes about "Hammer Time" and "Whip It;" talk about the transition from Capitol Hill arm-twisting to doing "The Twist." Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is set to appear on ABC's Dancing with the Stars, where he will strut his stuff alongside Macy Gray, Donny Osmond, and Melissa Joan Hart, among others.
Eat your heart out, Tucker Carlson.
Americans Say: Don't Pass Bad Health Care "Reform"
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 11:02AM
The American people seem to be getting it. They don't want Congress to pass anything just to pass something.
Thirty-five percent (35%) of American voters say passage of the bill currently working its way through Congress would be better than not passing any health care reform legislation this year. However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that most voters (54%) say no health care reform passed by Congress this year would be the better option.
This does not mean that most voters are opposed to health care reform. But it does highlight the level of concern about the specific proposals that Congressional Democrats have approved in a series of Committees. To this point, there has been no Republican support for the legislative effort although the Senate Finance Committee is still attempting to seek a bi-partisan solution.
We need real health care reform, not a federal takeover of health care.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 10:30AM
- La Cosa Nosotros: Drug cartels increasingly resemble Al Capone, full-scale mafias (Associated Press)
- Legalized rape. Wife-starving law passes in Afghanistan (BBC News)
- Busted. Park agents ticket 10-year-old for selling lemonade (New York Post)
- No flaunting of ankles allowed: British municipal swimming pools impose the "burkini" on non-Muslims (Telegraph.co.uk)
Patrick Henry's Health Reform
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 10:02AM
Cato's Jim Harper lays it out clearly: someone has to ration health care, because resources are scarce and wants are infinite. The people doing the rationing can be you, your family, and your doctor, or it can be bureacrats -- i.e., "death panels." Patrick Henry would choose the liberty to decide for himself.
And as far as government death panels go, Betsy McCaughey, who has been blamed by many for the recent talk of death panels in the Obama reform plan, defends some of the more narrrow assertions she has made, in today's web lineup. In some specific situations, she argues, government policies could put the the end-of-life determinations of doctors at odds with the desires of patients.
Elsewhere, Ross Douthat argues that Republicans, who have a rich tradition of saying no, should be very much involved in determining the amount and kinds of care Medicare patients receive, and that their decisions should reflect a kind of stinginess. In other words, bureaucrats should make tough decisions for patients -- doesn't sound very "conservative" to me. In fact it sounds a little bit like he's choosing the death panel option that Harper laid out.
The State of a Government Plan
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 9:43AM
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebilius caused an uproar on Sunday when she described the creation of a new government plan as "not the essential element" to health care legislation -- even though liberals have long described it as the heart of President Obama's health care proposal. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad said, "The fact of the matter is, there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option. There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.” Conrad has proposed the idea of a non-profit co-op as a substitute for a fully government-run plan, but liberals have dismissed the idea as inadequate.
The White House's decision to at least back off the idea of a so-called "public option" is not totally surprising, as it's been pretty clear for awhile that the Obama administration wants to be able to sign some form of health care legislation this year rather than risk total defeat. But this also sets up the dynamic that I've been writing about for months -- dropping the creation of a new government plan modeled after Medicare may help woo moderates, but it will also lose liberals. While Conrad says that legislation with a strong government-run plan did not have the votes to get through the Senate, it's not clear that a bill could get through the House that did not include such a plan. Remember, 57 House Democrats signed a letter last month saying they could not support a bil that did not include a government plan that they viewed as strong enough.
Meanwhile, today, the front page of the website the Campaign for America's Future, which has been pushing the idea, reads "No Surrender on the Public Option: Talk of compromise in the White House and among Democrats in Congress does not change this basic fact: There is no reform without a public health insurance plan. This week, we are refusing to back down." A straw poll of liberal activists at the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh this weekend found that 53 percent said they couldn't support a bill that didn't include a new government-run plan, compared with just 26 percent who said they could.
Read the Bill?
Posted by on 8.17.09 @ 8:10AM
Even if you read the bill you won’t understand it. It is written exactly to hide what it is they are doing.
There is one provision that gives the Secretary the power to reduce payment to any cancer treatment center that has above average charges. That is a pretty neat trick by itself, since any “average” requires things that are higher than average and lower than average. If you eliminate everything that is above average, what happens to the average?
But, right after this provision are three paragraphs exempting three facilities from the provision. Here is one of them --
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“A hospital that was recognized as a comprehensive cancer center or clinical cancer research center by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health as of April 20, 1983, that is located in a State which, as of December 19, 1989, was not operating a demonstration project under section 1814(b), that applied and was denied, on or before December 31, 1990, for classification as a hospital involved extensively in treatment for or research on cancer under this clause (as in effect on the day before the date of the enactment of this subclause), that as of the date of the enactment of this subclause, is licensed for less than 50 acute care beds, and that demonstrates for the 4-year period ending on December 31, 1996, that at least 50 percent of its total discharges have a principal finding of neoplastic disease, as defined in subparagraph (E).”
I doubt there is anyone in America who can identify what hospital that is -- except the Congressman who wrote it and the person who bribed him to insert it.
This is one paragraph of a 1,000 page bill that is chock full of similar shenanigans.
- The Podhoretz Method
- The Right of Conscience in the Age of Obama
- When the Party Was Over