HEY, I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT
The State (Columbia, South Carolina) today:
S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford's staff said late Monday that the governor is hiking on the Appalachian Trail, ending four days during which staff and state officials said they had not heard from him.
Neither Sanford's office nor the State Law Enforcement Division, which provides security for governors, had been able to reach Sanford since he left the mansion Thursday....
Joel Sawyer, the governor's spokesman would not disclose where on the trail the governor was hiking, nor would he reveal whether Sanford was hiking alone....
Us Magazine, two days ago (via Newser):
Jon Gosselin Has "No Idea" Where Kate Is Day Before Their Big Announcement
Jon Gosselin didn't just spend his Father's Day with his eight kids. He also spent it talking to fans and reporters outside his $1.1 million Pennsylvania home.
In an impromptu press conference Sunday afternoon, the Jon & Kate Plus 8 star signed autographs and answered questions with the dozens of people who stopped by to get a look at the family.
Although he mainly told the group that they would have to watch the show for answers, when asked where his noticeably absent wife, Kate, was, he replied, "I have no idea." ...
That's it! Governor Sanford spent the weekend with Kate Gosselin! Mystery solved!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
SO ANGRY AT OBAMA ABOUT THE DEFICIT THAT THEY DIDN'T EVEN WAIT TILL HE WAS PRESIDENT
The conventional wisdom (per Politico) is that President Obama's approval ratings are starting to wilt, and in the search for the reason, we have a conventional-wisdom winner: it's the deficit!
Analyzing her firm's latest poll, Gallup's Lydia Saad said it is "not clear what's behind the decline" in the president's numbers, but she pointed to growing concerns over the administration's deficit spending as a likely cause.
And there's been some slippage in a new Washington Post/ABC poll. Hmmm -- why? Perhaps this?
... many people disapprove as approve of his handling of the federal budget deficit. On the deficit, intensity runs against the president, with 35 percent "strongly" disapproving, compared with 22 percent who say they are solidly behind his efforts.
More broadly, worries about the deficit remain widespread, with almost nine in 10 Americans saying they are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about its size.
There's just one problem with that analysis: If you look at the Post/ABC numbers, you see that concern about the deficit was being expressed even before Obama was inaugurated, and is barely higher than it was a month before he took the oath of office:
Sure, the percentage who are "very" concerned has gone up since December, when Bush was still president -- but it's also gone down (somewhat) since April. Overall concern has barely budged. So, um, how can this be the reason for "wilting" or whatever is happening to Obama's approval?
In fact, how wilted are his numbers? Gallup has him at 57% approval, 35% disapproval. The new Post/ABC poll has him at 65% approval, 31% disapproval. The latest New York Times/CBS poll has it 63%-26%. NBC/Wall Street Journal? It's 56%-31%.
Now, where was George W. Bush in June 2001?
... Gov. James S. Gilmore III of Virginia, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, took the unusual step of arranging a conference call with reporters today to counter publicity about polls showing that Mr. Bush's approval rating is around 50 percent.
... a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll published today put Mr. Bush's approval rating at 50 percent, the lowest presidential approval rating in five years. Another survey released today, by Reuters and Zogby, showed Mr. Bush was popular with 51 percent of those polled.
The decline was also apparent in the New York Times/CBS News Poll, published June 21, which found that Mr. Bush's job approval rating stood at 53 percent, down seven points from March....
Let's see: at that time the unemployment rate was 4.5% and Bush had just signed into law a huge tax cut. Right now the unemployment rate is more than twice that and Obama has presided over massive amounts of pain. And yet Bush's numbers were far worse than Obama's.
People aren't feeling the effects of the stimulus and aren't seeing much evidence of stimulus activity. People don't like seeing large amounts of money going to guys in expensive suits while they themselves get nothing. To the extent that people are upset, that's what's bothering them -- I'd say more than the deficit.
But the public is still on Obama's side -- more than it was on Bush's at this time in '01.
The conventional wisdom (per Politico) is that President Obama's approval ratings are starting to wilt, and in the search for the reason, we have a conventional-wisdom winner: it's the deficit!
Analyzing her firm's latest poll, Gallup's Lydia Saad said it is "not clear what's behind the decline" in the president's numbers, but she pointed to growing concerns over the administration's deficit spending as a likely cause.
And there's been some slippage in a new Washington Post/ABC poll. Hmmm -- why? Perhaps this?
... many people disapprove as approve of his handling of the federal budget deficit. On the deficit, intensity runs against the president, with 35 percent "strongly" disapproving, compared with 22 percent who say they are solidly behind his efforts.
More broadly, worries about the deficit remain widespread, with almost nine in 10 Americans saying they are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about its size.
There's just one problem with that analysis: If you look at the Post/ABC numbers, you see that concern about the deficit was being expressed even before Obama was inaugurated, and is barely higher than it was a month before he took the oath of office:
Sure, the percentage who are "very" concerned has gone up since December, when Bush was still president -- but it's also gone down (somewhat) since April. Overall concern has barely budged. So, um, how can this be the reason for "wilting" or whatever is happening to Obama's approval?
In fact, how wilted are his numbers? Gallup has him at 57% approval, 35% disapproval. The new Post/ABC poll has him at 65% approval, 31% disapproval. The latest New York Times/CBS poll has it 63%-26%. NBC/Wall Street Journal? It's 56%-31%.
Now, where was George W. Bush in June 2001?
... Gov. James S. Gilmore III of Virginia, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, took the unusual step of arranging a conference call with reporters today to counter publicity about polls showing that Mr. Bush's approval rating is around 50 percent.
... a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll published today put Mr. Bush's approval rating at 50 percent, the lowest presidential approval rating in five years. Another survey released today, by Reuters and Zogby, showed Mr. Bush was popular with 51 percent of those polled.
The decline was also apparent in the New York Times/CBS News Poll, published June 21, which found that Mr. Bush's job approval rating stood at 53 percent, down seven points from March....
Let's see: at that time the unemployment rate was 4.5% and Bush had just signed into law a huge tax cut. Right now the unemployment rate is more than twice that and Obama has presided over massive amounts of pain. And yet Bush's numbers were far worse than Obama's.
People aren't feeling the effects of the stimulus and aren't seeing much evidence of stimulus activity. People don't like seeing large amounts of money going to guys in expensive suits while they themselves get nothing. To the extent that people are upset, that's what's bothering them -- I'd say more than the deficit.
But the public is still on Obama's side -- more than it was on Bush's at this time in '01.
JUST CHANGE THE NAME OF THE GOP TO THE WINGNUT-CHEETO-EATER-IN-THE-BASEMENT PARTY
Here are the opening paragraphs of a right-wing blog post from yesterday:
Now here's a tweet from Marco Rubio, the right's preferred candidate in the upcoming Florida Senate race:
Do I even have to explain the stupidity of saying something like this about a regime that's broadly repressive? Do I need to explain that it's sort of like saying things would have been really different in Hitler's concentration camps if he'd only allowed inmates access to earth-moving equipment? And this is the depth of thought we get from a would-be U.S. senator?
Ladies and gentlemen, there are your movement conservatives. John Cole said for much of 2008 that John McCain's campaign seemed as if it was run by wingnut bloggers; we're basically to the point where you can say that about the whole Republican Party.
(Via Politico.)
Here are the opening paragraphs of a right-wing blog post from yesterday:
Now here's a tweet from Marco Rubio, the right's preferred candidate in the upcoming Florida Senate race:
Do I even have to explain the stupidity of saying something like this about a regime that's broadly repressive? Do I need to explain that it's sort of like saying things would have been really different in Hitler's concentration camps if he'd only allowed inmates access to earth-moving equipment? And this is the depth of thought we get from a would-be U.S. senator?
Ladies and gentlemen, there are your movement conservatives. John Cole said for much of 2008 that John McCain's campaign seemed as if it was run by wingnut bloggers; we're basically to the point where you can say that about the whole Republican Party.
(Via Politico.)
HEALTH CARE POLLING: HOW THE VILLAGE SEES IT VS. HOW YOU AND I SEE IT
Chris at AMERICAblog looks at that New York Times/CBS poll showing 72% support for a public health care option and asks:
With poll numbers like this, why are Democrats caving?
Chris asks this because he's not a Beltway insider -- he's not in the Village. Outside the Village, that's a meaningful number. Inside the Village? Well, check out how Cokie Roberts, in an NPR chat with anchorman David Greene this morning, buried that number and described the news for reform advocates as nearly all bad (audio transcript mine, emphasis added):
... COKIE ROBERTS: Well, the House Democrats put forward a plan at the end of last week that included this so-called public option, a government-backed insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies, and Republicans have just been over the weekend screaming, "No way, it's not going to happen," and some Senate Democrats seem to agree with them. So they're trying to come out with a plan this week, but they're having a lot of trouble coming up with a consensus between the two Democratically dominated committees that control the health care debate, the tax-writing Finance Committee, and the committee that writes health policy. And it was made a whole lot more difficult, David, by the Congressional Budget Office estimate last week that the health committee plan that's emerging would cost 1.6 trillion dollars. That terrified some moderate senators. Now, they did get some good news over the weekend when the pharmaceutical companies agreed to give an 80-billion-dollar break to seniors receiving prescription drugs, but that's the only good news they've gotten at the moment. They're really having a lot of trouble writing this bill.
(Nope -- this poll doesn't count as good news over the weekend. Read on.)
DAVID GREENE: These big price tags, or the possibility of a big price tag, is actually making a lot of people out in the country very afraid. These polls that we've seen on this issue -- they're a little confusing. There's a lot of public support for overhauling health care -- that's pretty clear -- but also a lot of worry about the cost, and I guess I wonder, how does that worry over red ink play itself out? Does it slow down President Obama a lot?
COKIE ROBERTS: Well, it slows down the Congress, certainly. Now, the polls do show Americans, by large majorities -- over 70 percent are saying they like this idea of a public option, but they are more and more concerned about the deficit and about the role that the government is playing in the overall economy, especially in dealing with the automobile companies. They're mad about that. In a New York Times poll, by two to one, the respondents said the president had no clear plan for dealing with the deficit. Now, they're still blaming President Bush and the Democrats in Congress, interestingly, over the deficit. But President Obama, of course, more and more will be the owner of this economy, and that's one of the reasons that he wants to move quickly on all of these issues, before his support erodes....
So if a poll yields a result that challenges the cozy status quo you and your Republican/Democratic Blue Dog/lobbyist friends like, wrap that result in other poll results that yield the answers you and your pals prefer. (And ignore the fact that the same poll that contains those oh-so-quotable numbers on Obama's plans regarding the deficit also shows that respondents approve of Obama's handling of the economy by a 57%-35% margin.)
Oh, and while you're at it, throw in a GOP meme or two, whether or not it accurately represents reality. I'm referring to that bit about "the role that the government is playing in the overall economy, especially in dealing with the automobile companies." Um, isn't it just possible, Cokie, that resentment of the GM and Chrysler bailouts is resentment of the decision to hand tax money to very well-paid guys in really expensive suits who screwed up? That it's not about the role of government in relation to private industry in the abstract, as in the Limbaugh/Fox News/Club for Growth talking point? Isn't it possible that using government to put a curb on private insurers and drug companies would get a very different response than using government power to write checks to GM and Chrysler? ... Oh, sorry, I forgot: the GOP frame says they're both commie-fascist attacks on the free market. So that's Cokie's frame, too.
Now do you see why I'm gloomy? Now do you see why I don't take a whole lot of comfort from that Times/CBS poll?
****
UPDATE: Well, what do you know:
Democrats May Unite On Public Health Plan
Emboldened By Apparent Public Backing For "Public Option", Democrats May Drop Attempt To Compromise
Emboldened by polls that show public backing for a government health insurance plan, Democrats are moving to make it a politically defining issue in the debate over the future of medical care.
Behind-the-scenes attempts to get a deal with Republicans on nonprofit co-ops as an alternative to a public plan have led only to frustration, complains a key Democrat. He and his colleagues may have to go it alone, said Sen. Chuck Schumer.
The co-ops were seen as perhaps the last hope for compromise on a contentious issue that threatens any remaining prospects of bipartisan support for President Obama's sweeping plan to remake the health care system.
...Schumer's role is important because he had been acting as an intermediary between liberal Democrats and moderates who are trying to strike a deal on the issue with Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee....
Overnight, did someone kidnap the entire Democratic Party and replace it with one that actually weighs public opinion against GOP/Village conventional wisdom and dares to side with the public against the Village?
Chris at AMERICAblog looks at that New York Times/CBS poll showing 72% support for a public health care option and asks:
With poll numbers like this, why are Democrats caving?
Chris asks this because he's not a Beltway insider -- he's not in the Village. Outside the Village, that's a meaningful number. Inside the Village? Well, check out how Cokie Roberts, in an NPR chat with anchorman David Greene this morning, buried that number and described the news for reform advocates as nearly all bad (audio transcript mine, emphasis added):
... COKIE ROBERTS: Well, the House Democrats put forward a plan at the end of last week that included this so-called public option, a government-backed insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies, and Republicans have just been over the weekend screaming, "No way, it's not going to happen," and some Senate Democrats seem to agree with them. So they're trying to come out with a plan this week, but they're having a lot of trouble coming up with a consensus between the two Democratically dominated committees that control the health care debate, the tax-writing Finance Committee, and the committee that writes health policy. And it was made a whole lot more difficult, David, by the Congressional Budget Office estimate last week that the health committee plan that's emerging would cost 1.6 trillion dollars. That terrified some moderate senators. Now, they did get some good news over the weekend when the pharmaceutical companies agreed to give an 80-billion-dollar break to seniors receiving prescription drugs, but that's the only good news they've gotten at the moment. They're really having a lot of trouble writing this bill.
(Nope -- this poll doesn't count as good news over the weekend. Read on.)
DAVID GREENE: These big price tags, or the possibility of a big price tag, is actually making a lot of people out in the country very afraid. These polls that we've seen on this issue -- they're a little confusing. There's a lot of public support for overhauling health care -- that's pretty clear -- but also a lot of worry about the cost, and I guess I wonder, how does that worry over red ink play itself out? Does it slow down President Obama a lot?
COKIE ROBERTS: Well, it slows down the Congress, certainly. Now, the polls do show Americans, by large majorities -- over 70 percent are saying they like this idea of a public option, but they are more and more concerned about the deficit and about the role that the government is playing in the overall economy, especially in dealing with the automobile companies. They're mad about that. In a New York Times poll, by two to one, the respondents said the president had no clear plan for dealing with the deficit. Now, they're still blaming President Bush and the Democrats in Congress, interestingly, over the deficit. But President Obama, of course, more and more will be the owner of this economy, and that's one of the reasons that he wants to move quickly on all of these issues, before his support erodes....
So if a poll yields a result that challenges the cozy status quo you and your Republican/Democratic Blue Dog/lobbyist friends like, wrap that result in other poll results that yield the answers you and your pals prefer. (And ignore the fact that the same poll that contains those oh-so-quotable numbers on Obama's plans regarding the deficit also shows that respondents approve of Obama's handling of the economy by a 57%-35% margin.)
Oh, and while you're at it, throw in a GOP meme or two, whether or not it accurately represents reality. I'm referring to that bit about "the role that the government is playing in the overall economy, especially in dealing with the automobile companies." Um, isn't it just possible, Cokie, that resentment of the GM and Chrysler bailouts is resentment of the decision to hand tax money to very well-paid guys in really expensive suits who screwed up? That it's not about the role of government in relation to private industry in the abstract, as in the Limbaugh/Fox News/Club for Growth talking point? Isn't it possible that using government to put a curb on private insurers and drug companies would get a very different response than using government power to write checks to GM and Chrysler? ... Oh, sorry, I forgot: the GOP frame says they're both commie-fascist attacks on the free market. So that's Cokie's frame, too.
Now do you see why I'm gloomy? Now do you see why I don't take a whole lot of comfort from that Times/CBS poll?
****
UPDATE: Well, what do you know:
Democrats May Unite On Public Health Plan
Emboldened By Apparent Public Backing For "Public Option", Democrats May Drop Attempt To Compromise
Emboldened by polls that show public backing for a government health insurance plan, Democrats are moving to make it a politically defining issue in the debate over the future of medical care.
Behind-the-scenes attempts to get a deal with Republicans on nonprofit co-ops as an alternative to a public plan have led only to frustration, complains a key Democrat. He and his colleagues may have to go it alone, said Sen. Chuck Schumer.
The co-ops were seen as perhaps the last hope for compromise on a contentious issue that threatens any remaining prospects of bipartisan support for President Obama's sweeping plan to remake the health care system.
...Schumer's role is important because he had been acting as an intermediary between liberal Democrats and moderates who are trying to strike a deal on the issue with Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee....
Overnight, did someone kidnap the entire Democratic Party and replace it with one that actually weighs public opinion against GOP/Village conventional wisdom and dares to side with the public against the Village?
Sunday, June 21, 2009
THAT HEALTH CARE POLL: EVERY SILVER LINING HAS A CLOUD
This morning, when I grabbed the print New York Times and read the article about about the new Times/CBS health care poll, I thought my gloomy health care post from last week had been fairly thoroughly refuted. 72% of surevey respondents support the public option! 50% think the government would do a better job of providing medical coverage, up from 30% two years ago! 57% would pay higher taxes to ensure universal coverage!
But.
I'm looking at CBS's write-up and there are some disturbingly large openings for those who are desperate not to see this happen:
Overall, 57 percent of Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans would have health insurance they can’t lose. Majorities of Democrats and independents are willing to pay higher taxes, but two thirds of Republicans are not.
However, when a specific dollar amount is included in the question, support drops. Just 43 percent of Americans would be willing to pay $500 a year more in taxes to pay for universal health care.
And although 64 percent of Americans think the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone, they are less supportive when a direct cost is mentioned. If the cost of their own insurance were to rise, support for a government guarantee of insurance for all drops to 47 percent.
And even the majority support for paying an unspecified additional tax to get universal coverage is no different from what we had the last time health care reform was on the agenda. In fact, according to the raw numbers (PDF), support was higher in 1993:
Meanwhile, the trash-talking and slow-walking seem bipartisan:
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina who appeared on ABC's "This Week," said estimates on overhauling health care were "a death blow to a government-run health plan."
Dianne Feinstein of California joined Republicans in voicing reservations. Ms. Feinstein, who appeared on "State of the Union," said that controlling the cost of a new health-care system "is a very major and difficult subject."
Ms. Feinstein also said that Mr. Obama might not have the votes in the Senate to pass his legislation. "I think there's a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus," she said.
Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, appearing with Ms. Feinstein, said that overhauling the health care system should be done slowly and not this year, as Mr. Obama has insisted. "I think it should be incremental steps," Mr. Lugar said. Mr. Lugar also suggested a period of study to find and consider alternatives.
Ms. Feinstein also suggested that the results of Mr. Obama's efforts to repair the economy and overhaul the financial-regulatory system should be measured before taking on health care.
"What all of the impact of this is not yet known," Ms. Feinstein said.
I'm telling you, this is not going to happen.
This morning, when I grabbed the print New York Times and read the article about about the new Times/CBS health care poll, I thought my gloomy health care post from last week had been fairly thoroughly refuted. 72% of surevey respondents support the public option! 50% think the government would do a better job of providing medical coverage, up from 30% two years ago! 57% would pay higher taxes to ensure universal coverage!
But.
I'm looking at CBS's write-up and there are some disturbingly large openings for those who are desperate not to see this happen:
Overall, 57 percent of Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans would have health insurance they can’t lose. Majorities of Democrats and independents are willing to pay higher taxes, but two thirds of Republicans are not.
However, when a specific dollar amount is included in the question, support drops. Just 43 percent of Americans would be willing to pay $500 a year more in taxes to pay for universal health care.
And although 64 percent of Americans think the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone, they are less supportive when a direct cost is mentioned. If the cost of their own insurance were to rise, support for a government guarantee of insurance for all drops to 47 percent.
And even the majority support for paying an unspecified additional tax to get universal coverage is no different from what we had the last time health care reform was on the agenda. In fact, according to the raw numbers (PDF), support was higher in 1993:
Meanwhile, the trash-talking and slow-walking seem bipartisan:
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina who appeared on ABC's "This Week," said estimates on overhauling health care were "a death blow to a government-run health plan."
Dianne Feinstein of California joined Republicans in voicing reservations. Ms. Feinstein, who appeared on "State of the Union," said that controlling the cost of a new health-care system "is a very major and difficult subject."
Ms. Feinstein also said that Mr. Obama might not have the votes in the Senate to pass his legislation. "I think there's a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus," she said.
Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, appearing with Ms. Feinstein, said that overhauling the health care system should be done slowly and not this year, as Mr. Obama has insisted. "I think it should be incremental steps," Mr. Lugar said. Mr. Lugar also suggested a period of study to find and consider alternatives.
Ms. Feinstein also suggested that the results of Mr. Obama's efforts to repair the economy and overhaul the financial-regulatory system should be measured before taking on health care.
"What all of the impact of this is not yet known," Ms. Feinstein said.
I'm telling you, this is not going to happen.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
NOTES FROM OUR "POST-RACIAL SOCIETY"
You really should go here and listen to NPR's story about Obbie Riley, a county supervisor in Neshoba County, Mississippi. This weekend, he and some volunteers will personally do the physical labor required to install a memorial to the slain civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. You see, there seems to be no other way to get the monument installed -- but it isn't because of racism, oh, heavens no. Why, it's simply because of a jurisdictional dispute:
The state Department of Archives and History has authorized a historical marker on Mississippi 19 south at the intersection of Road 515 near where three civil rights workers were murdered here in 1964, but county supervisors said Monday they would not be responsible for erecting the sign.
... William Thompson, a special projects officer with Archives and History, said the request for the historical marker was made by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation based at the University of Mississippi.
Since the historic marker would be on right-of-way of the state Department of Transportation, the consensus of supervisors on Monday was that MDOT [Mississippi Department of Transportation] officials should erect it.
Riley recommended that the county do the work, telling supervisors that he had spoken with MDOT officials who said they did not install such markers unless directed by the state Legislature.
Riley did not get any support from the other four supervisors.
Did I mention the fact that, according to the NPR story, all the other supervisors are white?
After the meeting, Riley said he would solicit other volunteers to help him put it up.
"We just need to dig a hole with a post hole digger and add some concrete," he said. "The pole is already equipped with all the hardware."
In the NPR story, Riley says he's a country boy who's dug his share of post holes, and he's ready to do this kind of work -- even though local temperatures are in the mid-90s, with a triple-digit heat index.
That fact comes out as a result of his interviewer, as does the fact that all of Riley's fellow supervisors are Caucasian. He's the soul of politeness -- he says his colleagues are all good people and won't speak ill of them. It's heartbreaking and infuriating. I wish him well.
You really should go here and listen to NPR's story about Obbie Riley, a county supervisor in Neshoba County, Mississippi. This weekend, he and some volunteers will personally do the physical labor required to install a memorial to the slain civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. You see, there seems to be no other way to get the monument installed -- but it isn't because of racism, oh, heavens no. Why, it's simply because of a jurisdictional dispute:
The state Department of Archives and History has authorized a historical marker on Mississippi 19 south at the intersection of Road 515 near where three civil rights workers were murdered here in 1964, but county supervisors said Monday they would not be responsible for erecting the sign.
... William Thompson, a special projects officer with Archives and History, said the request for the historical marker was made by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation based at the University of Mississippi.
Since the historic marker would be on right-of-way of the state Department of Transportation, the consensus of supervisors on Monday was that MDOT [Mississippi Department of Transportation] officials should erect it.
Riley recommended that the county do the work, telling supervisors that he had spoken with MDOT officials who said they did not install such markers unless directed by the state Legislature.
Riley did not get any support from the other four supervisors.
Did I mention the fact that, according to the NPR story, all the other supervisors are white?
After the meeting, Riley said he would solicit other volunteers to help him put it up.
"We just need to dig a hole with a post hole digger and add some concrete," he said. "The pole is already equipped with all the hardware."
In the NPR story, Riley says he's a country boy who's dug his share of post holes, and he's ready to do this kind of work -- even though local temperatures are in the mid-90s, with a triple-digit heat index.
That fact comes out as a result of his interviewer, as does the fact that all of Riley's fellow supervisors are Caucasian. He's the soul of politeness -- he says his colleagues are all good people and won't speak ill of them. It's heartbreaking and infuriating. I wish him well.
THE GUN IS SACRED
An infuriating story from Eric Lichtblau in The New York Times:
People on the government's terrorist watch list tried to buy guns nearly 1,000 times in the last five years, and federal authorities cleared the purchases 9 times out of 10 because they had no legal way to stop them, according to a new government report.
In one case, a person on the list was able to buy more than 50 pounds of explosives.
The new statistics, compiled in a report from the Government Accountability Office that is scheduled for public release next week, draw attention to an odd divergence in federal law: people placed on the government's terrorist watch list can be stopped from getting on a plane or getting a visa, but they cannot be stopped from buying a gun....
Instapundit, of course defends the practice:
SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT: Terrorist watch lists are bad, and Orwellian, because they're full of mistakes and put together without due process.
Well, terrorist watch lists are bad and Orwellian when they're full of mistakes and put together without due process. And the one we've got, yes, is quite flawed. I've criticized it repeatedly for ensnaring people just because they have common names, or merely share names with people who are under suspicion. And there need to be much better procedures for appealing inclusion on the list. But if we're using it to keep people off planes, or for any purpose at all, why is the gun so sacrosanct that it gets a carve-out? Oh yeah, I forgot: this is America, and the gun is God.
... Well, the Supreme Court says that gun ownership is a constitutional right, and you’re not normally supposed to lose a constitutional right because some bureaucrat puts you on a list without any due process. One suspects that this Eric Lichtblau story in the Times is part of a PR effort designed to gin up support for doing just that....
Is that it? It is only if Lichtblau and his editors are extraordinarily naive. After all, this gun carve-out was brought to the public's attention a few years ago and approvals of watch-listed purchasers subsequently went up:
...From February 2004 through February 2009, the report found, there were 963 requests for gun purchases through the federal system by people on the list. Of that group, 865 purchases -- or 90 percent -- were approved after a three-day review by the F.B.I. failed to turn up any other disqualifying factors.
A narrower study by the G.A.O. in 2005 first drew public attention to the issue. The Justice Department took some limited steps to address the issue, centralizing the review of gun purchases by those on watch lists to ensure that all possible disqualifiers were being considered.
Nonetheless, the rate of approval for requests to buy a gun went up from 80 percent in 2005 to the new study's 90 percent....
And don't tell me it's different now because we have a Democratic president and Congress. All the gun-worship has to do is stamp its fight loud enough and Obama and the leadership in Congress will just back off. It's the NRA's country -- the rest of us just try to stay alive in it.
An infuriating story from Eric Lichtblau in The New York Times:
People on the government's terrorist watch list tried to buy guns nearly 1,000 times in the last five years, and federal authorities cleared the purchases 9 times out of 10 because they had no legal way to stop them, according to a new government report.
In one case, a person on the list was able to buy more than 50 pounds of explosives.
The new statistics, compiled in a report from the Government Accountability Office that is scheduled for public release next week, draw attention to an odd divergence in federal law: people placed on the government's terrorist watch list can be stopped from getting on a plane or getting a visa, but they cannot be stopped from buying a gun....
Instapundit, of course defends the practice:
SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT: Terrorist watch lists are bad, and Orwellian, because they're full of mistakes and put together without due process.
Well, terrorist watch lists are bad and Orwellian when they're full of mistakes and put together without due process. And the one we've got, yes, is quite flawed. I've criticized it repeatedly for ensnaring people just because they have common names, or merely share names with people who are under suspicion. And there need to be much better procedures for appealing inclusion on the list. But if we're using it to keep people off planes, or for any purpose at all, why is the gun so sacrosanct that it gets a carve-out? Oh yeah, I forgot: this is America, and the gun is God.
... Well, the Supreme Court says that gun ownership is a constitutional right, and you’re not normally supposed to lose a constitutional right because some bureaucrat puts you on a list without any due process. One suspects that this Eric Lichtblau story in the Times is part of a PR effort designed to gin up support for doing just that....
Is that it? It is only if Lichtblau and his editors are extraordinarily naive. After all, this gun carve-out was brought to the public's attention a few years ago and approvals of watch-listed purchasers subsequently went up:
...From February 2004 through February 2009, the report found, there were 963 requests for gun purchases through the federal system by people on the list. Of that group, 865 purchases -- or 90 percent -- were approved after a three-day review by the F.B.I. failed to turn up any other disqualifying factors.
A narrower study by the G.A.O. in 2005 first drew public attention to the issue. The Justice Department took some limited steps to address the issue, centralizing the review of gun purchases by those on watch lists to ensure that all possible disqualifiers were being considered.
Nonetheless, the rate of approval for requests to buy a gun went up from 80 percent in 2005 to the new study's 90 percent....
And don't tell me it's different now because we have a Democratic president and Congress. All the gun-worship has to do is stamp its fight loud enough and Obama and the leadership in Congress will just back off. It's the NRA's country -- the rest of us just try to stay alive in it.
Friday, June 19, 2009
AN EXCELLENT POINT ABOUT OBAMA AND IRAN
From Tom Hilton:
the people who (claim to) have the greatest faith in what Obama's endorsement would do for the Iranian opposition would be the last to admit that before the election, the opposition was newly energized by Obama's speech in Cairo. The things Obama actually does have no value; it's only the things he doesn't do that could transform the world.
From Tom Hilton:
the people who (claim to) have the greatest faith in what Obama's endorsement would do for the Iranian opposition would be the last to admit that before the election, the opposition was newly energized by Obama's speech in Cairo. The things Obama actually does have no value; it's only the things he doesn't do that could transform the world.
A STORY YOU'RE SURE TO FIND ON THE NEXT NEO-NAZI MURDERER'S WEB SITE
This is a real story, but -- as I note below -- it's starting to enter the realm of lunatic right-wing fantasy, and it will definitely get synapses firing in the brain of the next von Brunn wannabe.
Case of $134-billion T-bond bust fuels conspiracy theories
For your entertainment, Bloomberg News columnist William Pesek lets his imagination run wild about the strange case of two Japanese men who were allegedly trying to smuggle $134 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds into Switzerland last week:
Well, those are fun theories. But there's a new, much more wingnut-friendly conspiracy theory: a Lucianne.com thread links to a story at a favorite far-wingnut site, Canada Free Press (warning: CFP might do odd things to your computer), and that story leads to this, from something called the Northeast Intelligence Network. I'll highlight the key bit:
19 June 2009: Good morning America! On June 3, either an attempted attack on the economy of the U.S. on an unprecedented scale was narrowly averted -- or a criminal conspiracy involving the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve that would legitimize the most radical of globalist conspiracies of all time -- was exposed. In either event, a deliberate media blackout was employed in the U.S. When news of the event gained traction in the foreign media, the U.S. media was compelled to report it as well, but only after facts could be changed and damage control employed by the highest levels of the U.S. government, aided and abetted by faceless global powerbrokers.
The event involves the smuggling of $134.5 billion in U.S. government bearer bonds, which by no coincidence, happens to be the exact amount remaining in the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] as announced by the Department of the Treasury on March 30, 2009....
Bingo! Oh yeah, that's going to get serious traction on the fringe. (I was going to say that Glenn Beck will be all over the story soon, but he's already talking about it, or at least about the initial reports. He apparently hasn't made the TARP leap -- yet.)
The Northeast Intelligence Network story goes on to link the Japanese story to Representative Paul Kanjorski's statement last fall (a conspiracists' favorite) that there was an "electronic run on the banks" one day in September. I'm not sure I understand the alleged connection, but NIN assures me that all of this put together "would provide a great deal of legitimacy to the so-called conspiracy theorists who have suspected such illicit activity involving the U.S. money supply, the Federal Reserve, and the direct involvement or complicity of numerous U.S. administrations over the last 75-plus years." Oh, is that all? (I'll remind you that Rush Limbaugh responded to that Kanjorski statement by speculating that the alleged bank run was something George Soros did to destroy the economy in order to get Barack Obama elected.)
Oh, this has the potential to make a lot of righty heads explode. I think Beck, for starters, is going to make the leap to anti-Obama/TARP/(Soros?) conspiracy talk any day now.
This is a real story, but -- as I note below -- it's starting to enter the realm of lunatic right-wing fantasy, and it will definitely get synapses firing in the brain of the next von Brunn wannabe.
Case of $134-billion T-bond bust fuels conspiracy theories
For your entertainment, Bloomberg News columnist William Pesek lets his imagination run wild about the strange case of two Japanese men who were allegedly trying to smuggle $134 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds into Switzerland last week:
Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear.
Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea’s cash in a Swiss vault? Bagmen for Nigerian Internet scammers? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit?
Well, those are fun theories. But there's a new, much more wingnut-friendly conspiracy theory: a Lucianne.com thread links to a story at a favorite far-wingnut site, Canada Free Press (warning: CFP might do odd things to your computer), and that story leads to this, from something called the Northeast Intelligence Network. I'll highlight the key bit:
19 June 2009: Good morning America! On June 3, either an attempted attack on the economy of the U.S. on an unprecedented scale was narrowly averted -- or a criminal conspiracy involving the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve that would legitimize the most radical of globalist conspiracies of all time -- was exposed. In either event, a deliberate media blackout was employed in the U.S. When news of the event gained traction in the foreign media, the U.S. media was compelled to report it as well, but only after facts could be changed and damage control employed by the highest levels of the U.S. government, aided and abetted by faceless global powerbrokers.
The event involves the smuggling of $134.5 billion in U.S. government bearer bonds, which by no coincidence, happens to be the exact amount remaining in the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] as announced by the Department of the Treasury on March 30, 2009....
Bingo! Oh yeah, that's going to get serious traction on the fringe. (I was going to say that Glenn Beck will be all over the story soon, but he's already talking about it, or at least about the initial reports. He apparently hasn't made the TARP leap -- yet.)
The Northeast Intelligence Network story goes on to link the Japanese story to Representative Paul Kanjorski's statement last fall (a conspiracists' favorite) that there was an "electronic run on the banks" one day in September. I'm not sure I understand the alleged connection, but NIN assures me that all of this put together "would provide a great deal of legitimacy to the so-called conspiracy theorists who have suspected such illicit activity involving the U.S. money supply, the Federal Reserve, and the direct involvement or complicity of numerous U.S. administrations over the last 75-plus years." Oh, is that all? (I'll remind you that Rush Limbaugh responded to that Kanjorski statement by speculating that the alleged bank run was something George Soros did to destroy the economy in order to get Barack Obama elected.)
Oh, this has the potential to make a lot of righty heads explode. I think Beck, for starters, is going to make the leap to anti-Obama/TARP/(Soros?) conspiracy talk any day now.
KEN STARR, PUSHOVER
After issuing a warning in February that Barack Obama's Supreme Court picks were likely to face GOP resistance, is Ken Starr now consorting with the enemy? Has he crossed the line? David Corn reports:
Kenneth Starr, the lawyer who chased after President Bill Clinton and his wife, said on Thursday that he supports President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
Starr voiced his backing of Sotomayor while delivering the keynote speech at a luncheon held in Los Angeles for Loyola Law School's program for journalists who cover legal issues. He said that he "thinks very well of her." ... Starr said that he has told more than one US senator that he supports her nomination, but he wouldn't identify which senators he has spoken to about Sotomayor.
Corn adds:
... he's out of the closet as a Sotomayor booster. How will Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and other conservatives who have tried to depict Sotomayor as a race-obsessed liberal activist take this news? ...
Well, Limbaugh, Gingrich, et al. could always take a cue from wingnut journalist Richard Poe, who published a book called Hillary's Secret War a couple of years ago in which he argued (as he explained in a FrontPage Magazine interview) that Starr was really just a mealy-mouthed appeaser of Democrats:
Poe: Well, as I explain in my book, there are two Ken Starrs. There's the imaginary Ken Starr conjured up by Big Media -- a ruthless, rightwing religious zealot, bent on toppling the Clintons. Then there's the real Ken Starr -- a timid bureaucrat, afraid of his own shadow, who shrank from investigating any of the truly serious Clinton scandals. On the contrary, Starr actively helped to suppress and whitewash evidence of Clinton wrongdoing.
Take the Vincent Foster case. In September 1994, Starr appointed Miquel Rodriguez to lead the grand jury investigation into Foster's death. Rodriguez resigned in protest less than four months later, charging that the investigation was rigged. Rodriguez accused Starr's people of pressuring him to announce that Foster committed suicide, despite evidence to the contrary.
After resigning, Rodriguez tried to go public. But Big Media shut him out....
FP: Why would Ken Starr cover for the Clintons?
It has been alleged that the Clintons had some sort of hold over Starr -- that, in fact, Starr was "fixed," either by threats, blackmail or perhaps mutual self-interest.
According to White House whistleblower Nolanda Hill, Starr's team was thoroughly infiltrated by Clinton loyalists. Even Starr's FBI investigators reported secretly to Janet Reno. This gave the Clintons enormous leverage to guide and manipulate the investigation their way.
Moreover, Starr had a conflict of interest. In his private legal practice, he represented a subsidiary of CITIC, a company owned by the People's Liberation Army of China, and led by arms dealer Wang Jun, a Chinese military intelligence operative and a key player in the Chinagate scandal....
And there's even more of this kind of thing here and here.
So I think Limbaugh and Gingrich and the rest can safely declare Starr a right-wing unperson and airbrush him out of all the photos....
After issuing a warning in February that Barack Obama's Supreme Court picks were likely to face GOP resistance, is Ken Starr now consorting with the enemy? Has he crossed the line? David Corn reports:
Kenneth Starr, the lawyer who chased after President Bill Clinton and his wife, said on Thursday that he supports President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
Starr voiced his backing of Sotomayor while delivering the keynote speech at a luncheon held in Los Angeles for Loyola Law School's program for journalists who cover legal issues. He said that he "thinks very well of her." ... Starr said that he has told more than one US senator that he supports her nomination, but he wouldn't identify which senators he has spoken to about Sotomayor.
Corn adds:
... he's out of the closet as a Sotomayor booster. How will Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and other conservatives who have tried to depict Sotomayor as a race-obsessed liberal activist take this news? ...
Well, Limbaugh, Gingrich, et al. could always take a cue from wingnut journalist Richard Poe, who published a book called Hillary's Secret War a couple of years ago in which he argued (as he explained in a FrontPage Magazine interview) that Starr was really just a mealy-mouthed appeaser of Democrats:
Poe: Well, as I explain in my book, there are two Ken Starrs. There's the imaginary Ken Starr conjured up by Big Media -- a ruthless, rightwing religious zealot, bent on toppling the Clintons. Then there's the real Ken Starr -- a timid bureaucrat, afraid of his own shadow, who shrank from investigating any of the truly serious Clinton scandals. On the contrary, Starr actively helped to suppress and whitewash evidence of Clinton wrongdoing.
Take the Vincent Foster case. In September 1994, Starr appointed Miquel Rodriguez to lead the grand jury investigation into Foster's death. Rodriguez resigned in protest less than four months later, charging that the investigation was rigged. Rodriguez accused Starr's people of pressuring him to announce that Foster committed suicide, despite evidence to the contrary.
After resigning, Rodriguez tried to go public. But Big Media shut him out....
FP: Why would Ken Starr cover for the Clintons?
It has been alleged that the Clintons had some sort of hold over Starr -- that, in fact, Starr was "fixed," either by threats, blackmail or perhaps mutual self-interest.
According to White House whistleblower Nolanda Hill, Starr's team was thoroughly infiltrated by Clinton loyalists. Even Starr's FBI investigators reported secretly to Janet Reno. This gave the Clintons enormous leverage to guide and manipulate the investigation their way.
Moreover, Starr had a conflict of interest. In his private legal practice, he represented a subsidiary of CITIC, a company owned by the People's Liberation Army of China, and led by arms dealer Wang Jun, a Chinese military intelligence operative and a key player in the Chinagate scandal....
And there's even more of this kind of thing here and here.
So I think Limbaugh and Gingrich and the rest can safely declare Starr a right-wing unperson and airbrush him out of all the photos....
Thursday, June 18, 2009
THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME TO TRY TO DO HEALTH CARE, ASSUMING THERE'S EVER A GOOD TIME
It's widely assumed that health care reform is in trouble -- Ezra Klein and The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn say it's because of the cost estimates for the plans that have put forward, while Sam Stein at the Huffington Post thinks it might have been a mistake for the White House to defer to Congress on the details (even though not deferring to Congress is said to be what sunk the Clinton plan).
But really, wasn't this always going to be an extreme long shot? Democrats were always going to be craven; Republicans were always going to socialist-bait any plan that emerged; vested interests were always going to fight like cornered rats. And why on earth did two consecutive Democratic presidents think the best possible time to attempt health care reform was when people were still feeling the sting of a recession?
On the latter question, I think I know the thought process of the wonky Clinton and the wonky Obama: The American people are hurting, so let's free them from some big fears by developing this swell new addition to the economic safety net. It's the perfect time to do it. People will be so grateful. And we can get it done because it's early in my term and I'm quite popular.
Now, here's the reality: Clinton introduced his plan when the Poppy Bush recession and the S&L crisis were still fresh in everyone's memory; Obama is proceeding while we're still in a horrible economic mess. In each case, the public got stuck with the bill because of greed and deceit the government failed to detect. And then a Democratic president came along and said, in effect, I'm from the government and I'm here to help ... you get health care. Oh, and it's OK that the plan is going to be complex and costly ... even though complexity, large amounts of money, and government oversight were just what, in each case, Americans had just experienced in damaging financial scandals.
Health care reform is just too easy a target -- especially in tough times. This is why the opponents of real reform seem so ready for a brawl right now and the proponents (and people who should be proponents, like centrist Democrats) don't, and seem desperate to make compromises: the anti crowd knows it can persuade the public again that this is a huge, nasty ripoff, in effect the next financial scandal, the next parasite on the public's wallet. The anti crowd doesn't even need an alternative -- it just needs to shout "Government control!" and "Deficits!" and support will erode among people who now associate complexity-plus-government with gazillion-dollar, recession-inducing fraud.
Yeah, I know -- it's different this time. Obama is more popular than Clinton was; polls say the public really wants a government-run plan this time around.
Look, I'm not getting my hopes up. There's a reason all Republicans and far too many Democrats are resisting health care reform: it's ridiculously easy to liberal-bait. They know the American people have no class consciousness, and that no politician has ever been punished at the polls for failing to deliver on this issue.
I'm not sure America will ever see serious health care reform -- but I think if it ever happens, it'll be because it was attempted in flush times, not lean times. Maybe I'm wrong and it can be done now -- but it's going to be the hardest fight Obama's ever fought or will ever fight, and much harder than he thought it would be. It's going to take more of a selling job than even he seems prepared to undertake. Because America just doesn't want this enough -- especially now.
****
UPDATE: From Politico, here's the self-fulfilling conventional wisdom, and it pretty much tracks what I posted above:
President Obama's campaign for health care reform by this fall, once considered highly likely to succeed, suddenly appears in real jeopardy....
Business groups, which had embraced the idea of reform and have been meeting quietly with Democrats for months in an effort to shape the legislation, now talk of spending millions of dollars to oppose the latest proposals out of Capitol Hill. And Democrats themselves are not united, with leading party figures making contradictory declarations about how far they should go to overhaul the system when deficits are soaring and prospects for an economic recovery remain cloudy.
And top Democratic officials tell POLITICO they are increasingly pessimistic about getting any more Republican votes than they did on the stimulus package....
Public anxiety about red ink ... has come roaring back, with a Gallup Poll showing deficits and spending as the only issues where more people disapprove of Obama’s performance than approve of it.
Republicans think the “borrow and spend” issue may be the biggest single vulnerability for Obama and the Democrats in the midterm congressional elections of 2010 and the presidential year of 2012. The president’s own advisers privately agree....
If it we were about to pursue, oh, say, a huge war of choice under a Republican president against a foe we were being told was the new Hitler and whose continued rule meant we were all going to die, budget concerns would not mean a thing and everyone would get on board. But pols, especially Democratic pols, know that voters can be sent into a tizzy about government spending whenever something other than war is involved -- and will never be sent into a tizzy if pols fail to deliver on health care.
It's widely assumed that health care reform is in trouble -- Ezra Klein and The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn say it's because of the cost estimates for the plans that have put forward, while Sam Stein at the Huffington Post thinks it might have been a mistake for the White House to defer to Congress on the details (even though not deferring to Congress is said to be what sunk the Clinton plan).
But really, wasn't this always going to be an extreme long shot? Democrats were always going to be craven; Republicans were always going to socialist-bait any plan that emerged; vested interests were always going to fight like cornered rats. And why on earth did two consecutive Democratic presidents think the best possible time to attempt health care reform was when people were still feeling the sting of a recession?
On the latter question, I think I know the thought process of the wonky Clinton and the wonky Obama: The American people are hurting, so let's free them from some big fears by developing this swell new addition to the economic safety net. It's the perfect time to do it. People will be so grateful. And we can get it done because it's early in my term and I'm quite popular.
Now, here's the reality: Clinton introduced his plan when the Poppy Bush recession and the S&L crisis were still fresh in everyone's memory; Obama is proceeding while we're still in a horrible economic mess. In each case, the public got stuck with the bill because of greed and deceit the government failed to detect. And then a Democratic president came along and said, in effect, I'm from the government and I'm here to help ... you get health care. Oh, and it's OK that the plan is going to be complex and costly ... even though complexity, large amounts of money, and government oversight were just what, in each case, Americans had just experienced in damaging financial scandals.
Health care reform is just too easy a target -- especially in tough times. This is why the opponents of real reform seem so ready for a brawl right now and the proponents (and people who should be proponents, like centrist Democrats) don't, and seem desperate to make compromises: the anti crowd knows it can persuade the public again that this is a huge, nasty ripoff, in effect the next financial scandal, the next parasite on the public's wallet. The anti crowd doesn't even need an alternative -- it just needs to shout "Government control!" and "Deficits!" and support will erode among people who now associate complexity-plus-government with gazillion-dollar, recession-inducing fraud.
Yeah, I know -- it's different this time. Obama is more popular than Clinton was; polls say the public really wants a government-run plan this time around.
Look, I'm not getting my hopes up. There's a reason all Republicans and far too many Democrats are resisting health care reform: it's ridiculously easy to liberal-bait. They know the American people have no class consciousness, and that no politician has ever been punished at the polls for failing to deliver on this issue.
I'm not sure America will ever see serious health care reform -- but I think if it ever happens, it'll be because it was attempted in flush times, not lean times. Maybe I'm wrong and it can be done now -- but it's going to be the hardest fight Obama's ever fought or will ever fight, and much harder than he thought it would be. It's going to take more of a selling job than even he seems prepared to undertake. Because America just doesn't want this enough -- especially now.
****
UPDATE: From Politico, here's the self-fulfilling conventional wisdom, and it pretty much tracks what I posted above:
President Obama's campaign for health care reform by this fall, once considered highly likely to succeed, suddenly appears in real jeopardy....
Business groups, which had embraced the idea of reform and have been meeting quietly with Democrats for months in an effort to shape the legislation, now talk of spending millions of dollars to oppose the latest proposals out of Capitol Hill. And Democrats themselves are not united, with leading party figures making contradictory declarations about how far they should go to overhaul the system when deficits are soaring and prospects for an economic recovery remain cloudy.
And top Democratic officials tell POLITICO they are increasingly pessimistic about getting any more Republican votes than they did on the stimulus package....
Public anxiety about red ink ... has come roaring back, with a Gallup Poll showing deficits and spending as the only issues where more people disapprove of Obama’s performance than approve of it.
Republicans think the “borrow and spend” issue may be the biggest single vulnerability for Obama and the Democrats in the midterm congressional elections of 2010 and the presidential year of 2012. The president’s own advisers privately agree....
If it we were about to pursue, oh, say, a huge war of choice under a Republican president against a foe we were being told was the new Hitler and whose continued rule meant we were all going to die, budget concerns would not mean a thing and everyone would get on board. But pols, especially Democratic pols, know that voters can be sent into a tizzy about government spending whenever something other than war is involved -- and will never be sent into a tizzy if pols fail to deliver on health care.
EX-PRESIDENTIN' IS HARD!
George W. Bush said in March that Obama "deserves my silence," but I'm not sure that was out of genuine respect or high-mindedness -- I think it was an old habit. Recall that, as president, Bush used to leave the really nasty attacks to Karl Rove and others -- in other words, he let the help do his dirty work.
Back then, when those guys attacked, it helped him; now, I think Bush is having trouble adjusting to the fact that he doesn't have any muscle on the payroll anymore and has to fight his own battles.
As I said before, I think it really upset Bush last month when there was a big mano-a-mano speech battle between President Obama and Dick Cheney on a day when Bush spoke to some high school kids and said nothing more newsworthy than the revelation that he now picks up his own dog's crap. I think he saw signs that Cheney's becoming a hero in wingnut circles in the way Bush used to be a hero. Bush knows Cheney is looking to write a book, and knows that if Cheney keeps rousing the rabble that book might eclipse his own.
So Bush went out yesterday and attacked Obama in everything but name. Take that, Dick! The Decider is back in the fray! Except that Bush pulled a punch or two ("Asked by the evening emcee at the 104th annual Manufacturer and Business Association meeting if he finds the new president's policies 'socialist,' Mr. Bush started -- then stopped") and cribbed his nastiest line...
"I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor," he said. "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that -- persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind."
... from a four-year-old Karl Rove speech:
Rove ... told a gathering of the New York Conservative Party that "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
Damn, it was so much easier when Rove and Cheney and the rest were doing that stuff for Bush! Now if he wants to repair his reputation, he has to do all the grunt work himself! It's not fair!
George W. Bush said in March that Obama "deserves my silence," but I'm not sure that was out of genuine respect or high-mindedness -- I think it was an old habit. Recall that, as president, Bush used to leave the really nasty attacks to Karl Rove and others -- in other words, he let the help do his dirty work.
Back then, when those guys attacked, it helped him; now, I think Bush is having trouble adjusting to the fact that he doesn't have any muscle on the payroll anymore and has to fight his own battles.
As I said before, I think it really upset Bush last month when there was a big mano-a-mano speech battle between President Obama and Dick Cheney on a day when Bush spoke to some high school kids and said nothing more newsworthy than the revelation that he now picks up his own dog's crap. I think he saw signs that Cheney's becoming a hero in wingnut circles in the way Bush used to be a hero. Bush knows Cheney is looking to write a book, and knows that if Cheney keeps rousing the rabble that book might eclipse his own.
So Bush went out yesterday and attacked Obama in everything but name. Take that, Dick! The Decider is back in the fray! Except that Bush pulled a punch or two ("Asked by the evening emcee at the 104th annual Manufacturer and Business Association meeting if he finds the new president's policies 'socialist,' Mr. Bush started -- then stopped") and cribbed his nastiest line...
"I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor," he said. "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that -- persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind."
... from a four-year-old Karl Rove speech:
Rove ... told a gathering of the New York Conservative Party that "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
Damn, it was so much easier when Rove and Cheney and the rest were doing that stuff for Bush! Now if he wants to repair his reputation, he has to do all the grunt work himself! It's not fair!
MY SCURRILOUS SPECULATION ABOUT THE LEAK
New York Times today:
As tens of thousands of Iranian protesters take to the streets in defiance of the government in Tehran, officials in Washington are debating whether President Obama's response to Iran's disputed election has been too muted....
Even while supporting the president's approach, senior members of the administration, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would like to strike a stronger tone in support of the protesters, administration officials said....
Holly Bailey, at Newsweek's Gaggle blog, responds to this:
There's apparently an internal divide at the White House over how tough or not Obama should be... What's interesting to your Gaggler is this is only second or third time we've heard about internal discontent coming from this very buttoned down, very on message, very "all is great" White House. So who leaked this out?
Hmmm ... you think it's possible that a little birdie whispered in Hillary's ear and inspired her or a subordinate to leak this?
Just a completely unsubstantiated hunch. We'll probably have to wait for the Bob Woodward book to find out for sure....
New York Times today:
As tens of thousands of Iranian protesters take to the streets in defiance of the government in Tehran, officials in Washington are debating whether President Obama's response to Iran's disputed election has been too muted....
Even while supporting the president's approach, senior members of the administration, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would like to strike a stronger tone in support of the protesters, administration officials said....
Holly Bailey, at Newsweek's Gaggle blog, responds to this:
There's apparently an internal divide at the White House over how tough or not Obama should be... What's interesting to your Gaggler is this is only second or third time we've heard about internal discontent coming from this very buttoned down, very on message, very "all is great" White House. So who leaked this out?
Hmmm ... you think it's possible that a little birdie whispered in Hillary's ear and inspired her or a subordinate to leak this?
Just a completely unsubstantiated hunch. We'll probably have to wait for the Bob Woodward book to find out for sure....
AMERICANS: TAKING THEIR CUE FROM PEOPLE THEY HATE
There are new polls out -- a New York Times/CBS poll and an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll -- and they both show some public discontent with President Obama's policies, and slippage in his overall approval rating. What's odd is that this is happening even though the public is thoroughly disgusted with the party responsible for setting the terms of the debate on Obama. As the Times story notes:
While Republicans have steadily increased their criticism of Mr. Obama, particularly on the budget deficit, the poll found that the Republican Party is viewed favorably by only 28 percent of those polled, the lowest rating ever in a New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, 57 percent said that they had a favorable view of the Democratic Party.
The numbers in the NBC/WSJ poll (PDF) are no better:
(Click to enlarge this and all other charts.)
And yet whose message are Americans listening to as the begin to express dissatisfaction with Obama? Hooveresque Republicans rail about the deficit -- and suddenly, according to the NBC/WSJ poll, deficit concerns have increased dramatically (by 9 points since January):
Republicans say government is the problem -- and the percentage of people who say "Government should do more to solve national problems" has dropped seven points in three months, according the Times/CBS raw numbers:
And so on. Why is this happening? Why are Republican-averse Americans parroting Republicans?
I have a couple of theories. One is that Republicanism isn't as unpopular as it seems. From the rhetoric at the tea parties and from lurking at right-wing Web sites, I've picked up a strong sense that the hip response on the right to a question about the GOP is "I disapprove" -- but that disapproval is because the GOP is supposedly not wingnutty enough. So right-wing poll respondents are talking trash about the Republican Party while supporting its ideas -- and the numbers of those people aren't really shrinking (and they're influencing some people in the middle).
I'll add that I also believe a lot of people don't see Fox News and other parts of the Republican noise machine as Republican. (We had an electrician working for us a couple of months ago who praised Glenn Beck while insisting Beck is a "centrist" because he sometimes criticizes Republicans, too. Beck and others on the talk radio/Fox News right do deny party loyalty on a fairly regular basis.)
And beyond that, some Americans just seem to respond to practically anyone who's sure of himself Check out the numbers of Dick Cheney in the NBC/WSJ poll:
Still abysmal -- but his positive numbers are up 8 points in two months. And no one doubts he's a Republican.
But he knows what he believes, and we know what he believes. Obama and Obama's policies are still much more popular, but maybe he needs a bit more Cheneyesque righteous fervor and ideological purity. The corporatist semi-liberalism of Obama's economic approach is a lot of what's getting him into trouble, I think. He'd be better off if he seemed to be unabashedly on somebody's side, and let us know that unmistakably by his deeds and words. I'd hope it would be the average person's side, but as Bush and Reagan proved, you can be pretty damn popular champuining fat cats, just so long as you do it in no uncertain terms.
There are new polls out -- a New York Times/CBS poll and an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll -- and they both show some public discontent with President Obama's policies, and slippage in his overall approval rating. What's odd is that this is happening even though the public is thoroughly disgusted with the party responsible for setting the terms of the debate on Obama. As the Times story notes:
While Republicans have steadily increased their criticism of Mr. Obama, particularly on the budget deficit, the poll found that the Republican Party is viewed favorably by only 28 percent of those polled, the lowest rating ever in a New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, 57 percent said that they had a favorable view of the Democratic Party.
The numbers in the NBC/WSJ poll (PDF) are no better:
(Click to enlarge this and all other charts.)
And yet whose message are Americans listening to as the begin to express dissatisfaction with Obama? Hooveresque Republicans rail about the deficit -- and suddenly, according to the NBC/WSJ poll, deficit concerns have increased dramatically (by 9 points since January):
Republicans say government is the problem -- and the percentage of people who say "Government should do more to solve national problems" has dropped seven points in three months, according the Times/CBS raw numbers:
And so on. Why is this happening? Why are Republican-averse Americans parroting Republicans?
I have a couple of theories. One is that Republicanism isn't as unpopular as it seems. From the rhetoric at the tea parties and from lurking at right-wing Web sites, I've picked up a strong sense that the hip response on the right to a question about the GOP is "I disapprove" -- but that disapproval is because the GOP is supposedly not wingnutty enough. So right-wing poll respondents are talking trash about the Republican Party while supporting its ideas -- and the numbers of those people aren't really shrinking (and they're influencing some people in the middle).
I'll add that I also believe a lot of people don't see Fox News and other parts of the Republican noise machine as Republican. (We had an electrician working for us a couple of months ago who praised Glenn Beck while insisting Beck is a "centrist" because he sometimes criticizes Republicans, too. Beck and others on the talk radio/Fox News right do deny party loyalty on a fairly regular basis.)
And beyond that, some Americans just seem to respond to practically anyone who's sure of himself Check out the numbers of Dick Cheney in the NBC/WSJ poll:
Still abysmal -- but his positive numbers are up 8 points in two months. And no one doubts he's a Republican.
But he knows what he believes, and we know what he believes. Obama and Obama's policies are still much more popular, but maybe he needs a bit more Cheneyesque righteous fervor and ideological purity. The corporatist semi-liberalism of Obama's economic approach is a lot of what's getting him into trouble, I think. He'd be better off if he seemed to be unabashedly on somebody's side, and let us know that unmistakably by his deeds and words. I'd hope it would be the average person's side, but as Bush and Reagan proved, you can be pretty damn popular champuining fat cats, just so long as you do it in no uncertain terms.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
BARACK OBAMA KNOWS WHAT WORDS MEAN. JAKE TAPPER, NOT SO MUCH.
ABC's Jake Tapper has a blog post up in which he demonstrates either that (a) he can't understand the meaning of plain English words or (b) he knows he'll get more hits from furious right-wingers if he tweaks the truth:
President Obama: Not Much Difference Between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi
President Obama argued yesterday that there is little different [sic] between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi on policies critical to the U.S.
"It's important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised," the president told CNBC. "Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons. And so we've got long-term interests in having them not weaponize nuclear power and stop funding organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And that would be true whoever came out on top in this election."
Did Obama actually say there's not much difference (or different) between the two? No. Here's what he said:
* "...the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised." If we make the reasonable assumption that "as has been advertised" means "as has been suggested or implied by some who've taken the side of the demonstrators," he's absolutely right -- the difference isn't night and day. As Tapper points out, Mousavi supports the nuclear program; he also doesn't recognize Israel. But Obama doesn't say how much difference there is between the two -- he just says it's been exaggerated.
* "Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States... that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons." That's true. Obama carefully limits himself to the past ("historically been hostile ... has caused") in the first two instances -- he doesn't know what kind of government Iran will end up with, and he's predicting nothing. He talks about the future only with regard to nukes. So maybe there'll be a big difference in relations in the region and with the U.S. if Mousavi triumphs. Obama isn't offering an opinion.
* "And so we've got long-term interests in having them not weaponize nuclear power and stop funding organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And that would be true whoever came out on top in this election." Again, Obama's careful -- he's predicting nothing. Our long-term interests with regard to these issues don't change; Iran's choices might. He's not saying.
So no, Jake, he didn't say what you said he said. He chose his words with extreme care. And either out of ignorance or a desire for online eyeballs, you distorted what he said.
ABC's Jake Tapper has a blog post up in which he demonstrates either that (a) he can't understand the meaning of plain English words or (b) he knows he'll get more hits from furious right-wingers if he tweaks the truth:
President Obama: Not Much Difference Between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi
President Obama argued yesterday that there is little different [sic] between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi on policies critical to the U.S.
"It's important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised," the president told CNBC. "Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons. And so we've got long-term interests in having them not weaponize nuclear power and stop funding organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And that would be true whoever came out on top in this election."
Did Obama actually say there's not much difference (or different) between the two? No. Here's what he said:
* "...the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised." If we make the reasonable assumption that "as has been advertised" means "as has been suggested or implied by some who've taken the side of the demonstrators," he's absolutely right -- the difference isn't night and day. As Tapper points out, Mousavi supports the nuclear program; he also doesn't recognize Israel. But Obama doesn't say how much difference there is between the two -- he just says it's been exaggerated.
* "Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States... that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons." That's true. Obama carefully limits himself to the past ("historically been hostile ... has caused") in the first two instances -- he doesn't know what kind of government Iran will end up with, and he's predicting nothing. He talks about the future only with regard to nukes. So maybe there'll be a big difference in relations in the region and with the U.S. if Mousavi triumphs. Obama isn't offering an opinion.
* "And so we've got long-term interests in having them not weaponize nuclear power and stop funding organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And that would be true whoever came out on top in this election." Again, Obama's careful -- he's predicting nothing. Our long-term interests with regard to these issues don't change; Iran's choices might. He's not saying.
So no, Jake, he didn't say what you said he said. He chose his words with extreme care. And either out of ignorance or a desire for online eyeballs, you distorted what he said.
IS THIS WHAT BIDEN HAD IN MIND?
I don't know what's ultimately going to happen in Iran, but as I listen to the ranting on the right about Obama's supposed weakness and ineffectuality in dealing with Iran -- which seems to have set the terms of mainstream debate about Obama's response -- I'm thinking about a famous so-called Joe Biden gaffe from the campaign trail last October. I'm thinking not about the parts everybody quoted, but about a sentence that seemed to get overlooked. Emphasis mine:
"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you -- not financially to help him -- we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
I didn't know what Biden meant at the time. I still don't. And obviously this isn't "a generated crisis" specifically intended "to test the mettle of this guy."
But I think -- as I thought at the time -- that Biden was talking about Obama's tendency not to go for the obvious rally-the-populace response. Obama rarely aimed for the cheap seats when he was under fire in the campaign, and his foreign policy ideas tend to the counterintuitive, if your idea of "intuitive" is somewhere between "rah-rah" and "exterminate the brutes." I think Obama's approach is right, but Obama needs defending because it's clearly not apparent to a lot of people that he's right.
Biden was right -- in foreign policy, the crowd pleaser often thinks the best solution is one that doesn't please the crowds.
I don't know what's ultimately going to happen in Iran, but as I listen to the ranting on the right about Obama's supposed weakness and ineffectuality in dealing with Iran -- which seems to have set the terms of mainstream debate about Obama's response -- I'm thinking about a famous so-called Joe Biden gaffe from the campaign trail last October. I'm thinking not about the parts everybody quoted, but about a sentence that seemed to get overlooked. Emphasis mine:
"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you -- not financially to help him -- we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
I didn't know what Biden meant at the time. I still don't. And obviously this isn't "a generated crisis" specifically intended "to test the mettle of this guy."
But I think -- as I thought at the time -- that Biden was talking about Obama's tendency not to go for the obvious rally-the-populace response. Obama rarely aimed for the cheap seats when he was under fire in the campaign, and his foreign policy ideas tend to the counterintuitive, if your idea of "intuitive" is somewhere between "rah-rah" and "exterminate the brutes." I think Obama's approach is right, but Obama needs defending because it's clearly not apparent to a lot of people that he's right.
Biden was right -- in foreign policy, the crowd pleaser often thinks the best solution is one that doesn't please the crowds.
NSFW
So I'm reading Wesley Pruden's Washington Times opinion piece about President Obama's response to the Iranian elections (surprise, Pruden's against it!), and in it Pruden:
* says that Obama's "tongue, golden and honeyed though it may be, is no match for reality";
* accuses Obama of relying on "the sticky warmth of mere words";
and
* says of voters in Iran that "the naughty ones [are] often punished."
Um, is Dita Von Teese ghostwriting these things for Pruden?
Oh, and the headline is very Sacher-Masoch, wouldn't you say?
Obama feels the clenched fist.
I could really use a shower right now.
So I'm reading Wesley Pruden's Washington Times opinion piece about President Obama's response to the Iranian elections (surprise, Pruden's against it!), and in it Pruden:
* says that Obama's "tongue, golden and honeyed though it may be, is no match for reality";
* accuses Obama of relying on "the sticky warmth of mere words";
and
* says of voters in Iran that "the naughty ones [are] often punished."
Um, is Dita Von Teese ghostwriting these things for Pruden?
Oh, and the headline is very Sacher-Masoch, wouldn't you say?
Obama feels the clenched fist.
I could really use a shower right now.
"THE LIKELIHOOD OF THE SENATE PASSING HEALTHCARE REFORM IS LOW"
That sentiment is ascribed to Representative Ron Kind, a conservative Democrat from Wisconsin, several paragraphs into this story from The Hill about secret health care meetings that are currently taking place between Blue Dog Democrats and centrist Republicans.
I believe it. One thing that's clear from the story is that the likelihood of the Senate and the House passing any reform with a public option is probably zero:
Those centrist factions are wary of the proposals their respective leaders will introduce this month. [Democratic] Blue Dogs are leery of the so-called public option in the healthcare reform bill that is expected to hit the House floor this summer.
... The [centrist GOP] Tuesday Group bill contains a number of policies that are similar to those being discussed by Blue Dogs, including the option of forming insurance cooperatives. The coalition's measure does not contain a government-run public option, an essential healthcare reform ingredient for liberals.
But is anything going to be passed, this year or anytime in the Obama presidency? Stan Greenberg, who polled health care for Bill Clinton when Clinton was trying to overhaul the system, insists, in this New Republic article, that there's a chance "if Obama learns from the Clinton experience and rises to the educative role that he relishes," but Greenberg's enumeration of the storm clouds on the horizon is much more convincing than his cautiously upbeat conclusion:
I've been immersing myself in my old surveys and focus groups and memos to the president. It's even led me to return to the field, posing the same questions to the public, to determine how the mood has shifted and how the forces that oppose reform can best be countered.
Perhaps I should know better than to have sensed any profound changes in the country. And, when I got the results for the new survey, I looked at each question warily, remembering how it all went badly wrong. As I reached the last of the questions, I exclaimed: "Oh no. It can't be. Nothing's changed."
Then and now, the country proclaimed its readiness for bold reform. In both instances, one-quarter say that the health care system "has so many problems that we need to completely rebuild it"; half the country sees "good things" in the current system but believes "some major changes are needed." Then and now, about 60 percent of the public feel dissatisfied with the current health insurance system. Yet three-quarters are satisfied with their own health insurance--once again eerily parallel numbers. The same holds when the public is asked to focus on reform. Yes, we're no longer living in the shadow of Ronald Reagan. But the country has maintained the same anxieties about government's ability to improve the system. The country divides evenly on whether the greater risk is an unchanged status quo or government reforms that "create new problems." And, finally, Obama might want to pay attention to how closely his situation echoes Clinton's. Then and now, more people favor the president's health care plan than oppose it, but the supporters make up less than a majority....
Read the Greenberg article. Not a damn thing has changed -- people are wary of losing coverage or being dropped for getting sick, but as long as their coverage is working out for them, they're content. They want reform, but they don't want it to cost anyone any money. And they look at health care reform in What's in it for me? terms -- which means, for instance, that senior citizens, who opposed Clinton's plan going in (they were truly and understandably content with the status quo), already oppose the Obama plan:
It may surprise you that Obama has already lost seniors, according to our current survey--only one-third approve of his plan. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see there isn't much in it for them. There is already talk of carving out major savings from Medicare and, unlike during Clinton's battle, no offer of a new drug benefit. Clearly, they need to see health care gains for themselves too.
Good luck making that case. Unfortunately, the message is It's good for the country; it may not be good for you, but it's good for people you know, not now but eventually -- but that's not going to win any votes.
I don't understand why this had to happen so early in Obama's term. It seems to me that nothing short of a Bush-on-Iraq-level all-out propaganda war could get this done -- it would take months and months and months, and a monomaniacal focus. I'm very pessimistic.
****
And here's what we get the longer we do nothing:
Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders....
The executives -- Richard A. Collins, chief executive of UnitedHealth's Golden Rule Insurance Co.; Don Hamm, chief executive of Assurant Health and Brian Sassi, president of consumer business for WellPoint Inc., parent of Blue Cross of California -- ... would not commit to limiting rescissions to only policyholders who intentionally lie or commit fraud to obtain coverage, a refusal that met with dismay from legislators on both sides of the political aisle.
...A Texas nurse said she lost her coverage, after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne.
The sister of an Illinois man who died of lymphoma said his policy was rescinded for the failure to report a possible aneurysm and gallstones that his physician noted in his chart but did not discuss with him.
... The committee's investigation found that WellPoint's Blue Cross targeted individuals with more than 1,400 conditions, including breast cancer, lymphoma, pregnancy and high blood pressure. And the committee obtained documents that showed Blue Cross supervisors praised employees in performance reviews for rescinding policies.
One employee, for instance, received a perfect 5 for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care....
But this isn't a big news story. It's as appalling as tobacco executives saying under oath in Congress that they don't believe smoking causes cancer -- and yet it's not a major news event, except, apparently, to the L.A. Times, which has been covering the rescission issue for a while now.
Americans who don't go to Michael Moore movies just don't believe this will happen to them. They bloody well don't want to pay a bit more in taxes to ensure that they'll never have to worry about this kind of abuse, because they're mostly content now.
And so nothing is likely to change.
That sentiment is ascribed to Representative Ron Kind, a conservative Democrat from Wisconsin, several paragraphs into this story from The Hill about secret health care meetings that are currently taking place between Blue Dog Democrats and centrist Republicans.
I believe it. One thing that's clear from the story is that the likelihood of the Senate and the House passing any reform with a public option is probably zero:
Those centrist factions are wary of the proposals their respective leaders will introduce this month. [Democratic] Blue Dogs are leery of the so-called public option in the healthcare reform bill that is expected to hit the House floor this summer.
... The [centrist GOP] Tuesday Group bill contains a number of policies that are similar to those being discussed by Blue Dogs, including the option of forming insurance cooperatives. The coalition's measure does not contain a government-run public option, an essential healthcare reform ingredient for liberals.
But is anything going to be passed, this year or anytime in the Obama presidency? Stan Greenberg, who polled health care for Bill Clinton when Clinton was trying to overhaul the system, insists, in this New Republic article, that there's a chance "if Obama learns from the Clinton experience and rises to the educative role that he relishes," but Greenberg's enumeration of the storm clouds on the horizon is much more convincing than his cautiously upbeat conclusion:
I've been immersing myself in my old surveys and focus groups and memos to the president. It's even led me to return to the field, posing the same questions to the public, to determine how the mood has shifted and how the forces that oppose reform can best be countered.
Perhaps I should know better than to have sensed any profound changes in the country. And, when I got the results for the new survey, I looked at each question warily, remembering how it all went badly wrong. As I reached the last of the questions, I exclaimed: "Oh no. It can't be. Nothing's changed."
Then and now, the country proclaimed its readiness for bold reform. In both instances, one-quarter say that the health care system "has so many problems that we need to completely rebuild it"; half the country sees "good things" in the current system but believes "some major changes are needed." Then and now, about 60 percent of the public feel dissatisfied with the current health insurance system. Yet three-quarters are satisfied with their own health insurance--once again eerily parallel numbers. The same holds when the public is asked to focus on reform. Yes, we're no longer living in the shadow of Ronald Reagan. But the country has maintained the same anxieties about government's ability to improve the system. The country divides evenly on whether the greater risk is an unchanged status quo or government reforms that "create new problems." And, finally, Obama might want to pay attention to how closely his situation echoes Clinton's. Then and now, more people favor the president's health care plan than oppose it, but the supporters make up less than a majority....
Read the Greenberg article. Not a damn thing has changed -- people are wary of losing coverage or being dropped for getting sick, but as long as their coverage is working out for them, they're content. They want reform, but they don't want it to cost anyone any money. And they look at health care reform in What's in it for me? terms -- which means, for instance, that senior citizens, who opposed Clinton's plan going in (they were truly and understandably content with the status quo), already oppose the Obama plan:
It may surprise you that Obama has already lost seniors, according to our current survey--only one-third approve of his plan. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see there isn't much in it for them. There is already talk of carving out major savings from Medicare and, unlike during Clinton's battle, no offer of a new drug benefit. Clearly, they need to see health care gains for themselves too.
Good luck making that case. Unfortunately, the message is It's good for the country; it may not be good for you, but it's good for people you know, not now but eventually -- but that's not going to win any votes.
I don't understand why this had to happen so early in Obama's term. It seems to me that nothing short of a Bush-on-Iraq-level all-out propaganda war could get this done -- it would take months and months and months, and a monomaniacal focus. I'm very pessimistic.
****
And here's what we get the longer we do nothing:
Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders....
The executives -- Richard A. Collins, chief executive of UnitedHealth's Golden Rule Insurance Co.; Don Hamm, chief executive of Assurant Health and Brian Sassi, president of consumer business for WellPoint Inc., parent of Blue Cross of California -- ... would not commit to limiting rescissions to only policyholders who intentionally lie or commit fraud to obtain coverage, a refusal that met with dismay from legislators on both sides of the political aisle.
...A Texas nurse said she lost her coverage, after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne.
The sister of an Illinois man who died of lymphoma said his policy was rescinded for the failure to report a possible aneurysm and gallstones that his physician noted in his chart but did not discuss with him.
... The committee's investigation found that WellPoint's Blue Cross targeted individuals with more than 1,400 conditions, including breast cancer, lymphoma, pregnancy and high blood pressure. And the committee obtained documents that showed Blue Cross supervisors praised employees in performance reviews for rescinding policies.
One employee, for instance, received a perfect 5 for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care....
But this isn't a big news story. It's as appalling as tobacco executives saying under oath in Congress that they don't believe smoking causes cancer -- and yet it's not a major news event, except, apparently, to the L.A. Times, which has been covering the rescission issue for a while now.
Americans who don't go to Michael Moore movies just don't believe this will happen to them. They bloody well don't want to pay a bit more in taxes to ensure that they'll never have to worry about this kind of abuse, because they're mostly content now.
And so nothing is likely to change.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
ANTI-LETTERMAN DEMONSTRATOR, ACROSS FROM THE ED SULLIVAN THEATER, 6/16/09, SHORTLY BEFORE 5:00 P.M.
You know, nothing says "concern for the well-being of adolescent girls" like an "I'd Rather Be Waterboarding" button, don't you agree? (Click to enlarge and read the button.)
And as a lapsed Catholic, I especially like the fact that she wore it with a crucifix:
This protest was right by my office. The headline at MTV News is "Anti-David Letterman Protest In New York Draws Approximately Three Dozen People," while CNN said, "Letterman protest draws more media than activists." Both of those are pretty much correct.
There's a real PUMA presence in this "movement," by the way -- rally organizer Anna Barone has PUMA ties, as does BettyJean Kling, one of the demonstators quoted in the New York Daily News story about the rally. Maybe John "Mr. Greta Van Susteren" Coale's plan to have Sarah Palin help retire Hillary Clinton's debt wasn't completely crazy.
You know, nothing says "concern for the well-being of adolescent girls" like an "I'd Rather Be Waterboarding" button, don't you agree? (Click to enlarge and read the button.)
And as a lapsed Catholic, I especially like the fact that she wore it with a crucifix:
This protest was right by my office. The headline at MTV News is "Anti-David Letterman Protest In New York Draws Approximately Three Dozen People," while CNN said, "Letterman protest draws more media than activists." Both of those are pretty much correct.
There's a real PUMA presence in this "movement," by the way -- rally organizer Anna Barone has PUMA ties, as does BettyJean Kling, one of the demonstators quoted in the New York Daily News story about the rally. Maybe John "Mr. Greta Van Susteren" Coale's plan to have Sarah Palin help retire Hillary Clinton's debt wasn't completely crazy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)