-
sponsorship
kf Unburies the Lede in Ben Smith's piece on John Edwards' ex-aide and Fall Guy Andrew Young (who was talked into claiming paternity for Edwards' mistress' love child). It's not the sex tape! Kf and N.Y. Daily News readers have known about the sex tape for a while. I'd say the lede is Smith's report about the spring of 2008, after Young had publicly claimed paternity, after Edwards had dropped out of the primary and after he had endorsed Obama--but when he still had hopes of being named Attorney General or VP:
Young was under the impression that Edwards would, after dropping out, step forward and claim paternity - which he showed no inclination of doing.
Elizabeth Edwards, meanwhile, had been leaving messages on Young's and Young's wife's voice mail, two sources say Young told them, demanding that he reassert his paternity to clear the cloud over her husband.
Is this really just more hurt-wife denial or are we heading into the active careerist cover-up zone? Elizabeth Edwards had to know at least that there was a good chance Young was not the father--and that her husband was. She certainly had known for a long time that her husband had had an affair with the mother, Rielle Hunter. Perhaps she wasn't proceeding with sure knowledge that she was asking Young to lie for her again, but it's hard to see how she wasn't proceeding with at least what libel lawyers call "reckless disregard for the truth." ... Did she ask Young if he was really the father before "demanding"?. ...
#2 Lede: Smith reports that in late 2006 "worries about a possible affair coursed through Edwards’s organization." Just as suspected! Did Edwards aides (for example, Jonathan Prince and Mudcat Saunders) really not hear about these coursing worries? Or did they hear them but nevertheless set up the Democrats for a possible epic PR debacle (if Edwards had won)? "Reckless disregard," anyone? ... P.S.: You make the call about Edwards aide Joe Trippi's excuse, available here. ... 2:20 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
The "man in charge of the [Chevy] Volt’s battery development and integration" is bailing out of General Motors "in the middle of [the Volt's] frenzied gestation." TTAC thinks it's a perverse side-effect of government intervention--with all the new federal electric car money sloshing around, and pay caps looming, it's more lucrative to be an independent "consultant." ... 5:35 P.M.
___________________________
Ben Sheffner says Gawker is "running a very risky business." Why? No libel insurance. ... 12:30 P.M.
___________________________
Bob Wright thinks the Web is the new God, in a particular sense. .... 1:37 A.M.
___________________________
Charles Lane argues that unions are now a "significant" impediment to "sensible health care reform" because of their tooth-and-nail fight against taxing "Cadillac" health plans. ... Even if you think (as I do) that the unions have a point when they argue they gave up wage increases in order to get lavish health benefits, isn't the answer to give them five years (or until their next contract negotiation) to rebalance the mix to what it would be in a world in which employer health benefits didn't go untaxed? ... If the problem for powerful unions is they no longer have quite the clout they used to have to extract wage increases in exchange for giving up "luxury" health benefits ... well, that's their problem. ...
P.S.: Lane also criticizes unions who support single payer but want to preserve their right to bargain for "supplemental" coverage.
Probably the only thing less likely to pass Congress than single-payer is single-payer with a layer of extra benefits for unions only.
Hmm. Why shouldn't unions, or anyone, be free to bargain for supplemental benefits**--at least for more treatments or services--on top of what's available in a single payer plan (as long as those benefits are taxed)? Lane seems to imply that the idea of single payer is that the government plan would have near-monopoly status--you take what it offers, and that's it. No adding on to the system for, say, cancer drugs the government's decided not to pay for.** If that's Lane's version of single-payer, I know a woman named Betsy who'd like to talk to him. ... 1:50 A.M.
___________________________
Whatever you think of the Polanski case, this is a good hed:
Free Roman Polanski! Demand Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen
1:51 A.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Robert Samuelson scorns the egomaniacal "quest for glory" of Congressional Democrats who are trying to pass health care reform. But of course the quest for glory may be the only reason a worthwhile reform could still pass. It ain't going to pass it because it's popular! (Orszagism has seen to that by scaring seniors.) You'd have to be an especially rigorous believer in the Howell Raines Fallacy** to think that if a policy isn't popular then it can't be a good one. ...P.S.: If I remember correctly, the untouchable contributory plan that we now call Social Security wasn't especially popular when it passed in 1935--after all, it would be years before it took full effect. (The popular part of the New Deal's central legislation was Old Age Assistance, a fast-acting straight cash dole to the elderly, which is why it was placed at the beginning of the bill. It's now part of the SSI program.)
**--The assumption that whatever changes you want are of course demanded by the great and good American people. ... 1:09 A.M.
___________________________
Did ACORN chicanery elect Al Franken? That's the import of this tactfully phrased Minneapolis Star Tribune column.** Franken won by 312 votes. ACORN claimed to have registered 48,000 43,000 ew Minnesota voters. If just 1% were ineligible but cast ballots, or had ballots cast for them illegally, and survived the recount process ... that's 480 430 votes, almost certainly overwhelmingly cast for Franken. ... Maybe in pristine Minnesota even ACORN is clean. If so, the state would apparently be an outlier. ...
**--Item originally said "story." It's a column. (I was thrown off by the byline, "Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune.") That makes no difference in Kirsten's argument, though Dave Weigel makes a fuss about it, and then bizarrely says it's a "smear" to even raise the obvious question of whether the voters--you almost want quotes around the word--registered by a highly questionable outfit like ACORN were legit and made a difference in a very close race. The most important question, I would imagine, is whether ACORN handled absentee ballots for anyone in the state. Would we trust an organization, whose registrations featured (in the NYT's words) "fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying to please their supervisors" to distribute, collect, and maybe even mail in absentee ballots for, say, shut-ins at nursing homes? If there were funny business, would a recount necessarily have detected it (assuming the ballots were clearly marked)? ... That's more questions! Sorry! ... P.S.: There are also obvious potential problems with same-day-registration that might not be picked up on a recount. ... P.P.S.: In neighboring, also pristine Wisconsin, ACORN employed as voter registration workers felons "convicted of crimes including cocaine possession and robbery."
Carolyn Castore, state political director for the group, told the AP: “We have a lot of folks with felony records and, frankly, they need jobs.”
Update: Here's an example of funny business with absentee ballots, by a group joined at the hip to ACORN in New York. ... But I'm sure there's nothing to worry about in Minnesota. ...1:14 A.M.
___________________________
People I respect (my mother) claim Roman Polanski got a bum deal in 1977. But it's worth remembering that the French--now in the process of being outraged by his arrest--can be absurdly resistant to extradition by the ugly Americans, especially when an artiste is involved. Here's a Steven Levy article on one famous case--the Unicorn Killer, a Philadelphia hippie who seems to have stashed the remains of his ex-girlfriend in a steamer trunk. He fled before trial, winding up in France. When discovered, he successfully resisted extradition (at least initially) after a campaign that played up his having written "written four novels, one a philosophical novel on the Holocaust." He was eventually extradited, tried and convicted. ... P.S.: He also seems to have maybe invented social networking, or at least spam:
In the 1970s he persuaded Bell Telephone to finance a networking scheme in which he sent information to a list of contacts that ranged from author Alvin Toffler (whom [he] introduced to computer conferencing) to corporate Brahmins in Fortune 500 firms.
1:20 A.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
UPDATE: This blogger claims the Daily News story is false, though I don't quite follow his argument ... MORE: But I'm beginning to have grave doubts about the Daily News report myself. 1) Would Elizabeth Edwards rail against "New World Order corporations"? 2) Would she go on about Larry Summers' speaking fees? 3) It's not that there are too few "Cherubim" postings. There are almost too many. They defend Eliot Spitzer. They attack Diane Sawyer. They praise Michael Jackson and ... the Isley Brothers. They all seem to cohere as the opinions of a passionately opinionated, quirky, not wildly sophisticated die-hard Edwards loyalist blog commenter who is nevertheless distanced from the Edwardses herself. It's a big country. There's bound to be someone like that out there. It would be a huge, and seemingly inexplicable, effort for Elizabeth Edwards to have created this persona and stayed in character. ...
But I've been wrong before! If it turns out Elizabeth Edwards is also a diehard Michael Jackson defender who thinks he was "murdered by powerful people in the record industry," I'll certainly reconsider. ...
ORIGINAL ITEM: If--big if--St. Elizabeth Edwards is the blog commenter "cherubim"--as the N.Y. Daily News' Rush & Molloy argue--it raises as many questions as it answers! In particular, this one: Is "cherubim" a) deluded (actually believing Edwards clearly "was not the father" of Rielle Hunter's child,etc.), or b) deceiving (trying to sell the Web on a story she might well not be true, a story she was in fact working out in her comments)? Or--the inevitable consensus choice (c)--some wacky combo of both? ... As usual, I urge readers not to overlook possibility (b) ... This Daily Beast web page (worth a screen cap just in case) is one of those with juicy "cherubim" comments that now seem much juicier. ... P.S.: Note that on this page "cherubim" is accused of being Elizabeth Edwards back on June 22 by another commenter, "Ohseriously." ... 2:20 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Why watch Saturday Night Live in L.A. when the twitters from back East say it's weak? Does that mean TV shows now have a New York problem like movies have a Friday problem? Movies: If twitterers don't like on Friday, it will die on Saturday. TV: If the East doesn't like it, it will die in West? Just asking! Not my industry. ... 1:45 A.M.
___________________________
I agree with Charlie Cook that redistricting reform--an end to gerrymandering--is at least as important as campaign finance reform. Safe seats mean more voter alienation (voting doesn't produce changes) and less moderation (competitive districts will tend to produce candidates who fight for the center). But I didn't understand this Cook complaint:
There is more straight-ticket voting now than in the past. Few voters seem to value electing a candidate with the willingness and temperament to reach across the aisle. When President George W. Bush's policies and politics became unpopular, moderate-to-liberal Republicans were the ones who paid the highest price at the ballot box in 2006 and 2008.
Likewise, if President Obama or congressional Democrats are out of favor in November 2010, conservative-to-moderate Democrats will lose in far greater numbers than their liberal colleagues. And the cycle of hyperpartisanship will continue.
If gerrymandering were eliminated, that would mean more swing districts won by moderate Dems or moderate GOPs--but that would mean more moderate Dems losing in a Republican year, not fewer, no? That's what having a competitive district means. It would also mean more moderate Republicans losing in a Democratic year. It's the swing districts that swing! Moderates of either party have a shorter life expectancy. Redistricting reform doesn't change that. And reform would mean more swing districts. ...
P.S.: I understand that Cook is lamenting the rise of straight ticket voting, but why? We want competitive districts, I always thought, in part so voters can have an impact by throwing more of the bums out, not so voters can elect bipartisan moderates who hold their seats for life whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican. In itself, party line voting seems like something to be encouraged, because it makes it more likely that an incoming President will have a Congress that is, at least initially, supportive. That would make the ideas of the national parties, as elaborated in national campaigns mean more. ... Another way to put it (I think): The problem Cook's discussing isn't really an excess of partisanship, it's an artificial shortage of centrists within each party, which is not necessarily the same thing. ... [Jesus, you're sounding like Ezra Klein-ed Tentative yet condescending! Took years to perfect.]
P.P.S.; Good Cook point about how the gerrymandered House makes even the un-gerrymandered Senate more partisan less moderate. ....2:26 A.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Id Watch: Hmmm. If voters oppose by a 64-34 margin a health care bill with individual mandates but no public option, doesn't that mean voters will oppose by a 64-34 margin any health care bill that is likely to pass? ... That would put Obama's reform up in Dick Morris' the-Democratic-party-isn't-a-suicide-pact range. .. .9:27 P.M.
___________________________
Fire Mickey Kaus finally earns his salary. ... 9:26 P.M.
___________________________
Hyperlocal videos: Here's a local news video (I assume web-only) about a burglary in the neighborhood of a friend of mine. It's pretty compelling if you live in the neighborhood. ... If not, not. ... But presumably there are lots of potential advertisers--supermarkets, restaurants, etc--who would want to reach even that relatively small local audience. ... 9:25 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Stupidest question on the latest CBS/NYT poll:**
23. Which comes closest to your view? 1. The U.S. needs to fix its health care system now as part of fixing the overall economy. Or 2. Because of the state of the economy, the U.S. cannot afford to fix its health care system right now.
Unless you want to be a heartless Republican (2) you have to buy not only the basic Orszagist argument the health care reform is the key to solving the deficit problem but the broader argument that it's the key to fixing the entire economy? What if you just think it's something we should do and that we can afford to pay for? ... No wonder respondents were so confused by the poll's barrage of nonsensical, tedious, and guilt inducing questions ("are [health care reforms] confusing to you?") that when the big question (#41) about whether they supported Obama's health plans finally arrived, CBS and the Times managed to produce an unprecedentedly huge number who said they "don't know enough"--47%--rendering the poll basically useless. Congratulations! ... The Paranoid View: For the Times, it was less risky to have a useless poll than one that actually measured where health care stands with voters. ....
Update: Several emailers point out that conservative and libertarian plans to "fix" health care also fall into the poll's vast excluded middle--at least if they aren't necessary for fixing the overal economy or don't have to be done now, but are nevertheless considered affordable. And if you don't think health care needs a "fix" at all--well, you're a total unperson as far as question 23 goes.
**--They've asked this question twice before, in July. Doesn't make it any less stupid. ... 2:34 A.M.
___________________________
Fish Out of Water Uncomfortable in Own Skin! Beck seems phony here, no?*** Something creepily inauthentic about him. ...
***--Except 2/3 of the way through, when he says he's never heard of kf. ... [Thanks to alert reader H.] 2:40 A.M.
____________________________
-
sponsorship
I've always been sympathetic to Paul Kirk since a Los Angeles reporters' breakfast in 1985 where he proposed "means-testing" Social Security benefits--that is, scaling them back for those who didn't need them. This was, and is, a forbidden thought among mainstream Democrats, who argue that the strength of New Deal entitlements is that they're available equally to rich and poor.*** Senator Edward Kennedy, whose seat Kirk has just been named to fill, had a few months earlier gone out of his way to subtly denounce the idea as an attempt to "repeal the New Deal and the New Frontier."
Kirk's subsequent s**t-eating recantation was comically, almost self-defeatingly, transparent. By bedtime on the same day, he put out a statement declaring: "I was wrong. Our party ... is unalterably opposed to any cuts in Social Security benefits. I should not have mentioned the subject of a means test. I plan to undergo electroshock therapy to insure that this idea never again appears within my cerebral cortex without producing immediate nausea and revulsion." [E.A.]
OK, he didn't say that last sentence. But he said the one before it. ...
The incident is reported in a 1985 L.A. Times story. ...
***-- A fine sentiment, until you go broke. ... 1:02 P.M.
___________________________
BREAKING: The person who was the Former NEA Director of Communications has resigned (after being reassigned) in the wake of the conference call scandal. But this person, if in fact he ever existed, wasn't the worst offender on the call. That was Buffy Wicks, who works for Valerie Jarrett in the White House. Wicks was the one who gave her squishily grandiose idea of "change" and "service" an ideological cast by urging arts types to "connect" with "labor unions, progressive groups." Bet she stays. ... 3:49 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
There are two big Congressional health care stories:
The Ego Story: Will the Finance Committee hammer out a deal? What about the public option? Or a "trigger"? But Pelosi doesn't like the trigger! Can the competing plans ever be merged? Should the subsidy be increased? And how to pay for it: unions don't like taxing "Cadillac" health plans! The House vote is close too!
The Id Story: They're still scared to vote on the bill. It's not popular enough among people who vote. They don't want to die (politically).
As is so often the case, the ego story is in large part a cover for the id story. When Congress doesn't want to vote on a bill, there are lots of difficult issues to be negotiated. That turns out to take a lot of time. Sometimes, darn, those difficult issues just can't be resolved and the bill fails, even though everyone supports it in one form or another!
When the id says vote, the issues get resolved in a day or two. ... 1:02 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
"Orszag Sees Health Law in Six Weeks" (Bloomberg): OMB Director Peter Orszag didn't really predict a health care law in six weeks--he said "The goal would be, yes, over the next six weeks or so, maybe sooner." We know all about "goals." But the 6-week frame is not an accident, because something happens in 6 weeks: elections. If Democrats lose big gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, that could produce a new wave of jitters among already skittish Congressional swing Democrats (a possibility Charles Lane pointed to months ago). That's one of the extraneous factors left out of some sophisticated positive assessments of the bill's chances. Better to get it done before the ax might fall. ... Meanwhile, Ezra Klein says we're on the 10 yard line. Sure! But we are playing 43-man Squamish. ... 1:06 A.M.
___________________________
The Grants of Others: Lynne Munson's suggested NEA apology is a whole lot better than actual National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman's actual statement, which is just a tad unapologetic and defensive about the Breitbart.com conference call scoop:
a) These were organizations that depend on the NEA for grants. It's not that they were explicitly asked by NEA and other government officials to support the president's policy agenda. It's that they were asked to vaguely but passionately get with the program by people who seemed to have an uncomfortably flimsy idea of the boundaries between promoting the President's public service plans and making art and community organizing ... and supporting the president's policy agenda. Maybe it's all one big activity--the president's "very aggressive agenda" at the national level, with "service" at the local level meaning being an "agent of change" and learning to "connect with ... progressive groups" (as White House official Buffy Wicks put it on the conference call). Praxis! Cue will.i.am. ...
b) I don't read the what's said on the conference transcript as an explicit call to support Obamacare (though several grantees did just that a few days later). It's a call to support the public service initiative. But what if you are a potential NEA grant applicant and you don't believe there should be a public service initiative? Maybe, like the late Jack Kemp, you think it's a waste of talent. That particular political conviction is apparently officially inconceivable. If you share it, don't expect a fat grant anytime soon. Robert Heinlein interpreters hoping to stage a community theater production of Stranger in A Strange Land: The Musical are advised to look elsewhere.
c) It's obviously not just the fault of the one NEA official who participated in the call and has now been relieved of his assignment, but rather a problem in the culture of the incoming Obamaites--at least the incoming Obamaites who are sufficiently low-level and unwonkish to be assigned to the NEA. Maybe Landesman should order a viewing of The Lives of Others to underscore to them what (in admittedly extreme form) people who worry about politicizing funding for the arts are worried about.
d) Sure, the meeting tarnished the NEA but it also tarnished Obama's public service initiative, which now looks like it's being propped up by subtly coerced participation from government grantees, and steered into being an "agent of change" for "progressive" causes. I await the strongly-worded denunciation from prominent fellow national service supporters like Newsweek's Jon Meacham.
e) Who is this "former NEA Director of Communications" that Landesman keeps referring to? Does he have a name? Is he an un-person? Are they airbrushing him out of group photos? Is his name an unpronounceable symbol, like Prince's? Landesman has only been on the job a few days and he's sounding East German already.
5:07 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
SETUP GRAF FAIL! WaPo's Dana Milbank traveled to Richmond, Virgina to watch Republican Whip Eric Cantor talk to his constituents about health care. Seems to have been a boring meeting. Hence Milbank's angle--the New Civility! ("The Health-Care War Gets a Little More Civil.") But to make this a man-bites-dog story, Milbank needed a paragraph explaining why we should have expected something different from Cantor.("The remarkable thing ... is what didn't happen.") Here's what Milbank came up with:
Was this the same Eric Cantor who was shown using his BlackBerry [**] during Obama's speech to Congress? The same one who, on Fox News after the speech, accused Obama of using a "smoke screen" and "hyperbole" and lacking "some adult sense of responsibility"? The very same Cantor who, in the National Review last week, urged Obama to "read the bill" and again raised the problem of illegal immigrants?
Cantor accused Obama of a "smoke screen"? And "hyperbole"? Surely that's against House Rules. ... Maybe the rule against cliched rhetoric so bland David Gergen wouldn't employ it if he'd overdosed on Benadryl! Ha ha ha ha ... Plus Cantor had raised a substantive "problem" with the bill. In an article. In National Review. The man will clearly stop at nothing. Indeed, with that track record, it's "remarkable" if Cantor fails to start foaming at the mouth and chewing on the surrounding flesh. Man doesn't bite dog! ...
**-- Cantor later said he was reading the speech text on his Blackberry and making notes, which is almost believable. ...11:50 P.M.
___________________________
What's Eating Craig Crawford? If this is the embargoed poll that CQ's Craig Crawford claims demonstrates that Obama "owns September" (and is making "significant progress in his media blitz" against the "'dumbikazes' of August") then ... well, I accuse him of "hyperbole." The NBC-WSJ poll shows a plurality opposing the Obama plan by 41-39, which is better than the previous month's 42-36, but not by that much. ... True, the poll was taken far enough out from Obama's big speech that any "bounce" might well have subsided--so this could be a residue of actual increased support. Still! It's small! ... I always thought Crawford was bland and reliable. Has he contracted the MSNBC virus? ...
Update--Three Points and a Cloud of Dust: If Crawford was talking about this poll from Democracy Corps--well, it's the same deal: "Support for Health Care Reform Up Slightly," but still three points behind (47-44). And the Democracy Corps poll was taken much closer to the President's speech--starting only three days after-- meaning that it may reflect a now-dissipated "bounce." ...
Backfill: Nate Silver's informal betting benchmark for speech success, remember, was whether it would "increase approval for the Democratic health care package by 5 or more points"--though it's no clear whether he meant "net" points or an actual 5-point rise in the percentage approving. Obama met the former standard, barely, only in the Democracy Corps poll. On the latter benchmark--a 5 point increase in actual approval--forget it. ... And forget about the "or more." ... Instead, pro-Dem pollwatchers are now spinning madly to make a loss-by-a-field-goal seem like a tie. Silver: "There's certainly not any tailwind of public support behind health care reform -- that was squandered many months ago. " ... 11:49 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
The more I think about it, the more the townhall anti-Obama anger isn't explained completely by the issues (sorry, Frank ). There's also something about Obama himself-. But that something (or the main something) isn't his race. It's that he's a relative newcomer, as Presidents go--an unknown quantity, an enigma, with a short track record and patches of that record left fuzzy. That means opponents can fill in the blanks with ominous possibilities. It makes paranoia more rational, if you will.
For example, a few months ago I went to a discussion of the pending "card check" bill Obama has endorsed (enigmatically!). Talk turned to the bill's astoundingly intrusive provision for federal arbitration of initial labor contracts, which would inevitably involve not only the setting of wages but also the organization of work itself. A conservative law prof said he knew Obama as a colleague, and the Obama he knew wouldn't really want that level of detailed and pervasive (if uncoordinated) government direction of economic enterprises. Was the prof right? I have no idea. In contrast, I think I have a pretty confident idea of where Bill Clinton would come down on that issue. I even have a clear idea of where Jimmy Carter would come down on the issue.**
The uncertainty about Obama made it wildly important that he not do things that would give the most common ominous speculation--that he's way on the left of the possible envelope--any traction. Obviously, Obama's White House understands this. Larry Summers is not a lighnting rod for the right. But the Obama-ites apparently failed to internalize this imperative sufficiently to allow them to exclude the Van Joneses and Yosi Sergants from government with the ruthlessness required in a year when they were asking taxpayers to trust them with administering an unprecedented stimulus package and restructuring Detroit and the financial system--all before transforming the nation's health care system. They've been ruthless, just not ruthless enough. Maybe they were lulled into thinking the MSM would, or could, protect them as it had during the campaign (e.g., when Rev. Wright cropped up). But asking 21st century Americans to rely on the assurances of elites is a good way to produce a populist revolt.
After a few years of Obama, voters will have a surer sense of him on their own and the paranoia should subside. Unfortunately, his biggest legislative fight is now.
__________
**--Of course, one reason a voter might not have a clear idea is that it's been heretofore hard to imagine that mandatory federal arbitration would even be an issue--in recent decades it's been beyond the mainstream pale. If unions didn't like a deal they could strike and try to get a better deal. Then labor got desperate and came up with mandatory arbitration.
Unfamiliar issues + Unfamiliar president = Paranoia.
-
sponsorship
Andrew Breitbart of BigGovernment.com has stopped being subtle about hinting he has another scoop on order for next week. It's apparently not another ACORN story. Patterico speculates about what it is. ...
P.S.: Breitbart's a friend of mine, though I have some fundamental disagreements with him. I'd like to think I'd like him even if he weren't the kind of guy whose good side you want to stay on--because you have a feeling you and everyone you know might be working for him one day. (He has lots of entrepreneurial energy.) But I didn't realize he'd have the course of events all planned out like Hari Seldon in Foundation. ...
P.P.S.: There have been some few-bad-apples, look-who's-acccusing defenses of ACORN around the web. I dunno. ACORN has always seemed one big bad apple to me.** Everything I've learned or read about them suggests they're not an outfit to be trusted--trusted with voter registration duties' for example. Does anyone think ACORN isn't out to register Dems and elect Dems (or people further to the left)? Would you trust them to deliver your elderly Republican grandmother's absentee ballot? ACORN also conspicuously organized to resist welfare reform after the big 1996 reform law was signed by President Clinton. I'm amazed that any national Democrat who claims to have learned any of the lessons of Clintonism, or even wants to be elected from a non-Berkeleyesque district, would have anything to do with them.
**--Other organizations that produce the same reaction: Fox News, UBS. ... 12:54 A.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Good Neil Lewis NYT story on John Edwards today--not much news that a Carolina TV station, the National Enquirer and even kausfiles didn't have more than a month ago, except this fabulous nugget (from Ex-Fall Guy Andrew Young's book proposal):
Mr. Young says that he assisted the affair by setting up private meetings between Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter. He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.
The book proposal also has Edwards conspiring with trial lawyer Fred Baron to conceal the Hunter story, even asking Baron "if he could find a doctor who would falsify a DNA report." ... Lewis missed the sex tape, though! ... P.S.: While John Edwards' ongoing agony about whether or not to tell the truth is riveting, he is rapidly becoming the Prinz von Anhalt of the Democrats**--a spectacle, but he won't be making policy in the near future. The more relevant angle is the complicity or lack thereof of Edwards' aides--and his wife--in constructing the Twin Edifices of BS with which the campaign attempted to snow the press. Jennifer Palmieri, Mudcat Saunders, Jonathan Prince and Elizabeth Edwards are still potential players in the party, after all. What did they know and when did they know it?*** Of course, they're also still potential future sources for the New York Times, which may make aggressively questioning their accounts a less urgent prirority for the paper. But maybe Andrew Young can fill us in. ...
__________
**-- ...whom we nominated for Vice President in 2004. Whoops.
***-- My impression is that the truth about Edwards and Hunter was well-known around Edwards HQ. During the campaign I was contacted by two non-campaign people who questioned whether I should push the story, but who checked with their friends in the Edwards camp and came back and told me they were surprised to learn that the allegations were true. ... 12:06 A.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Is retiring Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich the real Olympia Snowe--i.e. the GOP vote that will get health care reform through the Senate? His Ohio colleague Sherrod Brown suggests as much today. There's a ready-made Vandenberg-like MSM legacy for Voinovich if he does. ... The notion could also be textbook Dem wishful thinking--see what Voinovich told The Note. ['Wishful' like notion that Specter would switch parties and endorse a "card check" deal--ed Yes, exactly like that.]. ... 3:05 P.M.
___________________________
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Looks like the Law of Curated Humor--which holds that whenever the MSM offers up examples of celebrated wit, they will not be funny--extends to Twitter. ... 2:46 A.M.
___________________________
I hate to say it,** but doesn't Nancy Pelosi have a point when she worries about a rhetorical "climate" in which violence might take place? A few years ago, I fretted that crazies on the angry left might turn violent. These days, I've heard enough scary stories from conservative friends to justify worrying about the angry right. It only takes one or two people to make a mess, and the way opposition to Obama is phrased will obviously have something to do with how many, if any, nutters come out of the woodwork. Glenn Beck, the recent times I've listened to him, puts his Obama criticism in an apocalyptic framework--as if Obama is staging some sort of coup-- that might seem to justify violence (despite Beck's own disclaimers) if you happened to be a very disenchanted person with weapons lying around.
Righteously denouncing Beck only enhances his appeal, of course--better to deal with "root causes." But Pelosi's hardly crazy to worry. ...
**-- It's way more fun to mock Pelosi. ... 2:40 A.M.
___________________________
Orszagism Lives!
"The larger the bill is, the more it's going to save. ..."
-- Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin, quoted in WaPo about health care reform in the days before Obama's big speech.
2:38 A.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
I don't understand this Ezra Klein's explanation of the Baucus bill's "free rider" provision, which seems hideously misguided because it attempts to penalize employers who hire low income workers eligible for health insurance subsidies. Here's Klein:
The penalty itself is a bit confusing, and if anything, even worse than one might imagine: The employer will pay the lesser of A) the average subsidy in the exchange times the number of subsidized workers or B) $400 times the total number of workers. Two examples should clarify this:
Baucus Corp has 100 employees and does not offer health-care coverage. Thirty of the employees receive subsidies on the exchange. The average subsidy that year is $5,000. Baucus Corp woulds pay $400 times 100 employees, as $40,000 is less than $150,000 ($5,000 times 30 employees). Each of those low-income employees is costing Baucus Corp $1,333 more than an employee who didn't need subsidies.
Now imagine that Baucus Corp. only has five employees who need subsidies, and the average subsidy that year is $5,000. In that scenario, Baucus Corp would pay $25,000 rather than $40,000, because $25,000 is less than $40,000. Each low-income worker now costs Baucus Corp. $5,000 more than a worker who doesn't need subsidies.
The problem is the highlighted sentence: It sure looks as if Baucus Corp would pay the same $40,000 penalty if it had only 29 low income employees in its workforce instead of 30. Hiring an additional low income employee, as opposed to a more affluent employee, costs it nothing, not $1,3000. (Indeed, the penalty on Baucus Corp. is the same- -$40,000--regardless of the number of low income employees in its work force unless that number is less than 8, at which point the number of low income employees X $5,000 would be the lower of the two penalties,)
If this reading is right, the provision, while still misguided, may be less misguided than it seems (not more, as Klein implies). For firms with a sizable proportion of low income workers, it would basically function as a straight pay or play tax that increased a fixed amount (in this example, $400) with every new employee hired, whether or not that employee had a low income that qualified him for a health subsidy. The perverse effect would be to encourage firms to either decide to hire lots of low income workers or to hire none of them, concentrating the low income workforce in a relatively few firms. That's crazy, but it's slightly less evil than discouraging hiring of low income workers across the board.
But I could have it wrong. I am getting my information from Ezra Klein! He has great sources, but he's an unreliable narrator. It must be frustrating for the sources. ... 2:46 P.M.
___________________________
54-46 Was My Number, But It's Not Dick Morris': I was thinking that even a smallish majority opposed to health care might be sufficient to bog it down in Congress, as skittish legislative swing votes worry about their own reelections. But health care reform foe Dick Morris seems to believe the numbers aren't quite bad enough (yet) to have that effect.
But, certainly, when opposition to the president's program grows from the current 42-55 disapproval into the 35-65 range, Congress must balk rather than march over the cliff.
It's not clear we'll ever get into the 35-65 range, unless Obama appoints Kanye West as his new spokesman. If that's what it will take for a reform to not pass, then a reform will probably pass. Hope! 3:21 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Rasmussen's robo-poll, which discerned a big bounce in Obama's favor on health care after his speech last week--a bounce that soon dissipated--now reports opposition to health care reform has risen to a new high of 55%, with only 42% in favor. Yikes. ... P.S.: It's possible that Sunday's numbers were just mysteriously awful for Obama, dragging down the two-day average. But there was no equivalent drop that day in Obama's overall approval rating. ... Sorry, Nate.** ... .P.P.S.: Here's a more comprehensive Pollster chart of various health care surveys. Not quite as bleak, but the red line of opposition trending ineluctably upward is not what you would want to see if you were in the White House. ... 9/18 Update: Pollster says the red line's alarming trajectory is the product of a "mysterious bug," and publishes more elaborate charts here. They're less grim but aren't auspicious--and since then, Rasmussen opposition has reached a new high of 56%.
**--Nate Silver in a 9/14 post:
The real question, of course, is not whether there's been a bounce, but how long-lasting its effects might be. Bounces usually dissipate. ...[snip] ... I'm not yet prepared to render a prediction on this subject, although for a variety of reasons -- basically, the GOP having used up a lot of its firepower coupled with Obama having underachieved his overall approval ratings on health care reform -- I think the bounce (if there is one) is more likely to have "oomph" than it usually does.
Lucky that wasn't a prediction! ... 1:10 A.M.
___________________________
The MSM Plot Against Obama Continues: I've run into a surprising number of people who don't know that Obama called Kanye West a "jackass." Apparently the press' reluctance to publicize an off-the-record remark has worked to inhibit dissemination of what otherwise would be a juicy little bit of news. (Try to find a mention in the print Washington Post, for example.) But everybody's heard about Jimmy Carter saying that an "overwhelming portion" of animosity to Obama stems from "racism." ... Hmm. The suppressed Kanye remark helps Obama. The heavily publicized Carter remark hurts Obama. Coincidence? Or yet more evidence, if any was needed, of the secret Mainstream Media plot to sabotage the President at this crucial time? ... 1:47 A.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Roger Simon says John Edwards could rehabilitate himself by becomng the "poster boy for tort reform," He forgot about the sex tape. ... 6:47 P.M.
___________________________
Jimmy Carter cites racism as anti-Obama factor. Instant reaction: Kiss of Death. Gift to the GOPs. Remember the Carter era of smug moralizing? Anyone want to go back to that? ... P.S.: A good example of how, if the MSM wants to tilt against the Republicans, it's often too wedded to its own conventions--e.g., the desire to 'make news' with an ex-Pres.--to be effective. ... No sophisticated campaign propagandist would say, "OK, let's throw Jimmy Carter at them. They'll be reeling!" ....6:42 P.M.
___________________________
Obama Overexposure Tour continues. ... Next: Bloggingheads? Mediaite Office Hours? 6:40 P.M.
___________________________
Jeffrey Lord gives a good description of the MSM Gatekeeper's Greatst Hits. Then he goes on and on. Makes Rabbi Saperstein look like Marcel Marceau. ...P.S.: Lord lays it on as if only conservative bloggers, etc, have been rebelling against Big Media. As if he wants a piece of the Mark Levin business. Depressing. ... [via Lucianne] 6:40 P.M.
___________________________
Why did the GOP lead in "generic" ballot evaporate on Rassmussen, even as Obama health bounce also vanished? Is the Joe Wilson heckle hurting? ... Could this be an example of a successful kamikaze-style attack? Wilson's "You lie" badly damaged its target (Obama has apparently now caved on the central issue of verifying legal status) but it also damaged Wilson. ... Except that it's not clear it damaged Wilson himself, reelection wise. It's his party that's maybe been hurt. "Kamikaze" isn't the right analogy. ... What's the word for a kamikaze attack in which the pilot survives but the carrier he took off from gets sunk? ... 6:23 P.M.
___________________________
Twitter is not @marcambinder's friend! It broadcasts his initial take--which is often 180 degrees wrong. Example #1: Twittering as if Obama would be mad at the networks that his off the record "jackass" comment leaked. #2: Twittering as if town hall rebelliousness would help the Dems. ... 6:09 P.M.
___________________________
That False Consciousness Keeps On Coming: Workers at Boeing factory vote to un-unionize. By secret ballot. ... Because when it comes to decertifying unions, union lobbyists insist on the sanctity of the secret ballot. ... 6:08 P.M.
___________________________
Jack Palance Plays Elmer Gantry: Andrew Breitbart + Good Haircut = Slightly Scary Rabble-Rousing Potential. ... 6:05 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Obama strategist David Axlerod must be so upset that a reporter wrongly twittered Obama's comment that Kanye West was a "jackass." ... Good for, what, a 5 point increase in Obama's approval rating? ... 6:34 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
National Public Radio fights back against the old accusation that if you scratch its surface you'll find a bunch of government-subsidized leftists. From the Sept. 11 "All Things Considered":
MELISSA BLOCK, host: This week, a Web site called FiLife.com launched a Twitter contest to reduce policy on how to fix health care to a mere three words. Some entries so far...
ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Promote Healthy Living and Eat an Apple are two examples.
[snip]
SIEGEL: Our staff made up some three-word policy proclamations: Doctors Make Less and Cuban Health Care. ...
[E.A.] 6:23 P.M.
___________________________
Joe Wilson: Controlled implosion? ... P.S.: And where was Kanye West that evening, I ask you? ... 6:24 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Ead-Day At-Cay: WaPo reports that in the days after Obama's speech, the Dem health care plan was opposed by a 48 to 46 margin--versus a 50-45 margin in mid-August. ... From five points down to two points down. That's all he got for playing the joint-session-prime-time-address card? Does that seem like enough to you? ... P.S.: "[S]eniors remain solidly opposed to health-care reform, and the number who think government involvement would do more harm than good continues to rise ... " Update: J. Rubin says it's worse than it seems. ...
P.P.S.: How's The Dreidl going to spin those numbers? Marc Ambinder's colleague Chris Good notes that support rises to 50% vs. 42% if people are told that the "public option" has been dropped--suggesting that "Dropping Public Option [Would] Mean Health Reform Passes." That seems to be the Obama strategy: Pack all the opposition energy into the public option and then torch it in a Bonfire of Triangulation. But a) even 50-42 is a mighty thin margin on which to build a major piece of legislation. (Remember when Nate Silver thought 46-33 was insufficient?) Again, Medicare had 63-28 support.) b) Is it a fair test of public opinion to ask for support/opposition,and then say "what if we toss in this big concession"? Will you get the same answer as if you flat out asked about the Dems' health plan at a time when it didn't have the 'public option'--and without highlighting that fact? I doubt it. c) This was a poll of adults, not likely voters--something that would not be lost on worried representatives of the people. ... 9/16 Update: d) Nate Silver suggests that any specificity tends to increase support for health care reform. So if the poll had asked about a public option being included, the numbers might have risen as well. ... Does this mean we should pay more attention to the results of the general, non-specific question, or wait until there are more specifics to ask about? I think it means we should look at the trend, which (for the non-specific question that was also asked back in August) is not as positive as you'd want if you were Obama. ...
9/15 Update: Rasmussen found a much bigger pro-health reform bounce (from nine down to five up)--but it has since dissipated. Latest: 52-45 against. ... 2:44 A.M.
___________________________
The MSM plot to destroy Obama: Meeting in a secret room off Statuary Hall, the leaders of the MSM have decided to sabotage President Obama's health care plan by promoting memes guaranteed to make voters who are skeptical about the President affirmatively hostile.
1. You're a bunch of racists!
2. We really do want to give illegal immigrants subsidized health care! But the yahoos won't let us.
3. We want to kill granny too. ...
I guess it''s not like they're saying they'd really like to model a sixth of the U.S. economy on Castro's Cuba! ... Oh, wait.12:36 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Amplified and edited entries from the kausmickey Twitter feed. ... Just don't call them "curated."
My friends on the Right don't like Glenn Beck either. In private, they say he's a careerist phony. about 15 hours ago
__________
I don't think the last line of this Andrew Sullivan post will make Bartlett's http://bit.ly/2EtsLJ12:17 AM Sep 11th
__________
The 'M' Word! "Did that clerk just call you 'ma'am'?" Subtle anti-Boxer shot in Mitsubishi Lancer ad before KCAL scandal report video? http://bit.ly/hcwa6 1:44 PM Sep 9th
__________
Is Tom Wilson--who produced Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" et al--wildly undersung or did he just preside and not do that much? 3:52 AM Sep 9th
__________
Poor L.A., off in its own little corner of Chris Wilson's News Dots news map. http://bit.ly/d2reS That's sure how it feels to us out here! 11:13 AM Sep 8th
__________
Even Van Jones' friend Arianna says, after talking to him and presumably getting his side of the story, that "it was stupid of Van to put his name on a very stupid '9/11 Truth Statement.' " 1:06 AM Sep 8th
__________
Note to Slate ad corps: Wouldn't a 3 sec. ad that made you like H-P be better than a 10-15 sec. screen-hog ad that made you hate H-P? 11:29 PM Sep 7th
__________
Got new ish of Automobile. Have a) glossy car mags gotten dull, or b) do opinionated blogs like Truth About Cars just make them seem dull? It's not only (b)! When these magazines get desperate for ad dollars, as they are now, they become scared to exist. ... 10:10 PM Sep 7th
4:58 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
At TPM, Todd Gitlin defends President Obama against the obvious criticisms:
You can say that he's still not willing to talk to Americans straight about the need to limit high-tech medicine for the very old and very frail. Presidents won't do that.
We have to learn to live within the constraints of our political system, I guess. ...[Thanks to alert reader R.] 2:15 P.M.
___________________________
Hostage to Fortune Watch:
Joe Biden --"I believe we will have a bill before Thanksgiving."
Nancy Pelosi --"I'm confident the president will sign a bill this year."
Joe Klein --"Congress will pass some form of health-care reform this year, probably something very close to what the President proposed." ...
2:25 P.M.
___________________________
Breitbart 1, National Endowment for the Arts 0. ...Update: NEA damage control lacks crisp uner-the-busness of WH damage control. ... 2:41 P.M.
___________________________
Ambinder: Romneycare is kind of a success in Massachusetts. ... 2:46 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Expectations: Low! ... Expectations: Exceeded. A moderately effective speech. ...
1) Triangulation: Almost always works! Obama pushed off, most notably, against single payer but also against Dems who demand a public option. Didn't emphasize that the public option is itself a fairly centrist solution--as opposed to systems that would deny the private option. ...
2) Rebranding: Virtually none that I could see, despite a lot of talk among commentators (including Keith Hennessey). No attempt to pretend that this isn't the same bill and being sold as the same bill. ...
3) Orszagism: Still there, but gets an image makeover. In it's new, airbrushed form, we're told that "our health care problem is our deficit problem" (which it is) but not that Obama's reforms are necessarily the solution to the deficit problem (which they aren't, even if they'd work--you could also raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere). The content of those long-term structural reforms is redefined along free-lunch, non-grandiose lines: Obama no longer insists that the bill "reduce health-care inflation" or transform the "health care delivery system." Only "waste and abuse" that does "nothing to improve your care" will be targeted. That's a relief! Only "common sense best practices" will be encouraged by the new cost-cutting panel. All building up to the central iffy policy pitch
[W]e've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system
Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan ..
a) Does anyone really believe this--that is, if you define waste and inefficiency as things that don't actually help improve your health, as opposed to things that might improve your health marginally but aren't worth the cost? b) Specifically, does the average Medicare recipient feel that the system that he enjoys is rife with waste, inefficiency, fraud, and abuse? I suspect not. This seems like the greatest point of vulnerability in the speech. ... Faced with the need to choose between a) alarming centrist budget hawks concerned about deficits driven by rising health costs and b) alarming seniors concerned about the measures that might be taken to control rising health costs, Obama chose to pretend the problem didn't exist (though he did throw budget hawks a crude procedural bone--see #9 below). ...
4) "This-is-the-moment-ism: Why, after posing as a practical moderate, go on and on about the need to avoid timidity and do "what the moment calls for" and "history's test." Obama couldn't let a speech slip by without veering into grandiosity--but this very grandiosity undercuts his attempt to appear like a reassuring centrist who wants to disrupt existing arrangements as little as possible. Makes kicking the can "further down the road" suddenly seem vaguely appealing. Instead of "this is really a big deal like 1935 and 1965," why not say "this really isn't such a big deal"? ... In particular, couldn't Obama somehow make the point that a trillion dollars over 10 years isn't such a big deal. He tried, by comparing it to expensive things the Dems didn't like (the Iraq War, tax cuts). More effective would be comparison to effective things the Dems and the voters do like (i.e.,"that's less than a sixth of the cost of Social Security" or "one fifth as much as Medicare now costs each year"). It's only $100 billion a year, people!
5) Heckling: Effective, I thought, outweighing the disrespect effect. Showed that there was some dissent about Obama's flat assertions about, for example, no coverage for illegal aliens. (The dissent involves whether there is any verification mechanism that will actually stop illegals from getting coverage, whatever the law says.) But then I'm the guy who thought Rick Lazio taught Hillary Clinton a lesson. Brian Williams was clearly upset, but he only has one vote. (I normally ask my mother about issues like this, but she was watching Federer.) ... Assignment: This can't be the first time a President has been heckled. ...
6) Specificity: "This exchange will take effect in four years ..." Confident assertions of specifics suggest that Obama is in control and laying down the law. Needed more of these....
7) Kennedy: This section surprisingly effective, given that everyone knew it was coming. I'd prefer an appeal to social equality as opposed to "large heartedness," but then the Kennedys--or at least Teddy--don't precisely stand for social equality, do they? ...
8) "[T]here is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it." A good description of the need for health care coverage expansion. But why not broaden it into a general principle--that we don't say, as a society, "there is something that could make you better but we can't afford it." Because then it could be used as an argument against rationing in the future? And that would be a problem because.....
9) Veto threat: The clearest veto pledge Obama made was: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future." Is Obama really going to veto a plan because if nothing is done it will add to the deficit in 15 years? And if so, why? The other problem with this pledge, which he repeated for effect, is that it tethers Obama to the deficit-estimating methods of the CBO, which in turn leads him to endorse a plan for mandatory "spending cuts if the savings we've promised don't materialize." That won't reassure voters worried about, you know, spending cuts, and it doesn't make any policy sense. If the savings don't materialize, why not raise taxes, or cut the HUD budget, or Social Security? Why do the savings have to come from medical care? But the CBO loves such mandatory fallback cuts, so they're in. ... Keep in mind, these are cuts that go into effect after the administration's plans to pick the low-hanging fruit of "waste" that doesn't impact care have been exhausted. Doesn't that imply that the mandatory spending cuts will come at the expense of care? ... Update: Hennessey seems to think the fallback spending cut plan is an attempt to muscle the CBO into saying"the bills don’t increase the long-term budget deficit" without doing the things that would make the cuts actually automatic. If that's true, I don't quite understand--why set up a big fight with the CBO that you might lose, after you've pledged to veto the bill if you lose it? Seems as if CBO holds all the cards in that one, no? ...
10) How Much Government is Enough? Just as Obama's winding up, he drifts off into locker dorm room musings about whether "the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little." Why, in a speech that's already too long? We're not debating philosophy. We're fixing the health care problem. ... Ditto the airy discussion of civility that follow, which seemed like a bone thrown to those who wanted a condemnation, but which only got in the way of an effective "I hear you" pitch. ... 6:49 P..M.
____________________________
-
sponsorship
The Dreidl Spins, and Having Been Spun, Moves On: Marc Ambinder now says Obama is in good shape on health care because he "survived August" in better shape than Ambinder had expected:
At the beginning of the month, I predicted that August might turn out be a bloodbath for Democrats. At the time, the Democratic self-containment on health care had dissolved, cranks were taking over constituent meetings, and that real anxiety about Obama had found a channel and political opponents of health care had an edge.
Hmm. That's not what I remember Ambinder saying. I remember him saying that health care opponent-cranks were overplaying their hand in a way that would help Democrats. Let's go to the Internets! Here's Ambinder on August 6:
Bottom line: turning h/c town hall meetings into anti-Obama venting sessions won't convince Blue Dog Dems. to vote against h/c. I think
and on the same day
I think GOPers are of 2 minds about these protests. Or, they shld be. Even though this trend favors the left, I don't know if they will... [E.A.]
and finally in an August 11 magnum opus entitled "Conservatives Are Blowing It on Health Care":
... Democrats are beginning to notice that opponents of health care reform have discredited themselves. They ramped up much too quickly. When smaller, conservative groups Astroturfed, they inevitably brought to the meetings the type of Republican activist who was itching for a fight and who would use the format to vent frustrations at President Obama himself. ...[T]he loudest voices tended to be the craziest, the most extreme, the least sensible, and the most easy to mock. ... [E.A.]
Is Ambinder being spun so fast he doesn't remember what he himself "predicted" a month ago? Or is he ... spinning his own previous spin (to make his more recent spin seem more plausible). ....
P.S.--Nobody Sucks Up Both Ways Like Andrew Sullivan: Meanwhile, elsewhere in Mr. Bradley's well-padded neighborhood, Andrew Sullivan says, "I agree with most everything David Brooks has written on this subject [of health care]." Then Sullivan declares that the likely Obama compromise plan
will be a huge step forward on the accessibility front, if not on costs. (But we can come back on costs, and must, in a broader context of fundamental fiscal reform)
which is pretty much the exact opposite of what Brooks has written on the subject. Brooks argues that measures to increase accessibility aren't a huge step forward at all, because "they don't reduce costs." He wants Obama to double-down on Orszagist curve-bending now and "fundamentally challenge the fee-for-service system." Easy advice to give if you are Republican pundit who gets to pose as a far-seeing responsible type today and then later dismiss Obama as an incompetent liberal when he takes Brooks' advice and fails. Sullivan was right the second time. ... 2:29 A..M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Health Care Speech: Obama doesn't need to get "Republicans on board." He doesn't need to get Blue Dog Democrats on board. He needs to get voters on board. They aren't on board now --39-37 against, according to Gallup. (When Congress passed Medicare in 1965, by way of contrast, Gallup found a 63-28 majority in favor.) ... If the Dems' health care bill were actually popular, all the vote-bargaining problems they now face would be easily solved. If the bill remains relatively unpopular, with those opposed much more likely to base their vote on the issue, it could easily fail to pass even if versions of it get past the House and Senate and into a conference committee. ... Remember "comprehensive immigration reform"? In 2007, it seemed as if every month or two the New York Times would announce a breakthrough "deal" among press-anointed power brokers--a deal that was said to virtually guarantee passage. But, faced with constituent disapproval, skittish Senators didn't want to vote for it, no matter what they said in public. And somehow it bogged down short of passage. Funny how that happens. ...
Update: My Slate colleague Timothy Noah says more or less exactly the opposite:
The constituency that Obama should be worrying about right now isn't the defining-moment-loving press or the Republican-wary public. It's the risk-averse Democratic Congress ..
Hmm. What's that risk the Democrats are all averse about? Isn't it the risk of getting voted out of office by a disapproving public? ... Yikes: AP poll released Wednesday finds 49-34 against. Nothing to worry about there!. ...
P.S.: Noah and I agree Obama's big-deal speech is a mistake--Noah because thinks it's unnecessary to try to win over the public with "the same case for health reform that [Obama]'s been making for six months," me because I think making "the same case for health reform that [Obama]'s been making for six months" won't work in winning over the public (and when it doesn't, he won't be able to give another address to Congress anytime soon). ... The speech is a mistake even if Dems now have the votes to pass bills out of both houses of Congress, and the whole thing is wired to make it look as if Obama's address broke the log jam. If the polls don't flip, there will be plenty of opportunities for the bill to grind to a halt later, like a truck in the sand. ...
Backfill: I thought this post seemed a little ... Gergenesque. So be it! ... 4:38 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
The text of Obama's speech to schoolchildren has been posted. It's OK--starts condescending, then gets reasonably inspiring. But there's one paragraph I gagged on. (Drudge did too).
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it. [Gag-phrases boldfaced.]
Those are all the people who are trying to help--families, teachers, and Barack Hussein Obama? He's "working hard to fix up" classrooms? I hope not! He has two wars and a health care bill to worry about, and a whole lot of other politicians and bureaucrats whose job it is to refurbish up school facilities. Is he Superman? Obama's willingness to cut out all the other players does suggest an unnattractive solipsism and egotism at best and ... a troublesome cult-building instinct well, let's just leave it at that.
Here's the thing. It's not too late to fix this graf! Obama hasn't actually delivered the speech yet. A little last-minute pencil editing and his critics won't have a whole lot to work with. Start by replacing every use of the word "I" ...
Update: Obama did not take kausfiles' advice. ... 11:59 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Slow enough for the following selected entries from the kausmickey Twitter feed.
Local powrhouse KCRW debuts 'rethought'' music channel. I was skeptical, but so far it's good. Not yuppie sludge! Yet. ... Ghst of Nic Harcourt almst exorcised.
Does NYT not know what a Truther is? Or did they ... deliberately allow an error as a pretext for war with Glenn Beck? about 22 hours ago
What you'd expect when Joe Klein and Laura Ingraham run into each other. 3:04 AM Sep 6th
Joe Hicks: A level-headed ex-Commie conservative. But shorter please! Says don't worry abt Obama school speech, worry abt 50 new civ rights attys 1:01 AM Sep 6th
Did anyone sign both the Truther petition and the Birther petition?2:27 PM Sep 4th
"Why not just delete every other Orszag-bashing item?"-ed. How do you know I don't? 1:46 PM Sep 1st
EJ Dionne, "How Obama Can Win On Health Care" Now I'm really depressed! What's the plan to un-scare the elderly?11:37 PM Aug 30th
Just accidentally put on my jeans inside out. Looked v-ironic. Why isn't that a fashion trend in Brooklyn? Or did I miss it?4:26 PM Aug 30th
Slow news day on MSN: "Test your tomato IQ"3:32 PM Aug 27th
October is the new September.1:04 PM Aug 27th
Pseudoheads Unite! http://tinyurl.com/l8quac Why do I think this will turn out badly for us in the oppressed Sudafed-using community?1:26 PM Aug 25th
Some entries augmented in order to make the actual point. ...10:52 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Amazingly, many New York Times print readers still don't know why Van Jones resigned! Here's how the paper's John Broder describes his situation:
The adviser, Van Jones, a controversial and charismatic community organizer and "green jobs" advocate from the San Francisco Bay Area, signed a petition in 2004 questioning whether the Bush administration had allowed the terrorist attacks of September 2001 to provide a pretext for war in the Middle East. [E.A.]
Reading that, would you realize the petition was a Truther petition? You might think Jones simply made the standard argument that Bush shouldn't have used 9/11 to help gin up the Iraq War--as opposed to suggesting that Bush "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war," which is what the petition actually said [E.A.] ...
P.S.: Is this a) the famous meddling liberal Times editors rewriting Broder's lede graf to soften the blow to Jones or b) Broder sanding the facts in order to make his apparent thesis--that the White House was somewhat coldy caving in to conservative attacks on a minor official--more plausible (if the petition's wording had been made clear, after all, it might have looked like the conservatives had the goods on Jones and the White House was actually doing Jones a favor by letting him resign quietly), or c) incompetence--maybe second-string editors filling in over Labor Day who permitted either (a) or (b)?
P.P.S.: Sarah Wheaton's earlier Times story did not make Broder's mistake. ... [Thanks to alert reader C.B.]
Update: Newsweek' s Daniel Stone defends Jones on the Truther count:
It's worth noting that the "truther" movement accusing the Bush Administration of a hand in 9/11 has evolved significantly since 2004. Back then, it was a sizable group of skeptical citizens asking unanswered questions. Only since has the association turned fringe and angry.
Really? I remember attending some lectures around 2004 that were beseiged by Truthers. They sure seemed crazy to me. Stone goes on::
And besides, those questionable instances came before he had an administration to speak for and constituents to answer to.
Well all right then! ...
Best defense of Jones so far: My brother's Wacky Bay Area Defense! And it's not very good. ... 11:24 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Van, Bus Collide: Always trust content from kausfiles, give or take 24 hours! ...P.S.: He signed a Truther petition. Bye. ... P.S.: Where's the New York Times? Noah SIlverman notes:
Readers of the print edition will never have heard of the presidential appointee so controversial the President had to dump him. Is this a milestone in the decline of the NYT?
I've been waiting for the day when a prominent pol resigns and for print MSM readers it appears to be out-of-the-blue, though everyone on the Web knows the whole story. But for WaPo's Franke-Ruta and Kornblut, this would be that case. ... In any case, more evidence that you can't find out what's going on by reading the Times. ... Backfill: Andy Levy. ...
Update: It seems this may be just another installment of the NYT's running feature, "You Know That Guy You've Never Heard About? Well, He's Gone." ...[Tks to reader C.W.] ... Tom Maguire:
Folks living in the Times bubble are possibly becoming accustomed to these moments of whiplash - the Times' first coverage of the Eason Jordan resignation at CNN also came with his resignation.
It's sort of like in Spinal Tap, when the drummer spontaneously explodes. ... [via Insta]
More: People are crediting Gateway Pundit with the scoop, though GP seems to credit another blog. [Correction: GP thanks a commenter for the tip.] Either way, GP a) did the MSM's work for it and b) is not Glenn Beck. ... 10:19 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
In an email not intended for publication, alert kausfiles reader J does a better job than kaus at summarizing what's (so far) gone wrong on health care:
Obama does indeed appear to have misjudged the issue. The core of the issue was his statement that providing universal coverage and controlling long term costs were the same issue.[**] This sounded phony, but he then let people think that he really believed that -- and of course he probably did, since why say it at that early stage if he did not believe it? Then he of course could not be specific about how he was going to achieve these immense long term savings, so that justified the suspicion about rationing, death panels, and so on. In other words, to the very large number of people who have adequate insurance now, he did not stress that he was going to improve their situation (by assuring that the could keep coverage if they changed jobs or lost their jobs ), but that he was going to make it worse by casting doubt on whether what they have now could continue. ....
That is just politically extremely unwise -- to say the health care issue is about whether we can keep everything we have or rather have to give a lot of it up so we can have universal coverage. And who gives it up, under this view -- not the rich, but the elderly, the average worker with health care coverage, and so on. The Republicans found this issue, as who would not have, and have been mainlining it, successfully. [E.A.]
Hereby adopted as kf's official what-went-wrong explanation. ... It certainly seems more persuasive than the spotty and CW-burdened Wall Street Journal account. ...
**--In other words, Orszagism.. ... 10:15 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Gruesome new poll numbers on public support for unions--the percent who say they "mostly hurt"the U.S. economy jumps from 39% in 2006 to 51% last month, for example. .... Tom Edsall calls them "horror show numbers" and wants an explanation! Hmmm. I wish I could say "card check"--the labor plan to avoid secret ballots when organizing--but that isn't the most visible of the roles unions have played recently. The most visible would be 1) the auto industry, where the UAW helped bankrupt two of the Big Three and stuck taxpayers with the bill without even taking a cut in hourly pay, and 2) the public schools, which the teachers' unions have helped to degrade in a way that adversely impacts the lives of even affluent Dem yuppies (at least those with kids). ...It will be hard for me to avoid the Howell Raines Fallacy on this one: Once again the great and good American people have it right. ... P.S.: Polls like this aren't going to make it easy for the Senate to pass even a watered-down labor law "reform." Did the UAW kill "card check"? ... 8:56 P.M.
___________________________
Pull the Triggers: If you want to compromise on the public option, isn't the federalism route better than the currently much-discussed "trigger" approach? Triggers are complicated and subject to gaming. It's hard to see how they can even be drawn up fairly if nobody knows what to expect in a reformed health insurance market. But it's easy to say that 10 states can apply for federal funds to launch a public option. Or 20 states. Or 30. Even the most inept negotiators should be able to arrive at some number between 0 and 50. And then in a few years we'll have a better idea what the private insurers can accomplish on their own and what a public option adds. (The intra-state comparisons would also provide an incentive for the private insurers to behave.) ... Buried Lede: Rep. James Clyburn is talking about a federalist compromise. He's not Senator Snowe, but he's in the Dem House leadership. ... 9:30 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
kf hears today is the day the MSM (not just Tapper) officially turns on Van Jones, the White House "green jobs" adviser who signed a 2004 Truther petition. 'Gone by midnight' is the prediction. He's on the Liverpool Care Pathway! Soon he'll meet with his death panel and be under the bus! ... Obama presumably doesn't want the controversy to bleed into post-Labor Day Speech Week. ... Update: Ambinder's page hears the same tom toms. ... More: Here's WaPo's story. Page A3. Portrays him as "embattled," with White House officials offering "tepid support." ... NYT remains silent!--as far as I can see. ... 9/5 Update: Gone. ... 3:29 P.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Delusion Watch: Ezra Klein thinks the good news is that Obama "hasn't given a speech on health-care reform ..." You could have fooled me. The problem, Klein reports, is that
the media reported on his news conferences and town hall meetings as if they were the White House's failed attempts to set the agenda.
You mean they weren't attempts to set the agenda? That explains it! ... [via Faughnan| ... P.S.: Klein's post does raise a disturbing possibility: Maybe the White House is proceeding ploddingly according to a plan laid out months ago, in which Obama's formal address to Congress was going to be a dramatic, fresh, deal-clinching intervention as opposed to three more cubic yards of the same ineffective rhetoric the public is already sick of. . . .They haven't adjusted at all in the WH, according to this theory. We're still on Plan A. ...
P.S.: "Our CBS News tally shows that Mr. Obama has given 27 speeches specifically on his health care objectives. Add in other remarks, events and statements in which he mentioned health care and the number soars to 119." [link and emphasis added] ... 8:30 P.M.
___________________________
Suppose Obama's 'inside' deal-cutting strategy works, and a health care reform along current lines passes. Would anything then actually happen that would come back and bite the Democrats before the next couple of elections? If so, what? Bob Wright asked this question on bloggingheads yesterday. His answer: The individual mandate could be to health care what the 55 m.p.h. speed limit was to Jimmy Carter's energy policy. I had a different answer, perhaps prompted by my recent, not uncommon, experience with rising credit card rates. ... A mandate will only impinge on those who don't have insurance already. A rise in insurance premiums will impact nearly everyone, no? .... 8:31 P.M.
___________________________
That 'Loving Thing' You Do: Alec MacGillis on the La Crosse, Wisconsin hospitals that push end-of-life directives:
"The [directive] itself doesn't really matter very much -- it's the clearly expressed belief and shared understanding that it represents," Hammes said. "The family members have to believe that what they do is not only legally right, but personally right. If Mom said, 'Don't do this or do do this,' it's much easier for them to say, 'I'm doing a loving thing,' and it's a decision you can live with."
The obvious question MacGillis ducks: What if you write a directive that says you want aggressive and expensive death-delaying measures to be taken? "I'd like to die hooked up to machines." Do the hospitals of LaCrosse just automatically follow your wishes and spend $100,000 in your final weeks, telling themselves that it's a "shared understanding" and "a loving thing." Or is ... subtle pressure exerted to have a further "conversation"? ... 9:02 P.M.
____________________________
-
sponsorship
Cover 40 million? 20 million? Individual mandate? No mandate? Can the White House really be this uncertain about their strategy at this point? They schedule a big speech without having a clear idea of what they are going to say? ... P.S.: At least they aren't giving off an air of semi-desperation by leaking quotes like, "It's so important to get a deal ... He will do almost anything it takes to get one." ... Oh. ....[via RCP] 1:49 P.M.
_____________________________
1) U.K. Telegraph: Not a death panel but a death pathway. ...
2) The obvious weak spot in Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's argument that Obama has "no good options" on health care is this:
If Obama waters down his proposals to attract moderate support, he'd lose votes on the left -- perhaps more than he'd gain, at this point.
Left-Dems are going to kill a watered-down health bill? I don't believe it. Do you? ...
3) Still, the best evidence that Obama's health reform might be sliding down the Liverpool Care Pathway is his decision to address a joint session of Congress next week. Obama can give one more of these stunt speeches, maybe, before their effectiveness is radically diminished. Why do it now? Especially when he doesn't seem to have anything new to say. ... And when his last attempts mainly proved that what Politico calls "the most gifted explainer of anyone to occupy the Oval office since Reagan or Roosevelt" (please) was stunningly ineffective as a salesman--especially when it came to reassuring seniors worried about rationing. ... When even if Obama is atypically persuasive the best that will happen, in the ensuing days, is that the bill will get out of a Senate committee, leaving a long slog ahead. ...
It's possible that White House aides are deluded about Obama's persuasive powers. It's possible that they're deluded about the impact of invoking Senator Kennedy's legacy two weeks after his death.
It's also possible that they aren't deluded, and they know that despite all the optimistic stories planted in the MSM, they are in big trouble--that public support has fallen dangerously low. ... The speech itself seems a sign of weakness. ... Update: Implausible but inventive alternate theory.
4) Two new things Obama should do in his speech that he probably won't: a) Offer a strong assurance of no rationing, under some reasonable and simple definition--strong enough assurance that it could be used as a weapon against future attempts at NHS-style cost-cutting. Suggested line: "Every treatment that I, as President, would get, you will be able to get under Medicare."** b) Answer the demands for hope by describing the world of wondrous medical cures that science will make available under his health plan (rather than implying that scientific progress is kind of annoying because it might cost the government money). ...
P.S.: Gloria Borger says
.. it's curious that the White House allowed the public plan to become such a centerpiece of the debate when it actually isn't.
No it's not curious. Not if the idea has always been that the White House can dramatically throw it overboard and seem moderate. Duh.. ...
__________
**--A repeat recommendation. Based on a line from Michael Kinsley. ... I can't help but feel that the reason the President doesn't effectively rebut the "rationing" argument is that he kind of believes we have to move toward rationing. But couldn't he fake it? ... 12:38 A.M.
___________________________
-
sponsorship
Politico conveys the latest White House staff boasts about health care strategy:
Top officials privately concede the past six weeks have taken their toll on Obama's popularity. But the officials also see the new diminished expectations as an opportunity to prove their critics wrong ...
Dickerson: Who knew it was all a brilliant plot to lower expectations? ... 9:45 P.M.
___________________________
Anti-anti-anti-Orszagism: David Brooks mounts the conventional defense against anti-Orszagism:
The second liberal response has been to attack the budget director, Peter Orszag. It was a mistake to put cost control at the center of the health reform sales job, many now argue. The president shouldn’t worry about the deficit. Just pass the spending parts.
But fiscal restraint is now the animating issue for moderate Americans. To take the looming $9 trillion in debt and balloon it further would be to enrage a giant part of the electorate.
Brooks is being disingenous, I think. The complaint against Orszag isn't that he's worried about the deficit. You could easily have a substantial health reform effort that was deficit-neutral--that didn't add to the $9 trillion, which is the estimated deficit for 10 years. Where Obama and Orszag went wrong was in ostentatiously blabbering about long-term health cost "game changers" beyond that 10 year period, involving a "very difficult democratic conversation" on whether to put limits on treatments toward the end of life. It's the "game changers" that rightly scare people who worry about moving toward Brit-style rationing or other sorts of restrictions..
This discussion of long-term "game changers" was almost entirely gratuitous, policy-wise. 1) They're unproven. Maybe they'll work--i.e. cut costs without affecting care. Maybe they won't. It's irresponsible to make speculative efforts to control long term health costs, something that hasn't been done in this country, the centerpiece of an attempt to extend care; 2) They're long term! There's plenty of time to institute whatever curve-bending changes in medical practice between now and 2019, as eminently respectable policy person Uwe Reinhardt notes; 3) Cutting health care costs isn't the only responsible way to control the deficit. You could also cut other costs (e.g., Social Security) or raise taxes; 4) It was intellectually misleading to argue that spending a trillion dollars to extend health care coverage (and add demand to the system) was somehow the way to control long term costs, which was the essence of Obama's appeal in his address to Congress. Maybe expanded coverage would give the government more monopsony leverage--a not-unscary prospect in iitself, especially if you are "suspicious of centralized government," as Brooks says we Americans are--but basically the two issues seem separable. If you want to control long term costs and shift to a different treatment model you could start doing that independent of efforts to broaden coverage (which, indeed, Orszag proposes doing). There's no clear policy reason--certainly no reason we've been given--that the two have to be linked.
Brooks has it backwards, then, when he suggests Orszag's critics are saying Obama should have put good policy common sense aside for cheap political reasons. The policy groundwork for insisting on legislating "game-changers" now is weak. The only reason to include them was political--the calculation that even a speculative, possibly Potemkin-like effort to address long term costs would appeal to Blue Dog legislators and independent voters. It's this political calculation that appears to have been the big mistake--the curve-bending, treatment-denying talk has scared seniors so much that popular support for the whole package (including among independents) has sunk to dangerous and possibly fatal levels.
P.S.: I've learned the hard way not to question the judgment of John Harwood, but his Obama's-in-good-shape analysis seems a little ... well ... Ambinderish. ... Same goes for Norman Ornstein, who focuses on the inside game (for Senate votes) and ignores the outside game (for public opinion). Is he ...rearranging reconciliation votes on the Titanic! ... And didn't Ezra Klein tell us a couple of weeks ago that the inside game had failed, and now Obama was going to move the argument "to the country" where he'd "marshal public support"? What happened with that? ...
P.P.S: According to Atlantic, Obama is going to seize on his moment of seeming weakness to ... draw lines in the sand! Auspiciously, none of the lines (as reported by Ambinder) is an insistence on Orszag's long-term rule benders. But the night is young. ... 2:46 P.M.
___________________________
The New Republic explores new revenue models, Atlantic -style. ... And they're going to viciously attack Christina Romer after she's helped them charge $250 a seat? ... 2:45 P.M.
___________________________
"Hot Blue on Blue Action": Joe Klein vs. Glenn Greenwald: Tom Maguire buries his real lede--Is it possible that Glenn Greenwald is not a member of the secretive Journolist? ... P.S.: On the question of whether "Klein pretends to position himself as an observer rather than a rooter at TIME," I would say the answer is no.. It would be futile to do otherwise at this point, anyway--as Maguire notes. ..."Rooter" is too passive, though. More like "player." ... You got a problem with that? ... 2:44 P.M..
___________________________