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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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