Mickey Kaus is reporting that a Brown victory in the Massachusetts Senate race may not necessarily kill the healthcare bill. If the house passes the current Senate bill as-is, there will be no need for a conference. A tricky move indeed but we’ll have to wait and see the outcome of the election for the Democrats to make their choice.
Category Politics
RedState Demonstrates Rare Amount of Sense
Erick Erickson of RedState has said something that I actually agree with:
Let me be blunt: charging people $500.00 plus the costs of travel and lodging to go to a “National Tea Party Convention” run by a for profit group no one has ever heard of sounds as credible as an email from Nigeria promising me a million bucks if I fork over my bank account number.
One of These Things…
…is not like the other. The Atlantic had people vote on Best Republican and Best Democratic scandals of the decade. All of them were sort of personal/morality issues, with the striking example of the GOP winner:
Results: the Abramoff investigaion, 47%;
Compare this with the scope of the top Democratic scandal:
Results: John Edwards’ affair with Reille Hunter, 45%;
Presidential Silence
The first I heard of the events in on the Detroit bound plane on Christmas was a text message from CNN. “Passenger sets off firecrackers on a Northwest flight as it lands in Detroit.” My initial reaction is “this is not news.” As the story developed, Americans learned that this was not some failed attempt at a holiday prank, but an effort to ignite an explosive on a Christmas flight. Since then, political thinkers have been pontificating as to the implications of these events. Janet Napolitano has made a fool of herself, Ben Stein has called for the TSA to privatize and everybody has wondered why the President is still on vacation.
It’s no mystery. If the attack failed, why terrorize people more? Ideally, this is what would have happened. Not in this world. The opposition has pulled the amateur stunt of acting as if the country is running around with its head cut off because the president had chosen not to publicly comment for a few days. Where is our leader? Why is he in the middle of the Pacific ocean? This is not something that happened to George W. Bush, as Politico pointed out, and I think both Presidents made the proper decision to let the truth of the situation percolate through the media before commenting more. The opposition made the improper choice to politicize this, and it has sort of come back to haunt them.
Who Wins In Healthcare Reform?
Pending some major catastrophe a la Mr. Karl Rove circa 2006 (Wait, nevermind…), the Senate healthcare reform bill will pass in the Senate in the the next few days. Some liberals are for it, some liberals are skeptical but, when passed, they will have an achieved something that has eluded our government for over sixty years. From a political standpoint, this bill is very unique. It’s gigantic–$871 Billion–and will be passed along party lines. As Megan McCardle points out, this has never happened before. So which party wins more political cache?
On one hand, there are the Republicans who have said no since the summer, refusing to do anything but obstruct. On the other, are the Democrats who have chosen to go the road alone and ended up with a bill that few are happy with. In the short term, it will be easy to frame this bill in the midterm elections as a massive expansion of government with little foreseeable benefits. Democrats will surely lose some seats for this. Luckily, it seems unlikely that Republicans will get a supermajority in the Senate.
In the long run, this legislation will probably just make people angry and entrenched. The changes won’t fully go into effect for a few years and I imagine this will be a campaign platform for a few years after that. In short, it’s messy. Nobody wins outright, but I guess that’s politics.
Liberals (Hopefully) Banding Together To Pass Healthcare Reform
After last night’s news that the Medicare buy-in had been dropped, it is understandable that progressive activists woke up with a pretty fat hangover. All is not lost though, super-intelllectual liberal bloggers Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein looked back on how far we have come in healthcare policy. It is nice, right now, to see that Democrats are looking to unify themselves to achieve an historic victory.
The nay-sayers are not gone though. The new (albeit short) rhetorical battle will be between policy wonks (who think the bill should be passed) and activists (who think there can still be more work). More political, less wonky bloggers want nothing to do with this bill, but my guess is that they will eventually get on board. When it comes down to it, the numbers are showing that more people will be covered. More coverage will lead to more votes, even if the changes don’t kick in for another few election cycles.
Who Will Kill Healthcare Reform?
If anybody does, I can guarantee it will be the Democrats. With the Medicare buy-in gone, the liberal bloggers and probably liberal senators want no part of it. Without any sort of government option to force costs to go down, liberals see this bill as merely a give away to insurance companies. This is, of course, a problem for the Democratic party right now. When Republicans ran the show, there was none of this disunity business. If you didn’t vote with the Republican caucus, you weren’t a Republican, simple enough. The Democratic party is considerably more fractured though. In fact, rather than having their own unified ideology, Democrats have sort of been just the not-Republican party.
Enter the liberal Internet. Sites like DailyKos and MoveOn mobilize thousands of supporters for exactly what they want. Their message is pointed and far-left. They can’t afford to neglect the moderates though. So they are stuck in a tight spot. It’s difficult to be inclusive of the spectrum of the Democratic party when the viewpoints are so varied. This normally isn’t a problem, but when you are trying to rework an entire industry, the faults are exposed and Republicans simply exploit these.
Long story short: The only losers in this situation, politically speaking, are the Democrats. If they emerge from this over half-year discussion with nothing, they will absolutely be to blame. The Republicans had their attempt at killing reform over the summer, people realized it was mostly hot air. Now it’s the Democrats’ chance to kill it–at their own peril.
Lieberman Flip Flops, Tries To Murder Senate Health Care Bill
Smooth one Senator Lieberman. They’re on to you though, a lot of them…
- Matthew Yglesias: Lieberman Hearts Medicare Buy-In
- Think Progress: Lieberman Last Week: ‘I Don’t Know How Anybody Can Decide Until You See The Actual Language’
- Andrew Sullivan: Lieberman sticks the shiv in
- The Atlantic Politics Channel: Why Lieberman Hates The Health Care Bill
- Ezra Klein: Joe Lieberman: Let’s not make a deal!
- Firedoglake: Video Surfaces Of Lieberman Supporting Medicare Buy-In Just Three Months Ago
- Talking Points Memo: How To Deal With Joe
- Crooks and Liars: This Is What It Comes Down To: Lieberman Is A Spiteful Little Toad Who Will Kill Health-Care Reform.
Conservatives have opinions too:
- The Corner: McCain Defends Lieberman
- R. S. McCain: The Left vs. Lieberman: ‘By Any Means Necessary’
- Hot Air: Lieberman: No cloture on Reid package
Also, Hot Air is reporting that Lieberman won and the Medicare buy-in that Sen. Lieberman opposed has been dropped.
Obama vs. Rice in Intro IR Classes
Like Daniel Drezner, I would not be surprised at all if Obama’s Nobel speech became required reading for introductory international relations classes. It could go along side or even replace Condoleezza Rice’s 2000 or 2008 essays about American foreign policy that were used in my introductory class.
Stossel on Global Warming
John Stossel’s new show on Fox Business Channel began this week. I was browsing my mother’s new set of hundreds of television channels yesterday and happened to stumble upon a rerun of the first episode. He had Cato’s Jerry Taylor on and they were discussing what should be done about climate change. It struck me as an interesting contrast between the precautionary principle and the postcautionary principle when it comes to risk assessment. Taylor is not against mitigating the effects of climate change, he just says it costs too much to do anything before we know the full impacts.
Also, Stossel’s insistence on being the “common man” is quite annoying, especially since he is so openly opinionated. I don’t think I will watch again.
Classing Up The Tea Parties
The Tea Party Documentary has premiered and it seems that the framing of the issue is perfect… unless you’ve actually followed the tea party movement. From my favorite conservative blog, FrumForum:
…it seems highly likely that the documentary’s producers deliberately left out footage of controversial persons and signs. After all, had you only seen the movie, you would be under the impression that this is a completely reasonable group of people, out exercising their democratic rights. The crazies may not have been in the mainstream of the movement, but they were certainly commonplace enough that it would have taken a contrived effort to leave them out of this film.
From NPR/TNR:
One of the featured characters is a black Detroit native named Nate, who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 “from an upbringing that taught him to mistrust America because of the color of his skin,” but who has since seen the light. The camera follows him as he tells a rapper named Bonz about how the government is stealing money from his pocket. He then tries to explain black psychology. “If they can’t make it, they might as well let the government take care of them,” Nate says, as if to answer the question of why he’s virtually the only person of color marching in a sea of white faces on the Mall.
Revisionism has been a common problem with the tea party movement and its supporters. If you recall, media outlets battled over the total number of attendees of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 demonstration in Washington D.C. There has also been the problem of conservative blogs ignoring or even promoting questionable signs and actions of tea party attendees. Sure, there are probably a fare amount of reasonable people who attend, but they are letting the birthers, et al. ruin it for the rest of them.
Erik Prince is a Difficult Person to Profile
From a recent Vanity Fair profile on the founder of Blackwater:
Erik Prince can be a difficult man to wrap your mind around—an amalgam of contradictory caricatures. He has been branded a “Christian supremacist” who sanctions the murder of Iraqi civilians, yet he has built mosques at his overseas bases and supports a Muslim orphanage in Afghanistan. He and his family have long backed conservative causes, funded right-wing political candidates, and befriended evangelicals, but he calls himself a libertarian and is a practicing Roman Catholic. Sometimes considered arrogant and reclusive—Howard Hughes without the O.C.D.—he nonetheless enters competitions that combine mountain-biking, beach running, ocean kayaking, and rappelling.
Prince is also done with Xe (formerly Blackwater) because he feels that he has been betrayed by his former bosses.
Left vs. Right Wings
Sarah Palin’s book tour has had me thinking about the differences between fringe support in the Republican and Democratic parties. I was planning to write about how the right not only accepts but embraces extremism in the Republican party and how the Democratic party seems to be wary of accepting liberal extremists. Somebody more reputable beat me to it.
Instead, I intend to discuss the legitimacies that the parties provide (or don’t) to their wings. In the Democratic party, perhaps the most famous example of the party not embracing its wing is of Cindy Sheehan:
I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on.
This was the post that alienated Sheehan from the DailyKos and eventually the Democratic party. She remains a force in liberal politics, but she is arguably quieter now that the Democratic roots are not allowed to support her.
On the right, we have Glenn Beck:
Glenn Beck is, of course, not exactly part of the Republican party, but many party members have lent their support. Notably, Chuck Grassley, Republican Senator from Iowa, appeared at a town hall event with the book. By Democratic standards, Beck would be well outside the mainstream, but when people like Senator Grassley support him, it lends him some serious legitimacy.
Herein lies the fundamental difference between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue. Republicans build up a star that they know will not be accepted by the majority of Americans. By gaining support, these new stars attract criticism which, in turn, separates and strengthens their positions. Neither Glenn Beck nor Sarah Palin can be ignored any longer. Those who choose to seem more out of touch but those who engage risk setbacks.