On the 2009 elections

To hear Nancy Pelosi or David Alexrod tell it, it was the Democrats who won the 2009 elections because of a win in a special election for a congressional seat in upstate New York formerly held by a Republican. This is despite the fact that Republicans won governorships in New Jersey and Virgina from Democrats, states Obama carried just one year ago.

But if you were to ask me (or any other Republican observer) which race I would most rather lose, it would be the congressional seat in New York.

Even most of the legacy media has rejected this spin. I wonder if Pelosi and Axelrod believe it themselves.

Was the White House trying to turn the NEA into its own Department of Propaganda?

"Godwin's Law" was originally stated as thus: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." "Godwin's Law" was quickly adopted as a rule of internet etiquette or social construction that the guy who fell back on a Hitler analogy had lost the argument.I know that I'm at risk in violating "Godwin's" law with this post, but I hope I'll be excused because (1) I won't do so with words, and (2) I can't help myself.

The images to the right were pulled off the Obama/Biden campaign website by Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics.com.

On August 10 the White House hosted a now-infamous conference call with a number of artists, the transcript of which was posted on BigGovernment.com.

As Fox News reported:

Several officials on the call -- including then-NEA Director of Communications Yosi Sergant, Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Michael Skolnik, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons -- sought focused efforts by the artists in health care, energy and environment, education and community renewal.

"We're going to need your help, and we're going to come at you with some specific 'asks' here," said Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. "But we know that you guys are ready for it and eager to participate, so one we want to thank you, and two, I hope you guys are ready."

Sergant, who has since been reassigned by the NEA, said on the call that the effort was the first of a "brand new conversation."He told the artists, "Pick -- I would encourage you to pick something, whether it's health care, education, the environment, you know, there's four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service. My task would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities' utilities and bring them to the table."

Patrick Courrieleche, one of the artists on the call, first wrote about the experience on the blog Big Hollywood. Courrieleche, 39, of Los Angeles, said the ubiquitous Obama "Hope" poster by artist Shepard Fairey and musician will.i.am's "Yes We Can" song and music video were offered as examples of the artist group's clear impact on Obama's landslide election.

"What I heard was a well thought-out pitch to encourage artists to create art on these issues," he told FOXNews.com in August. "We were told were consulted for a reason, and they specifically stated those issues we should focus on, to plant the seed. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what they're attempting to do."According to a transcript of the call, Skolnik told Courrielche and the other artists that he had "been asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA" to participate about a month prior to the call.

"You are the thought leaders," Skolnik told the artists. "You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be in to; and what's cool and what's not cool. And so I'm hoping that through this group and the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call, is through this group that we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things that we're passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the president's initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration."

But this was just insult to injury. Earlier, on May 12, the White House and the NEA met with some 60 artists to promote the Administration's agenda. As BigHollywood.com reported, they even proposed creating a "Department of Alternative Thinking." There isn't even a hint of irony here. Orwell couldn't have done a better job with a more believable name for such an aptly named department of Big Brother's government if he tried.

The images from the Obama/Biden website seemed to me to be eerily familiar. That's as far as I'll go. You can look at the images below and draw your own conclusions.

Nazi propaganda art

Are Jewish liberals suffering buyers' remorse over Obama's handing of Iranian bomb?

I may be mistaken, but I'm beginning to get an early sense of buyer's remorse from Jewish liberals in Congress over their support for President Obama because of his handling (or lack thereof) of Iran's headlong quest for nuclear weapons. It appears that some liberal Jews now might sense that Obama intends to do virtually nothing to stop Iran.

In Saturday's Washington Post, Los Angeles area Rep. Howard Berman wrote:

Tehran's admission this week that it has secretly constructed a second enrichment plant suggests that its program may be further along than we had imagined. We do not have much time to wait.

I support President Obama's efforts to engage Iran. Thanks to these efforts, no one will be able to say that we failed to do everything possible to give Iran a diplomatic way out. But there is more than ample reason to be skeptical that the regime in Tehran intends to come clean about its nuclear program. Friday's revelations about the second uranium enrichment plant cast a particularly dark shadow over Iranian intentions, and they come after more than 20 years of deception and stonewalling by Tehran.

It is critical that we set clear timelines and benchmarks by which to judge Iranian intentions as well as unambiguous consequences if Iran fails to meet the criteria. The window for Iran to demonstrate seriousness of purpose should start with the Oct. 1 meeting and, as Obama has indicated, should close by the end of the year. If Tehran is serious about engagement, it should agree early on to meaningful steps, such as a "freeze for freeze" in which Iran does not add to its enrichment capabilities -- including halting construction on the second enrichment facility, as verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- in exchange for an agreement that no additional international sanctions would be imposed during this period. Iran must also agree to verifiably suspend nuclear enrichment by year's end. Were that tohappen, the international community could enter into detailed negotiations with Iran about all issues of concern and the incentives that could be offered in exchange for a satisfactory understanding of Iran's nuclear intentions and assurance that Iran would not be able to acquire a nuclear weapons capability.

But if, as I expect, that scenario does not come to pass, we should be ready immediately to impose what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has led a call for "crippling sanctions." Iran's economy is in terrible shape, and the regime no longer can take for granted the support of its citizens. The best conduit for such sanctions would be a mandatory U.N. Security Council resolution. That would require the difficult-to-obtain acquiescence of Russia and China. Failing that, multilateral agreement by the Europeans, Japan, Australia and Canada to impose coordinated financial, trade and investment sanctions would be a serious alternative. If even that proves impossible, I believe the threat posed to our national security by the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran obligates the United States to impose sanctions unilaterally.

In July, Rep. Barney Frank changed his position from opposing a blockade of Iran to prevent it from acquiring a bomb to supporting one. As Robert Naiman wrote in the Huffington Post:

Frank is one of more than 200 Members of the House of Representatives who have co-sponsored a resolution (HConRes 362) heavily promoted by AIPAC that effectively calls for a blockade of Iran, an act of war. But when peace activists complained, he did something that, to my knowledge (and I eagerly look forward to being corrected), none of those other Members of Congress have done. He publicly admitted that he was wrong.

I can appreciate someone changing their position when they realize they were wrong, but what concerns me here is that Frank, Berman and their ilk wee happy to demagogue Bush's refusal to engage in direct talks with Iran without precondition in order to get their man elected, apparently never thinking he would actually do nothing of real consequence to stop Iran from getting the bomb or put Israel on the chopping block before the United Nations:

We continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel, and we continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. The time has come to re-launch negotiations — without preconditions — that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem. The goal is clear: two states living side by side in peace and security — a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people. As we pursue this goal, we will also pursue peace between Israel and Lebanon, Israel and Syria, and a broader peace between Israel and its many neighbors. In pursuit of that goal, we will develop regional initiatives with multilateral participation, alongside bilateral negotiations.

It should not need to pointed out that there is no way to effectuate this "clear goal" to make Palestine "contiguous" without ruining Israel's own contiguity. Apparently Jewish liberals were happy to naively accept the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran had abandoned working on a nuclear weapon, while the U.S. Government was nonetheless aware that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons facility at Qom.

All the NIE accomplished is to give Iran two years to keep the centrifuges spinning. Obama's current talks with Iran will only accomplish more of the same.

Maybe Berman, Frank and the like took Obama at his word during the campaign when he expressed support for Israel or that he would not permit Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, but are alarmed at the alacrity with which Obama breaks his promises.

This weekend, I saw one post where an anonymous blogger claimed to have spoken to Frank (I have no way to determine whether or not this is actually correct), but Frank was reported to opine that with respect to the Iranian bomb, we found out about Obama's true intentions about "eight months too late." "There is nothing that can now be done." [my paraphrase].

Great. They demagogue the issue while Bush is in office, get their man in, and find out too late that he will raise not one finger in support of Israel and will do virtually nothing of consequence to stop Iran from getting a bomb. They should have known better, and now because of their playing politics with national security, we're all screwed.

Death of Conservativism - Liberal wishful thinking?

The President's poll numbers are tanking faster than any previous president, the Democrats are likely to lose the governorships of New Jersey and Virgina in November, the latter an historic bellweather of what to expect in the next mid-term elections. Ordinary citizens for the first time are showing up at town hall meetings, going to tea parties, and marching in the 9/12 movement. Obama's key initiatives (health care and cap and trade) have stalled in Congress. The DNC has shown a significant downturn in fundraising from just over a year ago, and in August, Republican campaign committees outraised Democrats by $1.7 million, despite being the minority party in Congress. Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd and a multitude of others are frantically playing the race card from the bottom of the deck.


It's gotten so bad that the Democrats in Congress won't even let the American People read the health care bill before passage lest that complicate efforts to get it passed before the elections in new Jersey and Virginia.


But none of this seems to factor into the number of books, magazine and Internet articles and blog postings that boldly proclaim "The Death of Conservatism" (by Sam Tanenhaus), just to name one representative title.


Tanenhaus is hardly alone. Just peruse the blogs and the websites: "The GOP is Still Shell-shocked"; "Republicans Deaf Ear on Health Care"; "Is the GOP Overreaching on Health Care?"
"Which Political Party is Decadent and Sick"; "The Bankruptcy of Ideological Conservatism"; "GOP Disorder - Purge or Binge"; "Americans Trust Obama, Not the Republicans."

In a review of Tanenhaus' book for The New Republic, Damon Linker writes:

Surveying intellectual life on the right in the opening months of the Obama administration, Tanenhaus concludes that too many conservative intellectuals “recognize no distinction between analysis and advocacy, or between the competition of ideas and the naked struggle for power.”

WTF!! Do Tanenhaus and Linker inhabit the same planet that I do? Try an experiment, tonight watch any debate between a real conservative and liberal (preferably, but not necessarily on Fox News) and see who it is who can't recognize the distinction between analysis and advocacy. Or who doesn't understand the difference between competition of ideas or the naked struggle for power.

Feel like you're in the twilight zone, or in Alice in Wonderland? You're not alone. In responding to Linker, Jonah Goldberg writes:

Much has been written about Tanenhaus's book already. Indeed, it's hard to think of a book that unites more factions of conservatism than Tanenhaus's tome, about which the apparently universal consensus is that it is completely, totally, and in every way imaginable unpersuasive. Not bad or uninteresting, mind you; just unpersuasive, like a wild-eyed witch-doctor ooga-boogaing about why he should be allowed to remove your spleen.

* * *

Don't be alarmed by that Twilight Zone vibe you're getting. It's perfectly normal. In fact, it's intended. At an event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, I told Tanenhaus that his description of things had a decidedly "otherworldly" feel to it. He responded by pleading "Guilty as charged" and saying that otherworldly writing was a great tradition among intellectuals, or some such, and that he did not shirk from the accusation one bit. It almost sounds like he's saying his narrative is fake-but-accurate.

If you spend any time surfing the comments sections on conservative blogs and websites you'll notice the ubiquitous presence of what some call "trolls," moonbats" or "libtards" who engage conservatives not with ideas, but with profanities, insults, ad hominem attacks, and (often irrelevant) talking points. Some have theorized that these trolls are agents of George Soros paid to scour the internet to challenge conservatives with their "facts and superior analysis." [O.k., sarcasm off now].

To be fair, Linker also wrote in the same article:

Far from being dead, ideological conservatism will have proven its enduring capacity to express, provoke, and mobilize populist anger and resentments. That has been ideological conservatism’s great strength—and its path to political power—for over forty years now.

Liberals and temperamental conservatives like Sam Tanenhaus can and should be working to prevent the pattern from repeating itself. But before they can do that, they must resist the temptation to engage in wishful thinking.

And that's my point. Read any normal day's offerings from Real Clear Politics or Politco and you'll see numerous titles that amount to little more than "wishful thinking." (And I haven't even touched titles like "Al Franken will be a superlative Senator" (Like anyone could possibly know that!)).

The liberals will probably have to learn the hard way, like President Obama eventually will, that saying it doesn't make it so.

Random thoughts on a Friday afternoon

The Obama administration was going to restore friendships with the nations of the world that the U.S. supposedly lost under George Bush.

Yesterday, the White House announced it was going to scrap the missile defense shield based in Poland and the Czech Republic. Basically it threw two friends under the bus in favor of Russia, who isn't going to like us no matter what we do.

I hope the administration got something for it. For example, if we obtained concessions from Russia on stopping missile sales to Iran, or for agreement to support Iranian sanctions, it could be argued that this is a defensible move. But I suspect that this is really nothing but unilateral disarmament for its own sake. Hillary Clinton said that dropping the missile defense shield will make us safer. To me it sounds like Neville Chamberlain saying that through the Munich agreement with Hitler, that he accomplished "peace in our time"

One has to wonder if the White House's decision to announce this move on the 70th anniversary of the day that the USSR invaded Poland is more evidence of their stark incompetence. The only other theory explaining the move on this of all days is that they are just sick.

The White House is also starting an unnecessary trade war with China, over a surge in rubber tire imports. The reason for the punitive tariffs, says Obama is because trade agreements must be enforced in order for trading systems to work. Huh? Having the legal right to do something isn't the same thing as being legally required to do it. Good luck now in getting Chinese help with North Korea.

Yeah, this is the way to restore U.S. credibility around the world.

As a lawyer who successfully represented the California Republican Party against ACORN, I am completely sympathetic to (and grateful for) the stings by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. But I wonder if they would have been more successful if their costumes weren't so outrageous. If this pair walked into my office on any day other than Halloween, I'd immediately suspect I was being filmed. Giles' outfit, while still credible, could have been toned down a bit. But O'Keefe looked like a cartoon character. The fact that anyone at ACORN fell for it at all shows how stupid these people really are.

Finally, I saw the following comment on a blog post somewhere:

Wal-Mart halter top: $2
Cheap sunglasses: $3
Faux fur coat: $39
Defunding ACORN: Priceless.

Blacks gone wild?

In our so-called "post racial era" Maureen Dowd in Sunday's New York Times predictably ascribed Congressman Joe Wilson's outburst to President Obama speech on healthcare to a joint session of Congress that "you lie" to racism:

Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber. . . . Some people just can’t believe a lack man is president and will never accept it.

But today we woke up to two news stories regarding blacks gone wild.

At the MTV Music Video Awards, in a bizarre scene where Taylor Swift (who is white) was giving an acceptance speech for her VMA Award, Kanye West (who is black) took the microphone from her hand, apparently because he apparently believed that Beyonce's "Single Ladies" deserved the award instead. Rolling Stone reported:

"Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'll let you finish, but Beyonce has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!," Kanye shouted to a mortified Swift and the speechless audience. According to sources at the VMAs, Swift was seen hysterically crying backstage after Kanye's outburst, making it convenient that her performance of 'You Belong to Me,' which immediately followed the acceptance speech, was prerecorded. Wale, who is serving as MC for the house band, told the crowd, 'You can't fault a man for speaking his mind,' which was promptly met by boos from the Radio City Music Hall crowd.

It would be easy to ascribe unvarnished racism as the animating force behind West's outburst. West later apologized for his behavior.

Also on Sunday, tennis great Serena Williams had some apologies to make of her own. As reported by Total Pro Sports:

Last night's semifinals match between Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters was the epitome of craziness as the game ended in the most unusual fashion after Serena was penalized on match point, costing her the game, set, and match. After already receiving a code violation warning for breaking her racket after losing the first set, Williams was serving 5-6, 15-30 in the second. She faulted on her first serve and on her second attempt was called for a foot foul by the line judge. That cost her a crucial point at an important part of the game as Clijsters was now one point away from advancing to the finals. Serena responded to the call in a rather inaffable manner, making her way over to the line judge to shout and curse at her as she waved her racket and ball in disgust.

Dropping the f-word liberally, Williams said, "I swear to God I'm [expletive] going to take this [expletive] ball and shove it down your [expletive] throat, you hear that? I swear to God."

Again, was race the motivating factor behind Williams' tantrum? Maybe. She could have been angry, losing to Clijsters (who is white) or one could take notice that the tirade was launched against the line judge who is a diminutive Japanese woman.

And let's not forget Van Jones, who among other things, called Republicans (as Ben Stein put it) a "barnyard epithet." Something Jones later had to apologize for on his way out the White House door.

But in the end, what difference does it make whether West's tactless behavior was motivated by racism. It was still awful. The only bright spot of the episode was Beyonce's graciousness in later inviting Swift back up to the stage to finish her acceptance speech.

What difference does it make whether racism caused Williams' meltdown? It was shameful nonetheless.

We should declare a moratorium, or even better retire the old "racism" trope. Bad behavior whether by Wilson, West, Williams (is it racism, poor temperament or because their last names begin with "W"?) is still crass, rude and beneath the dignity of all involved. Let's not questions anyone's motives any more and just call unacceptable behavior out when we see it. There's really no good reason to try to score extra cheap political points by crying racism to condemn already appalling behavior.

Obama on healthcare: SOS

Realizing that his plans to "reform" the nation's healthcare system are, to put it mildly, in distress, Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress last night in a last ditch effort to pursuade the American people of the particular wisdom of his vision on health care.

How'd he do? He screwed the pooch. Basically, it was the Same Old Shit.

He simply repeated, albeit more forcefully, the same arguments that a majority of voters have already rejected as phony. Obama said, "nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have." As Pajamas Media's Vodkapundit Stephen Green correctly pointed out, "require" is one of those "weasel words." Yes, not "required" in the strict sense of the word, but once a public option plan is made available, that is cheaper than an employer's current offering, one can easily expect that the employer will pay the premiums (or penalties) and simply dump his employees into the public option. You can't keep your employer-sponsored health insurance if your employer no longer offers it.

As to how he was going to pay for the expanded coverage in his plan, Obama again offered nothing new:

[W]e've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system - a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. . . . In fact, I want to speak directly to America's seniors for a moment, because Medicare is another issue that's been subjected to demagoguery and distortion during the course of this debate. . . . The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies - subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care. . . . These steps will ensure that you - America's seniors - get the benefits you've been promised. They will ensure that Medicare is there for future generations. And we can use some of the savings to fill the gap in coverage that forces too many seniors to pay thousands of dollars a year out of their own pocket for prescription drugs. That's what this plan will do for you.

I see, Obama's going to waive his magic want, and convert fraud and abuse into untold riches which are going to pay for the expanded coverage in the plan. Vintage Obama, grand promises without any specifics that would make them meaningful. By the way, why do we need further legislation to trim fraud and abuse?

With respect to the public option, Obama said:

But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Let me be clear - it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.

Again, only until their employers stopped offering their own plans, that is. Obama is right that a "broad concensus exists" on things like prohibiting insurers from dropping sick people, or denials for preexisting conditions, or allowing an insurance market exchange, or for tax credits for those who can't afford insurance. If it were true that only 5% of American would sign up for the public option, which is the most controversial part of Obama's plan, why risk this broad concensus for this 5%? Unless this is, of course, a trojan horse by which the government will ultimately assert control over the entire health care industry (as Obama, Barney Frank, and other liberals have so franly admitted).

In the end, I don't think anybody was fooled. Obama promised greater coverage at no extra cost. He refused to walk away from the public option and only offered, incredibly, that it would have no effect on anyone else's quality or choice of care.

I don't see how he changed anyone's mind. The only question now, is whether Obama, Pelosi and Reid can muster enough votes to ram this down our throats through a reconcilliation process. We'll see.

New Axis of Evil

The new "Axis of Evil": Iran, Venezuela, and their ally, the Obama Administration.

Obama's make or break speech on health care reform

In case you live under a rock and haven't heard yet, President Obama will deliver a prime-time address Wednesday to a joint session of Congress aimed at regaining momentum in his push for universal health care coverage.

I think this speech will make or break him. If Obama says something new, breaks new policy ground, or charts a new path on achieving health care reform, his legislative efforts will be revived. But if he simply trots out the same old tropes (e.g., if you like your health care, you can keep it, even with a public option; were going to cover 50 million new people and reduce costs without rationing, etc.) he's finished.

The crux of the problem over at the White House appears to be that they think that the problems with health care reform thus far have been its packaging, not its substance. But as Charles Krauthamer said on Fox News, the problems is that "the dog won't eat the dog food."

In Sunday's New York Times, Jackie Calms writes:

In 1994, Democrats’ dysfunction over fulfilling a new president’s campaign promise contributed to the party’s loss of its 40-year dominance of Congress. Now that memory is being revived, and it is the message the White House and Congressional leaders will press when lawmakers return this week, still divided and now spooked after the turbulent town-hall-style meetings, downbeat polls and distortions of August.Republicans early on united behind the lesson they took from the past struggle, that they stand to gain politically in next year’s elections if Democrats do nothing. But the Democrats’ version similarly resonates with all party factions, giving Mr. Obama perhaps his best leverage to unify them to do something. In now-familiar financial parlance, this one is “too big to fail.”

Adding to this chorus is Joe Klein where he writes in the August 31, 2009 issue of Time that:

[H]onorable conservatives . . . have been overwhelmed by nihists and hypocrites more interested in destroying the opposition and gaining power than in the public weal. . . . The party's putative intellectuals [ouch!] are prosaic tactitians who make precious few substantive arguments but oppose health care reform mostly because passage would help Barrack Obama's political prospects.

(To digress for a moment, this statement ignores that the public option, which conservatives has been resisting for over 50 years, violates deeply held conservative principles. This statement also ignores the fact that in an August 31, 2009 poll, 51 percent of voters say that they oppose Obama's health care reforms. To paraphrase the February 7, 2009 cover of Newsweek, "We are all nihlists now.")

But in the Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti writes:

For a while now, the message from Washington has been that we know what's good for the public, whether the public likes it or not. One after another, both parties have attempted to foist a series of grand reforms on a skeptical populace--in areas ranging from Social Security and immigration to energy and health care. Politicians have made decisions affecting millions of lives without accountability and oversight. The upshot has been more government, more debt, and--coming soon to a 1040 form near you--more taxes. No wonder the public is anxious.

* * *

As for the elites, especially the liberal elite: They remain deaf, dumb, and blind.

The White House is learning all the wrong lessons from Clinton's effort to reform health care 15 years ago. Those at the White House think that they will be punished by the voters for failing to reform health care.

But one of the reason voters revolted against the Democrats in 1994 was not that they failed to deliver on a campaign promise, but that their proposals scared the hell out of the American people. It's not that they failed, but they overstepped their mandate by trying to do far too much.The White House appears to think that the public generally wants its version of health care reform, it's just that the voters don't really know it yet. If Obama could just somehow find the magic words to turn things around.

In June, ABC News aired a one-hour special from the White House on health care reform. In July, Obama held a press conference on health care reform (where he made an unforced error by stepping into the Heny Louis Gates affair). Obama has also had numerous town halls, other speeches and conference calls on the subject. And now he's going to salvage the debate with yet another speech before a joint session of Congress?

The best advice for Obama (which I offer fully confident that he won't take it), is to seek passage for a plan that the American people can accept (no cancellation of policies for sick people, no denials due to preexisting conditions, vouchers for the poor, etc.) and ditching those they can't (public option, rationing, transfer of monies from Medicare), and declare at least a partial victory.

But because the White House thinks Obama can sell ice to eskimos and their refusal to see that their problems lie in the substance of health care reform, such moderation of the Left's health care agenda is not likely.

In the end, Obama will reiterate the same tired arguments he's been making for the past 3 months, soften or rename (but not eliminate) the need for a public option, make nice noises towards Republicans (although they already know that Obama thinks talk is cheap), and try to unify the Democrats saying that they'll pay at the next election if they don't do something now.

So get some beer, popcorn, nachos or other snacks to watch the President's address on Wednesday. This is going to be classic. He'll either save his bacon, or self-destruct. I'm betting on the latter.

Return here after the speech for my comments to see how I think Obama did.

Where was the New York Times on Van Jones?

Well, Van Jones has resigned last night and those who don't get their news from the Internet or Fox News probably don't even know who he is. Largely because covering the strident, black nationalist, communist, truther, green jobs Czar is not within the narrative the MSM wishes to write on the Obama administration.

As Mickey Kaus asks, "Where's the New York Times?"

As for me, I've had it with the Times. I'd get more use from a tampon.

Democrats can't amend their cheatin' ways

There's an old joke about the football/basketball team that didn't lose the game, they just ran out of time before they could score enough points to win.

When the Democrats sense they are going to lose, they appear to have no problems in changing the rules of the game while it's still in progress. And I'm not talking about ancient history like Franklin Roosevelt's attempted court packing plan or the 2000 Florida recount where Democrat controlled election boards tried to discern the intent of the voters by looking at dimpled chads, tea leaves, what have you.

No, the most recent exhibit for cheating is Deval Patrick's announcement today that the Massachussets legislature is taking up a bill to allow him to appoint a successor to Edward Kennedy who died last week.

Current law provides that the Governor must call for a special election between 145 and 160 days of the vacancy. For those who don't already know, the current law was the result of a change urged by Kennedy and others who didn't want Republican Governor Mitt Romney to appoint John Kerry's successor should a vacancy have been created were he to win the 2004 presidential election. Clearly the ruling class in Massachussets are completely without shame.

In Washington, Democratic Senators, egged on by the New York Times, are threatening the "nuclear option," that is, they are threatening to pass health care reform by a reconcilliation procedure which would require only 51 instead of the 60 votes it would take to defeat a filibuster.

But the Times concedes that:

Reconciliation bills are primarily intended to deal with budget items that affect the deficit, not with substantive legislation like health care reform. Senators could challenge as “extraneous” any provisions that do not change spending or revenues over the next five years, or would have a budget impact that is “merely incidental” to some broader policy purpose, or would increase the deficit in Year 6 and beyond.

* * *

Another hurdle is that the reconciliation legislation covers only the next five years, while the Democratic plans are devised to be deficit-neutral over 10 years. The practical effect is that the Democrats will almost surely need to find added revenues or budget cuts within the first five years. Another Senate rule, which applies whether reconciliation is used or not, requires that the reforms enacted now not cause an increase in the deficit for decades to come, a difficult but probably not impossible hurdle to surmount.

The Times further adds:

Even the public plan so reviled by Republicans could probably qualify, especially if it is given greater power than currently planned to dictate the prices it will pay to hospitals, doctors, drug companies and other providers, thus saving the government lots of money in subsidies.

Given the above, could it be any more clear that reconcilliation is not appropriate for the sweeping, "transformative" changes in the proposed health care reform bills? Aside from changing the rules during the middle of the game, this would effectively kill the filibuster. But like the Kennedy succession farce, how long would it take Democrats to insist on the vitality of the fillubuster once they again found themselves in the minority?

With their willingness to cheat on such naked display, how will they adjust themselves to losing an election? Can we expect Obama to try to amend the Constitution to permit him to serve more than 2 terms? Or worse, will he follow the examples of his simpaticos Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Manuel Zelaya in Honduras and seek (or in Zelaya's case, attempt) to make himself President for life?

Thus reducing our electoral system from "one man, one vote" to "one man, one vote, one time."

And of course they'll remind us that their noble ends justify their disreputable means.

Liberals cannot comprehend the conservative mind

It has been somewhat amusing lately to watch the Democrats struggle with the American people's rejection not only of Obamacare, but also the growing unease with the advance of socialism in America.

According to the Democrats' narrative, angry citizens who showed up at town hall meetings were "Astrotruf" (e.g., fake grass roots) manilupated by insurance industry lobbyists. The sole reason behind opposing the president's health care (ahem, health insurance) proposals (depending on who was talking) was either latent racism, or wanting to hand the President a defeat in order to weaken him. Or that Sarah Palin and the Republicans were spreading misinformation about the President's proposals and the American people were too stupid to see the truth being spoken by the President.

In last week's Weekly Standard, Mathew Continetti wrote:

The Angry White Liberal finds it simply incomprehensible that somebody might honestly and in good faith disagree with the Democrats' efforts. On August 14, blogger Steve Benen wrote on the Huffington Post that the "far-right apoplexy is counter-intuitive." After all, "Why would people who stand to benefit from health care reform literally take to the streets and threaten violence in opposition to legislation that would help them and their families?"

Forget Benen's exaggerated claim of threatened violence. Note, instead, that Benen cannot conceive that someone might actually think the costs to the Democrats' program outweigh the unrealized and perhaps unachievable benefits. Hence he divides Obama's critics into five camps: the "partisans," the "tin-foil hats," the "greedy," the "dupes," and the "wonks." The "wonks," we are told, compose the "smallest of the groups." In Benen's view, then, millions of opponents of health care reform have no reasonable grounds for their opinion. That may satisfy the liberal's attitude of intellectual superiority. But it's also awfully condescending.

There really is something to the notion that liberals cannot comprehend the conservative mind. I think the primary (but not sole) culprit is projection.

Liberals tend to project what they know about themselves on conservatives (who probably do the same thing, which is why conservatives give them far too much credit for being sincere). So when Nancy Pelosi dismisses town hall protests of "Astroturfing" she is revealing what she knows to be true of her own movement. How else do "angry mobs" show up at town hall meetings in the middle of the day unless they are otherwise bussed in? That's how ACORN and SEIU do it. This fails to understand that conservatives aren't natural born protesters (most have day jobs in the private sector), and really have to be animated about something before they'll bother to make their voices heard. Besides, who would do the bussing? Not that it really matters, but I'm unaware of any such efforts by FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, the RNC, or anyone else.

To liberals, political positions are largely a matter of gamemanship to be used to obtain political power, and usually not deeply held principles in and of themselves. This is why they can't fathom that anybody could in good faith, oppose, among other things, the public option. Opposition must be because of narrow-self interest, or hatred of the President.

This is reminicent of the Clinton impeachment battle. In October 1998, House Republican started impeachment proceedings against Clinton, but were rudely rebuffed by voters in November who gave the Democrats a gain of 5 seats in the House. This marked only the second time since the Civil War that the party of the president had gained seats in a midterm election.

Democrats were certain this result would discourage Republicans in the House from moving forward with impeachment proceedings against President Clinton. Surely the Republicans would not want to further anger voters, and so the Democrats went to sleep, only to rewaken in December when they learned that Republicans would not be dissuaded. Democrats still can't believe that Republican's thirst for justice had overrode the obvious electoral risks in going forward with impeachment.

On the other hand, consider Code Pink and other groups protesting the war in Iraq while Bush was President. But under Obama, when we still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention Clinton's war in Kosovo), their silence has been deafening. It's clear that anti-war protests were much less than about aversion to war than a cynical attempt to use the issue to obtain political power.

Steve Benen classifies conservatives into 5 camps: the "partisans", the "tin-foil hats" the "greedy", the "dupes" and the "wonks." This is because he and other liberals cannot comprend that people (aside from the greedy), would actually vote against their own narrow self-interest. That is, if you're going to get free stuff from the government, you are otherwise irrational if you don't simply shut your mouth.

But many of us enraged by Obama and the Democrats' actions since January take a larger view of self-interest. To us, the principles upon which this country was founded (free markets, limited government, rule of law, etc.) are far more important than any free goodies that the Democrats will try to bribe us with.

Likewise, I always thought that Democrats can be divided into three (not necessarily exclusive) groups: A) the arrogant,those who think they know better than us how to run our lives (e.g., Ted Kennedy); B) the stupid, those who actually believe liberal dogma (e.g., Jimmy Carter and maybe Barrack Obama); and C) the cynics, those who don't believe any of that crap but say it because they know that such appeals to the intellectually lazy will get them elected (e.g., Bill Clinton).

Finally, liberals and conservatives fail to understand each other because most liberals think with their left brain, and to them, an argument's greatest appeal is in its emotion. Most conservatives are less suceptible to appeals to emotion and are more interested in facts or logic. As English writer Horace Walpole famously said: "The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy too those who think."

On the death of Edward Kennedy

I won't disparage someone who just became a good democrat.

Public Option - The Road to Serfdom

It can't be put any more simply: If the public option were to pass, we all become serfs. We would be forced into a position as supplicants to the government for our health care. That's assuming that they're even able to keep the promises to provide all with the health care we need (which is extremely doubtful).

I'd sooner give them the business end of a gun before I beg them for health care.

I know that the majority of my posts here deal with the public option in one fashion or another, and I understand the risk of sounding like a johnny one-note. But I believe this to be the fight of our lifetimes. If the public option passes, all is lost. That is why the liberals/socialists are also fighting just as hard on the other side. They understand what's at stake here.

It appears that with each passing day, more Americans are waking up to the idea of what a catastrophe the public option would be. This is encouraging.

It seems that over the weekend, the Obama Administration was waiving the white flag on the public option, only to backtrack after the left-wing of thier party revolted. Maybe walking away from the public option was a very public (and otherwise incompetent) trial balloon. So we haven't won yet. We need to just keep giving voice to the truth.

Public option would mean the end of American exceptionalism

If Congress were to pass, and President Obama ultimately to sign, a health care reform (excuse me, health insurance reform) bill, it would mean the end to American exceptionalism. American would then only refer to the continent we live on. We would have become only another socialist democracy. Of course, this is the unstated goal of the proponents of health care reform.

This health care fight is not about the monetary costs. Even if we had the money, the costs to individual freedom would still be too high.

This fight is not about snitch lists, "un-American" protests, attacking the American people as racist and unpatriotic, Obama's doublespeak, dissimulations and equivocations. Even though that's a fun fight to engage in because the targets are so irresistible.

This fight is about the fact that personal decisions about health care are not appropriate subjects for the body politic.

The term "American exceptionalism" was coined by Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835 book Democracy in America:

The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.

Over the next century and a half, the term American exceptionalism has taken on a broader meaning. Wikipedia explains:

The basis most commonly cited for American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States and its people differ from other nations, at least on a historical basis, as an association of people who came from numerous places throughout the world but who hold a common bond in standing for certain self-evident truths, like freedom, inalienable natural and human rights, democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, civil liberty, civic virtue, the common good, fair play, private property, and Constitutional government. The term is also used by United States citizens to indicate that America and Americans have different states of mind, different surroundings, and different political cultures than other nations, and still others use it to refer to the American dream and the slow yet continuous journey of the people of the United States, sharing a nation and a destiny, to build a more perfect union, to live up to the dreams, hopes, and ideals of its founders . . . .

This brand of American exceptionalism was recognized by Lincoln in the Gettysburg address:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The Left has always been hostile to the idea of American exceptionalism, equating it with jingoism, thus explaining their earnest efforts to destroy it. In April, President Obama was, depending on your point of view, either oddly (for an American President), or characteristically (for a Leftist) dismissive of the notion:

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. . . . There have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

But American exceptionalism has also been used to describe the strange absence of organized socialism in America. In American Exceptionalism: A Double Edged Sword, Seymour Martin Lipset writes:

The United States has stood out among the industrial nations of the world in frustrating all efforts to create a mass socialist or labor party. This fact has occasioned a considerable literature seeking to explain this aspect of American exceptionalism . . . . Karl Marx and Frederich Engels grappled with the "exceptional" aspects of American society. In so doing, the presented a picture of America as a unique society, not very different from the analyses of Tocqueville . . . .

The weakness of socialism in the United States has been a major embarrassment throughout the twentieth century to Marxist theory . . . .

. . . . much of the efforts by Marxists and socialists to account for the failure of the prediction [that America would be an early socialist country] stressed that from sociological and political points of view, the United States was too progressive, too egalitarian, too open, and too democratic to generate massive radical or revolutionary movements on a scale comparable to Europe.

* * *

In analyzing the prospects for socialism in America, Marx and Engels did not limit themselves to economic factors. . . . America was a new nation and society, which lacked many of the institutions and traditions of previously feudal systems and as a result was the most "modern" and purely bourgeois culture. It was also the most democratic country.

The absence of a feudal past and consequent lack of rigid status in the United States in contrast to most of Europe was seen by the Marxist fathers, particularly Frederich Engels, as a source of the political backwardness of the American working class. Thus he wrote in 1890 that "Americans are born conservatives just because America is so purely bourgeois, so entirely without a feudal past, and therefore proud of its purely bourgeois organization."

For the better part of the last century, "health care," (long before it was "health care reform" or most recently, "health insurance reform") has always been the "holy grail" for those desiring to introduce socialism into the U.S. by incremental measures.

In a 1961 speech (the year Obama was born), Ronald Regan, warned:

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people, has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it.

The dangers of health care reform to American exceptionalism are also obvious to some non Americans: Daniel Hannan, a British Member of the European Parliament stated recently:

You might find it slightly odd that I come here as a British politician and [extol] the virtues of the original colonial patriot leaders . . . and the people who wrote your constitution. Let me explain why I do so.

* * *
What scares me, is that I come here, to the place where British freedoms in the traditional sense I thought were still flourishing and I see the same tendencies. . . . I see this massive encroachment of the state into not only what should be the jurisdictions of the 50 states but what should be the sphere of the private citizen. In this of all countries! If you hear a clanking sound, that is the noise of the shades of your founding fathers rattling as they look on what's been done in their name to the country they founded. A country based around the maximum dispersal of power, now seeing in the name of contingency, in the name of emergency, this huge power grab by the government, by the state machine. Nationalization, stimulus packages, bailouts, this huge squeezing of the private sector to engorge the state sector, this expansion of the state payroll . . . in this of all countries! It's extraordinary that I should have to come here as a British politician and observe this phenomenon. All of us in the world benefited because the United States has been a strong, prosperous, free country. And that carries with it some burdens and some responsibilities. And one of them is that we all have an interest in your continued success. So if you want to go down this road to British style socialism, it's our problem as well as yours, my friends. Which is why I feel that I have some place in coming here to give a British response to the tea parties.

And let me say this. The expansions of state power that we have seen under the last two presidents, to be honest, I don't want to be partisan about this, are as nothing compared to what is now being proposed in the field of health care.

Ronald Reagan also stated in his 1961 speech that the pretext of providing health care to those who might not be able to afford it was a "foot in the door," "an excuse to bring about . . . socialized medicine."

Reagan continued:

James Madison said 1788 that "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

In this country of ours took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in world's history, the only true revolution, every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. But here for the first time in all the thousands of years of man's relation to man, a little group of men, the founding fathers, for the first time, established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the god given right and ability to determine our own destiny.

Should the public option pass, everything that makes America exceptional, will cease to exist. Maybe not overnight, but it will be the beginning of an irreversible march into socialism, that we have so far, been able to (more or less) resist.

This is the ultimate design of Obama and the Left, and don't let anyone tell you any different. The stakes could not be higher if we had armed Soviets at our doors.

To paraphrase Patrick Henry, I'd rather die from disease because I am uninsured, rather than submit to government run health care. Really.

They think your're too stupid to make health care decisions

Because they are losing the health care debate on the merits, Democrats have turned toward attacking the public, or at least that part of it who dares to question the annointed's vision of universal health care reform.

In yesterday's USA Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote:

However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue.

* * *

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.

Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.

And, as I wrote on here on August 6 (below), White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that the anger being displayed by people at town hall meetings toward Democratic legislators was "manufactured" by Republicans and special interest groups.


So we've gone from "dissent being the highest form of patriotism," (remember the Iraq War protests?) to dissent being "un-American," and repeatedly dismissed by the White House and the leadership in Congress as manufactured and inauthentic.

But who's really afraid of facts? Pelosi's concerns would ring less hollow if it were really true that she wanted Americans to "learn the facts." Pelosi and Hoyer also write:

The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice. It will allow every American who likes his or her current plan to keep it. And it will free doctors and patients to make the health decisions that make the most sense, not the most profits for insurance companies.

Reform will mean affordable coverage for all Americans. Our plan's cost-lowering measures include a public health insurance option to bring competitive pressure to bear on rapidly consolidating private insurers . . . .

But while this mantra is regurgitated ad nauseum by Obama and Congressional leaders, not even the liberals believe it. Just scan yesterday's blogs and op ed pieces and you will find that honest liberals understand that patient choice will be limited in that private insurance will ultimately be destroyed by the public option (as was its embarrassingly stated purpose caught on video by Barney Frank and President Obama himself). They also understand that costs savings will be obtained through rationing. Further, liberals also appear to understand that adding an additional 50 million patients, without increasing the number of health care professionals, will cause costs to increase.

But according to some, honesty is not a luxury we can afford if were going to get universal healthcare. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a left-wing Democrat and chief deputy whip from the north side of Chicago cited an insurance an insurance company spokesman as saying, "A public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer." to this she added:

My single-payer friends . . . he was right . . . This is not a principled fight. This is a fight about strategy for getting there, and I believe we will.

Clearly another who thinks the ends justify the means.

But there is also an element of elitist snobbery in the statements of Obama, Pelosi and Hoyer. Obama stated: "In don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of the talking." (Sorry, LBJ is dead). Pelosi and Hoyer also state: "Health care is complex." In other words: "You're too stupid to be trusted to make your own decisions. Just relax and enjoy it."

This condescending attitude of "we know better than you" is not limited to politicians. In Friday's Huffington Post Bill Maher wrote:

I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive.

* * *

Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.

* * *

And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls.

* * *

"Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway. And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.

I'll take whatever test Bill Maher wants to give me (before or after a few Long Island Iced Teas), but I doubt that he'll allow me to make any health care policy decisions because they're not the right ones. Now, as a card-carrying misanthrope, I too share the opinion that most people are stupid. But unlike Maher, I would not specifically single out Americans. St. Augustine, in an early 5th Century version of Jay-walking, would ask priests in the Roman Empire to cite 1 of the 10 commandments (which many could not do).

But ultimately, freedom is about making your own choices, be they right or wrong. Save Maher, most people would be happier making their own choices than having them foisted on them by the government.

The paramount objections to health care reform are not costs, but control. Whether each of us will retain the freedom to get an MRI or cervical cancer screening even if a doctor or government bureaucrat says it's unnecessary. It's not their body (where've I heard that before?).

The Democrats seem genuinely surprised (to the point of disbelief) that Americans would become so passionate about such small concerns as personal freedom. But they should be warned. Some Americans will always fight to preserve freedom. No matter what the cost.

Needing to take a shower after North Korea deal?

I was a signer of the petition to free Laura Ling and Euna Lee from their detention in North Korea, and am genuinely glad to see them home.

But now that they are safely home, I feel that I have to ask the following question:

Does anyone else feel dirty or the need to take a shower because of the efforts (and promises) that were made to free them?

Get on Obama's Snitch List!

On Monday, the following note was placed on the White House website from director of new media Macon Phillips:

These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation,” Phillips wrote. “Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Every right thinking American should consider reporting themselves to the Obama snitch team.

You can even visit the website where the entire bill is located - http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.p df. - and then copy and paste a portion of the bill on to the White House snitch list with your comments. Maybe this way, someone will actually be forced to read it.

I love the following letter already sent to the White House by some brave self-reporting soul:

To whomever is in charge until the adults come back to
Washington:

I need to report Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Reid, and a few select others, for submitting frivolous and unconstitutional proposed legislation, and using manipulative tactics and coercion to entice, and/or force, other lawmakers to vote for bills of national significance without first reading it and fully understanding the implication to the American public, i.e., porkulus and health care reform. And worse, deliberately using clouded language to hide the true ramifications of this legislation from the American public. I also want to report the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Timothy Geithner; (I’ve heard from reliable sources that he cheats on his taxes).

I also want to report the Obama administration for encouraging these Soviet style tactics in regards to encouraging Americans to inform directly to their leaders of the free and protected speech of those who may disagree with official Obama policy. Furthermore, I question the motivation of the administration in making this request, and to what purpose the information gleaned would be used. I also question the accuracy of such reports. I suggest that any type of penalty for disagreement would have to be investigated extensively, thereby wasting billions more taxpayer dollars on frivolous bureaucratic BS. I hereby inform you that I do not appreciate the violation of my constitutional right to peaceably disagree with what Washington DC decides to do WITH MY MONEY!

You have my name and e-mail address; also note please that I am a veteran, therefore I believe somebody in your office considers me to be an enemy of the state.

For what it’s worth, I also believe you are all a collection of shameless liars.

I am here waiting to be picked up by the Obamagestapo.

VTY,J. Baker”

Are the children in charge of the White House really that stupid or out of touch? Did they really think we would take this lying down? It's like they can only play checkers, not chess. 100 million of us can all inform on ourselves, copying and pasting portions of the bill (or even Obama's own comments on how a public option will inevitably lead to single payer) - and let them sort it out. By the way, I'd be honored if someone who reads this sees fit to inform on me.

Obama - Palin share some similarities: Bad advisors and thin skins

It occurred to me that President Obama and Sarah Palin share some similarities on at least two points: Bad advisers and thin skins.

This week, the White House, in another unforced error, decided to pick a fight with Drudge (full disclosure, he's a former client of mine) over Drudge's posting of a statement Obama made in 2007 where he concedes that a public option health plan will eventually lead to single payer (something Obama says in another 2003 video that he fully supports).

The White House immediately went on the offensive, stating that Drudge (although not mentioning him by name, even though it was clear that Linda Douglass, Communications Director for the White House Office of Health Reform, was pointing to a headline on the Drudge Report), took the "sentences and phrases out of context and cobbling them together to leave a very false impression."

Even if the White House were right, it would have been a serious mistake to pick a fight with Drudge. But given that Drudge had the goods on Obama, it was just plain stupid. Obama could simply have ignored Drudge, but as it turned out, he egged him on so that Drudge posted an uncut version of the 2003 video, and, you guessed it, it said just what Drudge represented it to be. It was Douglass (and by extension Obama) who were exposed as the liars.

But the White House didn't stop there. Douglass later told the public to report health care reform disinformation to her office. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that the anger being displayed by people at town hall meetings toward Democratic legislators was "manufactured" by Republicans and special interest groups.

Is this wise? To dismiss the anger directed at sweeping changes in the healthcare system as partisan manipulation? To act as if the substance of what you're trying to accomplish is unimportant to voters? How insulting.

Other examples of ill-planned tactics includes Rahm Emmanuel's letters threatening governors to cut off stimulus funds because Republican senators (like John Kyl of Arizona) have the temerity to state that maybe Congress should reconsider how it will spend funds that have not yet been released. Maybe this stuff works in Chicago, but it's a real turn off everywhere else.

In 2006, Obama advisor David Axelrod told Obama that:

You care far too much what is written and said about you. You don't relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched.

Then there's Sarah Palin. In no way do I mean this to be Palin-bashing. I wish her the best. I only hope that this might lead her to seek better advice than she was getting from the obviously not-so-ready-for-prime-time players in Alaska.

There is really no good reason for Palin to respond to every pundit or celebrity that criticizes her. She should have ignored David Letterman and Ashley Judd. (Although I applaud her response to a joke about her by Senator John Kerry saying in effect, of all the governors that could have disappeared (referring to Mark Sanford) why couldn't it have been the Governor of Alaska? To which Palin responded, "Hey John, Why the long face?") I also think she should adopt as her own the really cool nickname ("Caribou Barbie") given to her by Maureen Dowd.

Also, Palin's resignation announcement was a horrible act of self-inflicted cutting:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would beapathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow". Nah, only dead fish "go with the flow.

Oh I see. It is the people who finish their terms who are the quitters. And it is just the opposite for those who quit their terms.

Puhleez. Her advisers should never have either written that line or allowed her to utter it. It's as bad an example of Orwellian newspeak as Obama claiming to mean the opposite of what he plainly said.

I think he's too arrogant to learn from his missteps. I hope she's not. We'll soon see.

Obama Joker poster - Why so serious?

On July 8, 2009, I posted on this blog a piece entitled "Joker in the White House?" I view The Dark Knight as the movie of the decade that deals with the primary issue of our time: How far do we compromise our own values to stop the terrorists?

My primary point in that post was that a quote from The Dark Knight where Alfred the Butler told Bruce Wayne regarding the mob's hiring of the Joker "and in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand" sounded strangely appropriate.

I immediately thought of the situation in this country where voters turned to a man who (unexpectedly, at least to some) appears to be leading the U.S. headlong into socialism.

Apparently this idea was not unique to me. Over the weekend, posters of Obama made up like Heath Ledger's Joker have been appearing in Los Angeles.

Liberals are becoming unhinged. The liberal L.A. Weekly stated: "The only thing missing is a noose." Los Angeles Urban Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson stated that the poster was "politically mean spirited and dangerous." Others have called the poster "racist" because of the white clown make up. Some bloggers have called the poster a "threat to national security," while others wondered "how do we punish this."

For the record, these guerrilla art posters have been appearing in L.A. for decades and have depicted every president since Reagan. Vanity Fair put a similar picture of George W. Bush as the Joker on its July 29, 2008 Politics and Power Blog. Where was the liberal outrage then?

I would like to ask all the liberals wetting themselves over the poster: "Why so serious?"

On further reflection, there are other appropriate lines from The Dark Knight presently applicable to Obama:

"Do I really look like a guy with a plan."

"Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos."

"All you care about is money. This town deserves a better class of criminal and I'm gonna give it to them."

"Some men just want to watch the world burn."

One last question: Is dissent still the highest form of patriotism?

Freedom to choose is "what's so great about health insurance"

In today's L.A. Times, Michael Hiltzik writes "What's so great about health insurance." Here's my response:

To begin, this was one of the most disingenuous articles I've ever read. Hiltzik writes:

members of Congress, some of whom believe that the public option will give the government unwarranted power over healthcare, . . . all of whom enjoy government-provided healthcare that's a lot better than what most of us get.

This is largely untrue. Members of Congress (like other Federal employees) are enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program ("FEHBP"). The FEHBP includes dozen of health insurance choices from straight insurance to HMO's. An analysis of this plan can be found at www.heritage.org/reseach/healthcare/bg1123.cfm.

For an extra fee ($300 for House Members, $600 for Senators, with another $2 million kicked in by taxpayers), Members of Congress get additional perks that could loosely be described as "public health care." There is a Member's only pharmacy in the Capitol and doctors on stand by in case someone busts a gut during a filibuster. They can get many diagnositic procedures without ever having to leave work.

But this plan, of course, is not the one they contemplate giving ordinary Americans. Congress has refused calls to enter the same plan they craft for us.

Hiltzik also writes:

So it's proper to remind ourselves what that American way entails. For if the insurers have proved anything over the last 15 years as the health crisis has gathered speed like an avalanche roaring downhill, it's that they're part of the problem, not the solution.

But the rising costs of healthcare are not created by insurance companies, but by underpayment in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements by the government (which is already a huge portion of health care dollars spent in the U.S.). This is the reason why hospitals charge $10 for a Tylenol tablet. I learned this while working for an oncology clinic for 5 years while in college, which raised its prices because the reimbursements it was getting from Medicare were too low (to which the government says take it or leave it - what's an oncology practice to do if it can't treat old people?)

Hiltzik saves his biggest whoppers for last:

Anyone whose condition is even slightly out of the ordinary knows the sinking feeling of entering health insurance hell -- pre-authorizations, denials, appeals, and days, weeks, even months wasted waiting for resolution.

Does anyone reading this actually know anyone who's had such an experience? I have a mother with post-polio syndrome, who doesn't report these problems even with her HMO. I had a daughter who was born three months premature (whose hospital bill reached almost 1 million dollars), but did not experience anything like this.

Hiltzik also resorts to phony straw man arguments where he says:

Their only alternative right now is the individual market, where insurers scrutinize applicants' medical histories, looking for reasons to turn them down or charge them exorbitant premiums. Have hay fever, asthma, a cholesterol pill prescription? Are you a woman of child-bearing age? You're virtually insurable at an affordable cost.

Is he kidding us? Denying insurance to women of child bearing age? Where is this happening? To whom? Denying coverage to people with hay fever? If this were true, almost no one would have coverage.

The Blue Dogs are not worried about being accountable to insurance companies, but to the voters in their districts, most of whom voted for McCain. Like Charles Krauthammer said about the public's rejection of the House's proposed health care reforms: "The dog won't eat the dog food."

The rank dishonesty of this article proves the arguments Hiltzik makes are pitifully weak. Single-payer is an attempt to socialize (either incrementally or all at once) one-fifth of the U.S. economy under the pretext of insuring the uninsured. I suppose using deceit to obtain universal health care is an example of the ends justifying the means.

What's so great about private health insurance? FREEDOM! If you don't like your insurance company, you can (usually) get another. But if you don't like the government health care, you'll probably have to do without or travel abroad.

So under the proposed plans, one has an unfettered right to an abortion in the first two trimesters, but cannot have an MRI unless the government says so. So what if your doctor doesn't think it's necessary (or maybe he does but the government doesn't)? It's not his body, but yours.

What would Lincoln have thought of Obamacare?

When President Obama took office in January, it was just weeks before the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, so even if the main stream media (why do we still call it that?) didn't hail the new President as the Obamessiah, comparisons to America's greatest president would have nonetheless been inevitable (so much so that CNN even morphed their faces).

In his earliest recorded speech, a 28 year-old Lincoln stated:

It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?--Never! Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.--It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

Which brings us to Obamacare. Neither I, nor most Republicans, object to legislation that would prevent insurers from dropping sick people. I'd even be willing to consider legislation that did not allow insurers to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions if it would kill the public option. (Even this is like buying car insurance after you have an accident).

But as I have written previously, insuring the uninsured is simply a pretext for the creation(either incrementally or all at once) of a public option that would (as Barney Frank frankly admitted) inevitably lead to a single payer system.

This is where the "man of ambition" (you know who I mean) will not emancipate slaves (that's already been done) but "enslave[] freemen."

As Mark Steyn wrote in NRO, this would have the effect of permanently changing the political culture to a left of center one that would redefine the relationship between the citizen and the state in matters as personal and as basic to personal liberty as one's own body. Your health care choices would ultimately be left of to Congress, special interest lobbies and the courts. (One might have the unfettered right to an abortion, but could not get an MRI if she so wanted unless she went to Mexico or China). Are you really free if you can't get an MRI or some other medical treatment, regardless of its usefulness unless the government says so?

Toward this end, Lincoln also warned:

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

We will have committed suicide (both figuratively and literally) by failing to just say no to "free stuff" from those whose design it is to ultimately make us dependent on the government.

Gates', Obama's experiences not unique to black men

Depending on whom you believe, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s arrest was caused because he was either a black man standing up for himself, or, because he was disorderly to officers who responded to a call because a neighbor mistakenly believed that someone was trying to break into Gates' home (actually, Gates was trying to break into his own home).

Obviously, I wasn't there and won't comment on what may have actually happened. But President Obama weighed in on this matter (also acknowledging he wasn't there), saying that it was "stupid" for the Cambridge Police to arrest Gates. Undoubtedly, Obama was recalling his own similar experiences of being followed by security guards or stopped by police that he recounted in his book The Audacity of Hope.

Every black person in America needs to hear this: These experiences are not unique to blacks in America. As anyone can see by the photo next to this post, I am as white as they come. But, as a younger man, I had been pulled over while driving numerous times, for no apparent reason (I was never ticketed). I chalked it up to the fact that I was young, driving late at night.

Even today, if I enter an elevator alone with a woman, and I'm not either shaved or dressed as well as I could be, she almost always instinctively clutches at her purse. Again, this is not because I am black (I'm not), but bacause I'm a large man, who might not be dressed in a completely unthreatening manner.

Crime is an unfortunate fact in America. We should not have to apologize for our instinctive responses to protect ourselves and others (regardless of their race or gender).

Healthcare Obama's Waterloo?

Senator Jim Demint said that health care would be Obama's "Waterloo" moment. Maybe. It's possible that should Obamacare (and for that matter, Cap and Trade) fail to pass, Obama would be so weakened and drained of credibility that he woud become ineffective through the rest of his term. Given the extreme efforts the White House is making to win this one, they apparently share this analysis.

But I think that by thwarting Obama's healthcare amitions, Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans may actually be saving Obama from himself. If Obamacare were to pass, voters would certainly hold the resulting catastrophe against him. People would clearly be unhappy with losing thier employer-sponsored health care plans because they were dumped into a "public- option" plan. Obama would suffer a further loss of credibility because what he promised would not happen would have come to pass. People would also be unhappy about rationed care and a resulting increase in health care costs and the deficit. Not to mention the fact that the alleged need for immediate action on health care (to fix the economy) would have been exposed as phony.

By sweeping Republicans into office in 1994 the American People saved Bill Clinton from himself and he went on to a largely successful presidency. But the permanent damage that would be caused by the current health care proposals are too terrible to permit, even if their passage did ultimately bring Obama to his Waterloo.

Health care reform a pretext for increasing dependence on government

Almost no one, Republicans and conservatives included, has a problem with making health care available to the uninsured.

But with each passing day, it appears that "Health Care Reform" is a pretext not for covering the uninsured, but increasing the government's reach over one-fifth of the economy, and into decisions that were until now, between a doctor and a patient (or a doctor, a patient and an HMO).

What Republicans, conservatives, Blue Dog Democrats and evidently, now a majority of the American People have a problem with is the government's total takeover of the nation's health care system, higher taxes, and increased spending. This is particularly true given that the economy shows no signs of immediate improvement.

What can be done? It wold be easy enough to provide vouchers for the poor so that they could simply just purchase the insurance (although this would still cost money, but not as much as the current proposal before Congress).

Americans enjoy the world's best health care, the problems are costs and access. To increase access, insurance companies should be allowed to cross state lines to sell policies to increase competition (and lower prices). Congress can also allow insurers to write policies that do not cover every conceivable malady. Is it better to go uninsured because you cannot afford a "gold-plated" policy that is required to cover, for example, HIV infection or precription costs for Viagra? Or would it be better to forego these things (particularly if you aren't at risk for HIV or think your plan shouldn't pay for Viagra should you need it)?

Further, any effort to artifically control costs (i.e., price controls), would result in either a healthcare black market, or inability to get healthcare because it would become scarce. Think
1970s era gas lines.

Agressive efforts to replace current employer's health care plans with health savings accounts would likely help control costs. With health savings accounts, employers take the same money that they would spend for insurance premiums, and use it for: (1) a less expensive major medical plan to cover only catistrophic costs; and (2) a savings account (for the remainder) that is used to pay for expenses not covered by the major medical insurance policy.

Because the savings accounts are an asset that each person keeps should they remain healthy, there is an incentive for each person to be the guardian of his own costs. If an unnecessary trip to the emergency room or expensive diagnostic procedure would cause an account withdrawal, then people would be more careful not to purchase these services unless truly necessary. This of course, would reduce costs and further increase access.

This of course is not an exhaustive list of alternative proposals to Obamacare. But it is clear that insuring the uninsured is not the real goal, which is make the government the sole insurer and increase the public's dependence on the Democrats. Who you gonna call when there are no longer any insurers to provide affordable coverage?