Shorter Bill Kristol:

I want to see the government change in Iran, but I have no concrete suggestions for how to accomplish it.

posted by Quiddity at 12/31/2009 11:22:00 PM

Then: (November 19th, 2009 and decades earlier)

Obama, revisiting Nixon, says 9/11 suspect guilty

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama appeared to be taking a page from Richard Nixon’s playbook Wednesday when he seemed to declare the suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed guilty and deserving of the death penalty.

In Nixon’s case, he pronounced cult leader Charles Manson guilty of several murders while Manson was being tried in a California state court for killing actress Sharon Tate and others.

Obama, in a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia, said those offended by the legal rights accorded Mohammed by virtue of his facing a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won’t find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.”

Obama, who is a lawyer, quickly added that he did not mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed’s trial. “I’m not going to be in that courtroom,” he said. “That’s the job of the prosecutors, the judge and the jury.”

Nixon quickly withdrew his remark as well, saying, “The last thing I would do is prejudice the legal rights of any person, in any circumstances.”

Now:

Fox News today found a new reason to criticize President Obama's speech on the attempted bombing of Flight 253: His use of the word "allegedly" to describe the suspected terrorist's actions was "Harvard Law School talking, that's not commander-in-chief talking."

On Fox and Friends today, Fox analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. and anchor Alisyn Camerota criticized the president's address yesterday on Flight 253.

Johnson said that he had some "concern" that "there was a detached reserved way in which he was speaking."

posted by Quiddity at 12/31/2009 04:57:00 AM

Question of the day:

What are Obama and Limbaugh doing together in Hawaii? What plot are they hatching in this exotic locale?


posted by Quiddity at 12/31/2009 02:39:00 AM

Obama, get your ass out there!

Do you know when Obama held his last "traditional" press conference?

Take a moment to guess when.

According to the White House website, the last "News Conference" was on
22 July 2009.

There were on

• 25 September - Remarks by the President at G20 Closing Press Conference
• 13 November - Remarks by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of Japan in Joint Press Conference
• 19 November - Remarks by President Barack Obama and President Lee Myung-Bak of Republic of Korea in Joint Press Conference
• 24 November - Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Singh of India in Joint Press Conference
• 18 December - Remarks by the President at the Morning Plenary Session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference

but those aren't press conferences in the way we generally thing of them: at the White House, focused on the president and national policy. They were "event" related (e.g. visiting dignitary or gathering of officials). Also, with the exception of the one for Singh of India, they were outside of Washington D.C.

Bush was (rightly) criticized for hiding from the press and rarely holding press conferences*.

Why is Obama following in Bush's footsteps?

You can bet that there are liberals and conservatives that want answers from Obama on major policy positions. Some of them involve campaign pledges that he's reneged on. Some of them involve Obama's persistent push for bipartisanship when all it seems to do is slow down the process and result in compromises that leave a substantial portion of the base unhappy.

An Obama speech is a one-way vehicle. A press conference, flawed though it might be, at least allows issues to be raised that otherwise would be ignored. However, judging from the news, it appears Obama will not hold a press conference prior to the State of the Union address. When will the next traditional press conference be held? April 2010, maybe?


* - Those Bush did hold were often "snap" conferences in the morning with little advance notification


posted by Quiddity at 12/30/2009 11:13:00 AM

Newt Gingrich is making sense:

He tweets:

It is time to go to profiling of dangerous people instead of harassing and retsricting the innocent

Absolutely! In fact, this raises an important issue:

Why have the innocent been subjected to any TSA screening?

Really. It's high time that the innocent were left alone. Gingrich's wise council should be heeded.


posted by Quiddity at 12/29/2009 11:04:00 PM

Here's your answer:

Calculated Risk and others (e.g. Dean Baker) are puzzled over Treasury's Christmas Eve announcement that they would provide unlimited support to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the next three years.

A commenter at CR writes:

Once you accept that the goal of the administration is to try to preserve the status quo for cronies by moving all possible bad debts over to taxpayers, no exotic explanation is needed. This is just another logical step.

posted by Quiddity at 12/29/2009 02:59:00 AM

Bob Herbert is right:

He's against the Senate's version of the health care bill because the funding mechanism is (through the mechanism of a tax on "excessive" benefits) to make workers with employer-supplied health care pay more out of their own pocket. That's supposed to reduce health care costs:

Proponents say this is a terrific way to hold down health care costs. If policyholders have to pay more out of their own pockets, they will be more careful — that is to say, more reluctant — to access health services. On the other hand, people with very serious illnesses will be saddled with much higher out-of-pocket costs. And a reluctance to seek treatment for something that might seem relatively minor at first could well have terrible (and terribly expensive) consequences in the long run.

The Senate bill is in line with the Republican's preference for high deductibles and health-savings-accounts.

The Senate bill, if implemented will cut down on health care expenditures, but not costs. If cutting health care expenditures is the goal, then the obvious solution is to eliminate all health care support (from employers or the government) and let everybody pay what they can afford. Which for a lot of people will be zero, or not very much.

More from Herbert:

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, less than 18 percent of the revenue [to pay for the national health care program] will come from the tax itself. The rest of the $150 billion, more than 82 percent of it, will come from the income taxes paid by workers who have been given pay raises by employers who will have voluntarily handed over the money they saved by offering their employees less valuable health insurance plans.

But will those employees even get a pay raise? (which would be taxed, thus reducing the net to the worker)

Herbert:

A survey of business executives by Mercer, a human resources consulting firm, found that only 16 percent of respondents said they would convert the savings from a reduction in health benefits into higher wages for employees. Yet proponents of the tax are holding steadfast to the belief that nearly all would do so.

“In the real world, companies cut costs and they pocket the money,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America and a leader of the opposition to the tax. “Executives tell the shareholders: ‘Hey, higher profits without any revenue growth. Great!’ ”

The tax on health benefits is being sold to the public dishonestly as something that will affect only the rich, and it makes a mockery of President Obama’s repeated pledge that if you like the health coverage you have now, you can keep it.

Those who believe this is a good idea should at least have the courage to be straight about it with the American people.

As noted in a previous post, Jonathan Gruber of MIT, and apparent Democratic policy fave, likes the Senate bill.

The public option is dead. So are other things like Medicare buy-in. But there remains the peculiar Senate bill that doesn't "bend the curve" in any market/competitive way. It's a very Republican-policy approach to the problem: Let the individual shop around for health care - just like for apples at the county fair! - and the market will force profit margins to be thin. That's because (they falsely assert) health care is a standardized, low-information-required-to-assess product that, like cans of peas on the grocer's shelf - gives consumers the opportunity to set the price.


posted by Quiddity at 12/29/2009 02:22:00 AM

Go Rahm!

WSJ:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democrats a win on the health issue will reverse the slide in public opinion, just as passage of another controversial proposal, the North American Free Trade Agreement, lifted President Bill Clinton in the polls ...

In an interview Friday, Mr. Emanuel expressed little concern for the president's standing with the Democratic base. Mr. Emanuel said the liberal wing of the party is already coming back to the fold.

Selling the health care legislation as a "win" for the working/middle class, just like NAFTA, is brilliant.

FACTS/TIMELINE:

Prior to sending it to the House of Representatives, Clinton introduced clauses intended to protect American workers and allay the concerns of many House members. It also required U.S. partners to adhere to environmental practices and regulations similar to its own. The ability to enforce these clauses, especially with Mexico, was considered questionable, and with much consternation and emotional discussion the House of Representatives approved NAFTA on November 17, 1993, by a vote of 234 to 200. The agreement's supporters included 132 Republicans and only 102 Democrats. NAFTA passded the Senate 61-38--not the two-thirds votes needed to pass a treaty, but NAFTA was not a treaty. Clinton signed it into law on December 8, 1993; it went into effect on January 1, 1994.

SEE ALSO: Digby


posted by Quiddity at 12/28/2009 03:10:00 PM

Shorter Jonathan Gruber: (professor of economics at MIT, writing in the Washington Post)

It's far more important to get money for healthcare by reducing tax advantages some in the middle class have, than it is to tax millionaires.

Also, this laugh line: (emp add)

"... most experts and Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation assume that most companies would not end up paying this tax but would instead reduce their insurance spending to below the threshold for the tax. And when firms reduce their insurance generosity, they make it up in higher pay for their workers."

Please note that the bolded statement is not what "most experts and Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation" assume (they only assume inmsurance spending would be reduced). The bolded claim is Gruber's.

He goes on:

By my calculations the excise tax in the Senate legislation will raise U.S. worker wages by a total of $223 billion over the next decade, which would mean about $660 in extra annual earnings per employer-insured household by 2019. Moreover, the vast majority of those wage increases accrue to middle- and lower-income households; 90 percent would go to families with incomes below $200,000.

Get that? A new tax on an existing tax-advantaged benefit (health care) that overwhelmingly goes to the middle class, will ... boost wages! If course, even if Gruber's numbers are correct, he has failed to show that the $660 exceeds the value of (to-be-lost) existing health care benefits.

FOR EMPHASIS: Presenting numbers that show (potential) gains while not presenting numbers that show the value of the loss is dishonest. Gruber also asserts that by "mitigat[ing] this tax preference" by reducing it's value, is therefore not a tax increase. By his reasoning, you could eliminate every deduction in the tax schedule and it wouldn't be considered a tax increase.

This is terrible politics. Telling some members of the middle class that they will have their health care reduced in order to pay for the new system, is political poison. Gruber makes that point explicitly: (emp add)

In the Senate, the [financing for reform] is closed by relying on the "Cadillac tax," a 40 percent assessment on insurance plans with premiums of more than $8,500 for singles and $23,000 for families. In the House, the gap is closed with a surtax on those earning more than $500,000.

The Senate assessment on high-cost insurance plans has much to recommend it, which is why it is almost universally favored by health policy experts. It would reduce the incentives for employers to provide excessively generous insurance, leading to more cost-conscious use of health care and, ultimately, lower spending. In other words, it "bends the curve." It would also be progressive, in that it would take from those with the most generous insurance to finance the expansion of coverage to those without insurance.

This is progressive? Not taxing milionaires, but instead, reining in benefits some in the middle class have over others in the middle class (and over the poor). Only an academic could see it that way.

What other tax advantages are there that give some members of the middle class an advantage? How about the child deduction? Let's get rid of that, shall we? Or mortgage deduction?

But at least Gruber is saying that the House means of funding - a higher tax on (half) millionares - should be avoided. No wonder the Post ran his op-ed.

UPDATE: Lots of comments over at the Post. Mostly negative towards Gruber.


posted by Quiddity at 12/28/2009 01:23:00 AM

Shorter Maureen Dowd:

My brother is insane. Take a look.

posted by Quiddity at 12/27/2009 01:10:00 AM

The Broder error:

From Sunday's op-ed: (emp add)

... an op-ed in The Post by William Daley, his fellow Chicagoan and one of the canniest Democrats I know, [warned] Obama that he is on the verge of losing his hold on the vital center of politics.

His target is the left of his party -- the grass-roots liberal activists who condemn the centrist Democrats sitting in marginal seats for blocking some provisions of health-care reform, for example ...

These groups put heavy pressure on Obama to move his agenda to the left -- even when a Congress with swollen Democratic majorities is balking at the measures that Obama already has endorsed.

One of the primary reasons that the Democrats are "balking" is due to the configuration (non-representative Senate) and rules (e.g. filibuster) that pervent the kind of legislation the left want.

Broder, by being silent on this point, gives the impression that a national-level-representative body, operating with majority rule, is in Washington. In this case Congressional Democrats are normative, and the left (whatever that's supposed to mean) is some marginal group that doesn't deserve the time of day.

Or maybe Broder thinks that the current situation, with it's clear structural biases, is the optimal way to go and the proper means of advancing the commonweal.

You get the feeling that Broder would approve the process that was in place wherever he'd happen to be - in time or space. Broder would approve absolutism in the time of Louis XIV, any parlimentary system in Europe today, oligarchies throughout history, and so on.


posted by Quiddity at 12/26/2009 03:26:00 AM

So much for traditional network television:

By "network", I mean CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, WB/UPN.

There is an article at Salon hailing the 15 best television shows of the decade. Here is the list with the channel it was run on:

1. "The Wire" - HBO
   
2. "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" - Comedy Central
   
3. "The Sopranos" - HBO
   
4. "Six Feet Under" - HBO
   
5. "Arrested Development" - FOX
   
6. "Deadwood" - HBO
   
7. "Mad Men" - AMC
   
8. "Survivor" - CBS
   
9. "The Shield" - FX Network
   
10. "The Simpsons" - FOX
    
11. "Everybody Loves Raymond" - CBS
    
12. "Sex and the City" - HBO
    
13. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - WB/UPN
    
14. "Friday Night Lights" - NBC
    
15. "Battlestar Galactica" - Sci Fi

The Salon list was chosen as a proxy for where good television is (I have watched few of these shows and have no dog in this fight). What's remarkable is how many in the list of 15 are programs that aired on HBO: 5.

Only 6 of the 15 are from any of the five non-cable networks. That's remarkable.

The recent move by NBC to put Jay Leno in the 10:00 PM slot five days a week may be part of a trend: non-cable networks becoming mostly "safe" talk shows. The cables can deal with more adult fare, and have stronger language. Maybe that's where the quality dramas will all end up.


posted by Quiddity at 12/24/2009 08:46:00 PM

Good to see that noted Catholic author James Carroll is speaking out:

He has written an essay on Pope Benedict's move to making ius XII a saint:

The Pope's Big Holocaust Lie

There are various charges against Pius XII for his behavior during World War Two, and some can be countered (unconvincingly, in my view) by saying that the Pope was constrained in what he could do.

But there are two items that is no defense for:

• The Pope's failure to restrict priests from ministering to those Germans and Poles who were rounding up and killing Jews throughout the conflict.
  
  
• The Pope's failure to speak out after Rome was secured by the Allied troops in June of 1944

Instead of arguing about Pius' 1942 Christmas address, or what responsibility - if any - he has for the Vatican's operation of the "Rat Line", or realpolitik dynamics, the two bulleted items (above) are pristine examples of Pius XII not giving a damn about the Jew's fate.


posted by Quiddity at 12/24/2009 01:26:00 PM

This is the kind of financial innovation that makes the U.S. economy work better:

Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won (NYT)

Peddling rickety mortgage-derived securities and then holding instruments that make money when said securities flop, is how you get money to valued start-ups in computers, communication, energy, and biotechnology.

Also this:

... insurance companies, whose annuities provide income for many retirees, collectively paid $2 billion for Goldman's risky high-yield bonds.

Among the bigger buyers: Ambac Assurance purchased $923 million of Goldman's bonds; the Teachers Insurance and Annuities Association, $141.5 million; New York Life, $96 million; Prudential, $70 million; and Allstate, $40.5 million, according to the data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

So there were other benefits as well.


posted by Quiddity at 12/24/2009 07:45:00 AM

Lowest since ...

As Atrios reminds us:

"... as an indicator of the broader economy, new home sales are much more important than existing home sales"

And from Calculated Risk:

In November 2009, a record low 25 thousand new homes were sold (NSA); the previous record low was 26 thousand in November 1966.

That's right 1966.

On the other hand, as prominent figures reassure us, the recession is over.


posted by Quiddity at 12/23/2009 12:50:00 PM

This guy should be pilloried:

Alan Greenspan:

Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chief, warned today on the risks US social programmes - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - pose to the US’s ability to finance its deficits in testimony prepared for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security.

For more than two centuries, we have been able to hold the level of U.S. federal debt to well below our long-term capacity to borrow.

But for the next decade or two, on some reasonable sets of assumptions, our borrowing cushion shrinks significantly, threatening to test our capacity to raise funds to finance unprecedented deficits.

The challenge to contain this threat is more urgent than at any time in our history, in part because of today’s limited flexibility of adjustment, especially of entitlement spending whose constituencies are well entrenched.

Had the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts - which Greenspan supported - not been implemented, then the deficits would have been reduced (or even slightly positive for a bit). That would have allowed new debt to be issued while the Social Security bonds are being redeemed. And no budget crunch - at least as far as Social Security is concerned - would take place. A budget crunch that now appears to require higher taxes, decreased non-entitlement federal spending, or defaulting of SS bonds.

Greenspan knew, and knows this. His advocacy of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was designed to cripple a sound mechanism for handling the Baby Boom demographic as it (a) first paid in, and (b) later draws out, retirement funds.


posted by Quiddity at 12/22/2009 06:19:00 AM

What Atrios left out:

Atrios has a good catch with this:

In the fine print of the form homeowners fill out to apply for Obama's program, which lowers monthly payments for three months while the lender decides whether to provide permanent relief, borrowers must waive important notification rights.

This clause allows banks to reject borrowers without any written notification and move straight to auctioning off their homes without any warning.

That's what happened to Evangelina Flores, the owner of a modest 902 square-foot home in Fontana, Calif. She completed a three-month trial modification, and made the last of the agreed upon monthly payments of $1,134.60 on Nov. 1. Her lawyer said that in late November, Central Mortgage Company told her that it would void her adjustable-rate mortgage, which had risen to a monthly sum above $2,000, and replace it with a fixed-rate mortgage.

"The information they had given us is that she had qualified and that she would be getting her notice of modification in the first week of December," said George Bosch, the legal administrator for the law firm of Edward Lopez and Rick Gaxiola, which is handling Flores' case for free.

But he left out this part of the story: (emp add)

Flores, 58, a self-employed child care worker, wired her December payment to Central Mortgage Company on Nov. 30, thinking that her prayers had been answered. A day later, there was a loud, aggressive knock on her door.

Thinking a relative was playing a prank, she opened her front door to find two strangers handing her an eviction notice.

"They arrived real demanding, saying that they were the owners," recalled Flores. "I have high blood pressure, and I felt awful."

Court documents show that her house had been sold that very morning to a recently created company, Shark Investments. The men told Flores she had to be out within three days.

Shark Investments!


posted by Quiddity at 12/19/2009 06:27:00 PM

Congress has invented the Perpetual Motion Machine:

News:

The Senate passed another extension of unemployment benefits and Cobra insurance premiums this morning as part of the Defense spending bill. This bill had already passed the House.

In addition to the defense spending, the bill contained an extension of the date for qualification for existing tiers of unemployment benefits to Feb. 28th 2010 (previously only those losing benefits by Dec 31, 2009 qualified). Also the Cobra insurance premium subsidy was extended for two months.

This issue will be revisited early next year for those losing benefits after February.

This thing never stops!


posted by Quiddity at 12/19/2009 09:11:00 AM

Time for something cheerful:

Prisencolinensinainciusol (full version)

Comments on a partial clip here.


posted by Quiddity at 12/19/2009 05:15:00 AM

Time capsule:

Anybody remember the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988?

The wonks said it was good policy. They were right.

But the politics was a different story. Seniors started to see (or expected to see) increases in what they had to pay. They revolted. Representative Dan Rostenkowski was literally pushed around.

The legislation was repealed. Rostenkowski famously said, "This House is in full retreat."

That's what happens when policy wonks disregard the political angle. Here is Atrios today on the health care legislation: [1, 2]

Whatever the merits of the bill, and they exist, the politics are going to be horrible.

... on most subjects [public reaction is] the first thing [people working on legislation] think of, both about the policy itself and the myriad imaginary attack ads that can be run based on the policy. If voters don't like this thing, it'll likely be repealed before most of it even takes effect, either because Republicans take over or because frightened members of a Dem controlled Congress do so.

posted by Quiddity at 12/18/2009 11:55:00 AM

Two views:

Via the Washington Monthly: (quoting another source)

Ronald Brownstein, for one, is actually trying to claim that Howard Dean opposes the bill because he's a "wine track" Democrat who doesn't lack insurance and hence has the luxury to indulge in ideological struggles.

Brownstein writes that Dean and the "digital left" are able to "casually dismiss" the bill because "they operate in an environment where so few people need to worry about access to insurance."

Via Ian Welsh: (quoting another source)

... I think I’m starting to see a pattern: among liberals the academics and the people with secure jobs support it (even Krugman, sigh), and the people like Ian Welsh who’ve actually been poor, or who know people who’ve been poor, oppose it.

posted by Quiddity at 12/18/2009 11:23:00 AM

Google gripe:

Anybody noticed that in the last week or so, if you go to Google's home page, you don't see the top-line menu items until you bring the mouse into the canvas
- at which point the text fades in. Why is Google presenting the user with less information until a mouse action is performed?

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UPDATE: In comments, "Anonymous" provides a link to a Google page justifying the change:

"For the vast majority of people who come to the Google homepage,
they are coming in order to search, and this clean, minimalist approach gives them
just what they are looking for first and foremost. [...] Since most users who are
interested in clicking over to a different application generally do move the mouse
when they arrive, the "fade in" is an elegant solution that provides options to
hose who want them, but removes distractions for the user intent on searching.

Here's my response:

Thanks for the link.

I do not think that the "minimalist approach" has any value whatsoever because the
Google search box is very clearly identifiable even after the text fades in. It's
not as if the page is full of junk (e.g. Yahoo home pages) that requires scanning all
over the place to find the search box.

Also, the fade-in is too slow.

Here is what Google has to say: (my bold)

in the end, the variant of the homepage we are launching today was positive or
neutral on all key metrics, except one: time to first action. At first, this worried
s a bit: Google is all about getting you where you are going faster — how could we
launch something that potentially slowed users down? Then, we realized: we want
users to notice this change... and it does take time to notice something (though in
this case, only milliseconds!). Our goal then became to understand whether or not
over time the users began to use the homepage even more efficiently than the control
group and, sure enough, that was the trend we observed.

They admit that it's slower, but want the user to notice the change - presumably to
make them aware of the other search options (e.g. images).

You could do that by putting the links up immediately and then flashing the
background briefly for each category (or underline or whatever).

Also, the claim that it takes only milliseconds is misleading. I time it at about 50
ms, but if you have a PC under heavy load (or swapping), the process may not come
back to execute the fade-in in the time requested - resulting in a slower-to-see-
links-experience. In that scenario, I am forced to wait until I see the link and then
I move to it (in "human time") But if I see it immediately, I can move the mouse
to the link (in the slower "human time"), by then the PC may be finished
handling the other process requests, which means I don't notice any delay.

The Google change is not optimal and their reasoning for it is flawed.

Others are not impressed with it. Here are some blog entries w/comments on it: 1, 2, 3

UPDATE: There is a petition to get Google to give users the option to turn off the fade-in here.

UPDATE2: On the other hand, you have fans of the fade-in (when the mouse enters any part of the canvas) writing this:

Great idea. I would say it would even be nicer if the fade in only
comes when the mouse is hovered over the area where the extra information is shown.

Which would mean moving the mouse over the entire canvas to discover whatever links were there to fade-in.
Some people are impressed with visual dazzle and don't care about efficiency.


posted by Quiddity at 12/17/2009 11:36:00 AM

Split:

Over at Kos:

Has anyone else noticed that the split in the progressive blogosphere between those who are saying "it's a good bill in spite of everything" (Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Josh Marshall, to name a few) and those who just can't bring themselves to support Liebercare (Markos and Digby come to mind, among bloggers who have been at it since 2003) is eerily similar to the split between those who grudgingly backed the invasion of Iraq and those who fought against the war seven years ago?

To a large degree, it's the same cast of characters, with the same tone to the arguments. It's the policy wonks versus the activists. On the wonky side, there is (and was, in 2003) a resigned sense that this isn't an ideal action, but that we don't live in an ideal world, and that consequently we should suck it up and support an imperfect initiative. On the other, there is (and was, in 2003) a resistance born of an awareness that Congressional Democrats will more often than not -- and often unintentionally -- screw themselves and the country, out of a misguided belief that powerful forces with agendas very different from that of the Democratic Party can be managed and trusted.

It's been long enough since the invasion of Iraq that the two camps - the credulous wonks and dirty fucking hippies - have reconciled (and even interbred), but the dynamic that separated us in 2003 is the same. The fundamental difference in approach is still there. When all is said and done, the wonks trust Democratic politicians to protect our interests. The activists don't. That doesn't mean that we don't like certain Democratic politicians, or that we don't cherish our wonky brethren. It just means that we're not willing to get fooled again.

This reminds me more of the Hillary Clinton / Barack Obama split from spring of 2008.

Drum, Yglesias, Klein, and Marshall were, in varying degrees, pro 2003 Iraq war. Were they "policy wonks"? Hard to see it that way since any wonky-ness would have focused on the complete failure of the U.N. inspectors to find WMD. At least that was where I was. It was my view that the more "emotional" bloggers were pro-war.

As a rule, Kos is a pragmatist, and I consider myself one too. Yet BooMan is pragmatic and he's in favor of the Senate bill. What's going on?

I think it boils down to an assessment of the political ramifications of the Senate bill. I think it will be a big problem, what with the forced mandate and potential for millions to experience insurance premium hikes.


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2009 10:03:00 PM

Contra Nate Silver:

Over at FiveThirtyEight, Silver has a list of questions for those who are disenchanted with the Senate health care bill. I want to focus on one of them:

9. If the idea is to wait for a complete meltdown of the health care system, how likely is it that our country will respond to such a crisis in a rational fashion? How have we tended to respond to such crises in the past?

See Great Depression / New Deal: securities regulation, Social Security, minimum wage, bank reform, farm programs, public utilities.

UPDATE: Kos has a reply to all 20 questions. His reply for #9:

No, the idea is to get the best possible legislation today. We may not be able to get something with reconciliation before Obama's State of the Union Address, but I don't think something this important should be beholden to something as trivial as a speech, even one as important as the SOTU.

Speech-based deadlines seem foolish. The White House is of the opinion that an Obama speech results in substantial change. Maybe on the campaign trail, but this year have the Cairo, September-health-care, or Oslo speeches resulted in anthing tangible?

The Kos post is worth a read. Succinct answers to each of Nate Silver's questions.


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2009 07:44:00 PM

Guess who was on Charlie Rose last night?

Ezra Klein.

How about that? Of course, if you watch Charlie Rose then you know that he is ultra-friendly to corporate interests. He's had Eric Prince of Blackwater on as well as other corporate big-wigs.

Why did he have Ezra Klein on? Because Ezra supports the Senate health care bill, and that's good for corporate interests.

Rose doesn't have people on - like Howard Dean - that represent progressive policies. Klein is, on the whole, a guy with progressive instincts, but in this case his support for the bill is misguided and a bonanza for health care corporations. That's why he was on the show.


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2009 06:47:00 PM

John Cole is wrong:

He writes: (emp add)

I’ve heard several bobbleheads state that “liberals and progressives want to go back to the drawing board” with health care, and this is just ridiculous. There is no drawing board to go back to. Period.

The notion that they could just go back, rewrite the bill, and somehow this time sneak in a medicare buy-in or public option is laughable, and there is no chance that, in an election year, Pelosi would be able to get the votes to get the bill we have now through the house again, let alone a more progressive one.

So it should be clear. If you are thinking that you can kill this bill and come back with a better one, you are fooling yourself. It is this, or it is nothing for decades, and that is why folks like Rockefeller and Sherrod Brown and Ron Wyden and other folks are sucking it up and still supporting the bill.

Re the bolded statements:

• Not many are saying a Medicare buy-in or public option can be included. Most bloggers opposed to the Senate bill are objecting to the mandate.
  
  
• The trajectory of health care costs and coverage is such that if no bill is passed this year (or next), it would still be a salient political issue in the near future.

posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2009 06:42:00 PM

John Podesta misleads:

He lays out arguments in favor of the health care legislation (Senate version), but it is filled with deceptions.

"1. Largest Expansion Of Coverage Since Medicare’s Creation: Thirty-one million previously uninsured Americans will have insurance."

Saying Americans "will have insurance" is misleading in that it implies that the insurance will just show up, sans cost. Americans will be forced to purchase insurance.

"2. Low/Middle Income Americans Will Not Go Without Coverage: For low-income Americans struggling near the poverty line, the bill represents the largest single expansion of Medicaid since its inception. Combined with subsidies for middle income families, the bill’s provisions will ensure that working class Americans will no longer go without basic health care coverage."

Same thing. This coverage is taking place because people are required to get coverage. The mention of Medicaid expansion and other subsidies makes it appear that it's all paid for by the government, but it's not. And anybody familiar with Medicaid knows that it's a system that demands that people be very poor - or get that way by selling assets (including 401Ks!). Medicaid is a nightmare, and should not be a big part of a comprehensive national health care plan.

"3. Insurance Companies Will Never Be Able to Drop or Deny You Coverage Because You Are Sick: Insurers can no longer deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition. They can’t rescind coverage or impose lifetime or annual limits on care. Significantly, the bill also ends insurer discrimination against women — who currently pay as much as 48% more for coverage than men — and gives them access preventive services with no cost sharing."

The insurance companies will adjust premiums up to account for these new enrollees - and pass that on to everybody else (since they will still want to make a healthy profit, and there are no cost controls). Podesta's failure to mention that is a major mislead.

"4. Lowers Premiums For Families: The Senate bill could lower premiums for the overall population by 8.4%. For the subsidized population, premiums would decrease even more dramatically. According to the CBO, “the amount that subsidized enrollees would pay for non-group coverage would be roughly 56 percent to 59 percent lower, on average than the nongroup premiums charged under current law.”"

Let's get this straight. There is a population that currently pays nothing for healthcare (they don't have any) and then this population will be subsidized when they are forced in. But a subsidized premium is still larger than no premium at all. Podesta is comparing subsidized premiums with nongroup premiums - which is of no interest to anybody.

What irks is this. Podesta - and other - are saying that people will "have" insurance or "get" insurance, which is not precise enough. They have/get it because they are forced to have/get it.

The Republicans used the same tricks with language by touting "freedom" and "access" which are nice-sounding words. But "freedom" means an unregulated environment where the powerful dominate, and "access" doesn't mean you get something (we all have "access" to yacht clubs, but we can't afford to join).


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2009 04:07:00 PM

You can't make this up:

Bernanke Named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’

His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. ...

He is not ... a typical Beltway power broker.

Etc.

Yglesias writes:

Time giving Ben Bernanke it’s Person of the Year honors seems to me to say a lot about where we are as a society.

No kidding.

Yglesias continues: (orig emp)

... it demonstrates a very specific class skew—extraordinary intervention into the market place just long enough to fix the situation from the point of view of asset-owners while leaving wage-earners holding the bag. (...)

In a lot of respects it strikes me as the most fitting possible choice, an eloquent statement about where America is in 2009.

posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2009 06:40:00 AM

Looks like Ugly Joe did a straightforward double-cross:

E. J. Dionne:

The Medicare buy-in compromise was not announced until it had been cleared with Lieberman. I was in close touch with the negotiations at the time, and everyone involved thought Lieberman was on board. I don’t think they misunderstood what Lieberman was telling them, since his own public statement at the time, while cautious, was positive. “I am encouraged by the progress toward a consensus on proposals to send to the Congressional Budget Office to review,” he said on Dec. 9. “It is my understanding that at this point there is no legislative language so I look forward to analyzing the details of the plan and reviewing analysis from the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.” But of course Lieberman did not so “look forward” to the Congressional Budget Office analysis that he actually waited to see it. He dropped the hammer on the buy-in before the analysis appeared. This is not about substance.

Is it fair to say that Lieberman is a Quisling?


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2009 12:53:00 AM

I'm with Kos, who writes:

Remove mandate, or kill this bill

Mandates without cost containment is political poison.


posted by Quiddity at 12/15/2009 06:44:00 PM

Obama hurt the 2010 election prospects:

BooMan writes: (emp add)

One positive that we can take out of this [health care legislation drama] is that Lieberman just provided a bit of a rallying cry and rationale for electing more Democratic senators. If we can net three or four more Democratic senators in the 2010 midterms, we won't have to suffer through the kinds of senatorial vetoes that stymied the reform effort in this Congress. (...)

Netting Senate seats is certainly not assured, but we at least have a clear reason to hope it happens and to work towards that goal.

Remember what Yglesias wrote last month? (bold emp add)

The Obama team seems to me to have consistently underrated the extent to which the ability to play offense in the 2010 elections would determine the fate of their legislative agenda. Or to look at it another way, they placed an undue amount of emphasis on outreach and too little on inspiring fear, as a potential way to gain bipartisan support for a legislative agenda. Thus instead of encouraging Tom Vilsack, Kathleen Sebelius, and Janet Napolitano to run for GOP-held 2010 Senate seats, he appointed all three to his cabinet. And in addition to the one Senate seat left open by his own victory, he jeopardized safe seats in New York, Colorado, and Delaware by bringing Hillary Clinton, Ken Salazar, and Joe Biden into his administration. Then on top of that, Democrats failed to get the strongest possible candidate for a very winnable North Carolina race, and couldn’t persuade Houston Mayor Bill White to run for Senate rather than Governor.

Right now, the Obama administration is looking weak and not politically adroit.


posted by Quiddity at 12/15/2009 05:51:00 PM

Good question:

A commenter in a Marc Ambinder post asks:

I do wonder though: has anyone in the WH, most notably the President himself, spoken to Lieberman?

After all, Obama was the one who made sure Lieberman kept his seniority and the chairmanship of his committee. Did Obama call him and say "You owe me one."? Or is the WH's position to sit back and let the weak leadership of the Senate Dems handle one of the most important items on their legislative agenda.

posted by Quiddity at 12/15/2009 03:57:00 PM

What kind of deadline is this?

There are reports that the White House is pushing to have the Senate pass a health care bill by Christmas. From the NYTimes:

With one week before his Christmas vacation is scheduled to begin, President Obama is calling the entire Senate Democratic caucus to the White House on Tuesday.

The president is seeking to push – or prod? – Democrats to coalesce around a bill and pass it before Christmas Eve. The meeting marks the first time during the tumultuous health care debate that Mr. Obama has invited the Democrats to the White House.

The meeting, confirmed by administration officials and Senate aides, is designed to increase the momentum around the legislation. But it still remains an open question how involved Mr. Obama intends to get in the debate.

When he went to Capitol Hill a week ago to meet with the Democratic caucus, he did more listening than talking. That may not be the case on Tuesday, officials said, with Mr. Obama poised to begin pushing in hopes of getting his signature domestic priority accomplished before the holidays.

Why does that matter to anyone? It's not the final bill and if you want to point to something, the House already passed a bill weeks ago.

I think that the White House is pressing for passage in the Senate by Christmas in order to put the squeeze on Harry Reid, so that he is forced to take the Lieberman route and not try to work something else out (perhaps with Snowe).
posted by Quiddity at 12/15/2009 01:56:00 PM

Follow Dean:

When it comes to evaluating the pending health care legislation, with all its complexities, it's nice to have someone experienced with legislation and health care as a guide. For me that person is Howard Dean. And here's his latest:

Howard Dean: “Kill The Senate Bill”

So that's where I am as well.

MORE: John Cole:

As far as I can tell, the Senate bill has been neutered down to the following changes:

1.) No more recission

2.) No more denial because of pre-existing conditions.

That pretty much is about all I can think of… The bill does nothing to curb costs, allows insurance companies to place caps on payments, bans drug re-importation, does nothing to foster competition.

Basically, unless I am missing something, this is basically the gift of 30 million or more customers at the cost of, well, very little. Maybe Dean is right.

posted by Quiddity at 12/15/2009 01:13:00 PM

Here you go ...

The Joe Lieberman Debate: Good Jew or Bad Jew? Or Not So Bright?


posted by Quiddity at 12/15/2009 04:57:00 AM

Split the bill !

Ezra writes:

Joe Lieberman's compromise, it seems, is no compromise. And he's infuriated so many Senate and House Democrats, not to mention so many in the Democratic base, that his bitter reversal might have made the prospects of any compromise a lot more remote. (...)

Democrats will look toward Olympia Snowe at this point, but if nothing works out, they may have to open the question of reconciliation once more. The irony is that the strange workings of the reconciliation process would strip the bill of the parts that Lieberman, Snowe and others favor and replace them with the exact policies they oppose. (...)

... reconciliation, which short-circuits the filibuster, can only be used for legislation that directly affects the federal budget. Anything that "indirectly" affects the budget -- think insurance regulations, like the ban on preexisting conditions -- would be ineligible.

What would be eligible? Well, Medicare buy-in, for one thing. Medicaid expansions. The public option. Anything, in short, that relies on a public program, rather than a new regulation in the private market. That means we'd probably lose the regulations on insurers, many of the delivery-side reforms, the health insurance exchanges, the individual mandate and much else.

Put the Medicare-whatever/public option in one bill. Get it through reconciliation. Put the other stuff, private market regulation, in another bill. Get that through the 60-votes/even-Lieberman-and-Snow-will-vote-for-it path.

This has got to be an option Reid is thinking about.


posted by Quiddity at 12/14/2009 03:43:00 PM

Lieberman thoughts:

• The discovery of the video from 3 months ago of Joe saying he'd be for a Medicare buy-in, may be the tipping point as far as establishment Democrats in DC are concerned. Nobody will say it in public, but those Democrats will put Joe on their shit list.
  
  
• Where are the citizens of Connecticut on Joe? The local press? What's Lieberman polling in the nutmeg state?
  
  
• Liberman's Jewishness, or rather his professions of extreme piety, will start to be a factor. On what religious grounds do you deceive (with promises of compromise later revoked) or deny (coverage for many who otherwise would die)? Where are the rabbis on this?
  
  
• The anger towards Lieberman is intense. Some comments on various blogs are going so far as to wish him and his wife a painful death due to cancer. Instead of an amorphous group of Republicans, Joe Lieberman may become the one person who, in the minds of many, derails health care or eliminates important provisions. That's a dangerous place to be.
  
  
• It's hard to see how Lieberman won't follow the trajectory of Zell Miller.
  
  
• The Lieberman episode must be a catalyst towards elimination of the de facto 60-vote threshold to do business in the Senate. The Senate is already non representative of the general will since votes are not allocated according to population, and tossing on an additional supermajority hurdle makes any popular legislation hard to get out. Up until 15 years ago, various traditions prevented the abuse of Senate procedures - secret hold, blue slips, filibuster - but ever since Gingrich, they've been abandoned (the traditions of moderate usage). A new set of rules will have to be implemented to get the upper chamber working again.
  
  
• There are blog wars heating up in "respectable places" (e.g. Ezra Klein vs. Charles Lane in the Post [1,2]). Battle lines are being drawn. This is reminiscent of the situation before the Iraq war when discussion and compromise was no longer possible. That means it's going to boil down to a no-talk/just-get-the-votes situation. At that point, arguments are a waste of time and the (inherently conservative) procedures in Congress are all that matter.

posted by Quiddity at 12/14/2009 03:07:00 PM

Chile's Murdoch:

In the news:

Chile: Billionaire beat leftists, now faces runoff

Right-wing billionaire Sebastian Pinera beat three leftists in Sunday's presidential election but failed to obtain a majority, setting up a runoff against a veteran of the coalition that has ruled Chile for two decades of democracy. (...)

A runoff win by Pinera, 60, would install a right-wing government in Chile for the first time since Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship. But in a region now dominated by leftists, Pinera can't find the votes without persuading leftists to take a chance on him. (...)

Pinera ranked No. 701 with $1 billion on the Forbes magazine world's richest list. He built his fortune bringing credit cards to Chile, and his investments include Chile's main airline, most popular football team and a leading TV channel.

Sports and media is what Murdoch uses to get an audience, and then that power is used to influence politics.

Billionaire media figures with political heft: Berlusconi, Pinera, Murdoch. This is a significant trend.


posted by Quiddity at 12/13/2009 05:34:00 PM

"Today everybody agrees the recession is over."

- Lawrence Summers on ABC's This Week (13 Dec 2009)

You may now go out and celebrate.

Summers also said:

"[Obama] is going to have a serious talk with the bankers."

That's how you get progressive policies implemented!


posted by Quiddity at 12/13/2009 08:12:00 AM

"getting it" is not the objective:

Obama on 60 Minutes: (emp add)

"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street . . . What's really frustrating me right now is that you've got these same banks who benefited from taxpayer assistance who are fighting tooth and nail with their lobbyists ...up on Capitol Hill, fighting against financial regulatory control. . . Which I think tells me that the people on Wall Street still don't get it...They're still puzzled why it is that people are mad at the banks. Well, let's see. You guys are drawing down 10, 20 million dollar bonuses after America went through the worst economic year...in decades and you guys caused the problem ...

It is folly to expect reform on the presumption that key - and powerful - people "get it". That's why we have government, to craft regulations and fashion policy that insures that people won't suffer unnecessarily (or unfairly benefit).

Can you imagine FDR being passive in the face of the Depression? Actually, Herbert Hoover's approach was that, absent government guidance and coercion, businesses would strengthen labor's hand (flattening the distribution of income) and expand operations.

Obama has dome some things, with the stimulus and unemployment expansion (largely a Congressional effort), but when it comes to Wall Street, he seems to think that they will act unselfishly - which is a forlorn hope.


posted by Quiddity at 12/12/2009 10:55:00 PM

Productivity stats:

Over at the Big Picture is a long post (worth reading in full) that has this interesting observation:

I want to quote a section from Dennis Gartman’s letter this morning. It illustrates why we have to be very careful how we use government data. Too often, we think the data is straightforward math and simply draws on the underlying data sources. The reality is that it is anything but. To wit:

“A PROBLEM AT THE VERY HEART OF DATA GATHERING: Recently in Washington a rather large number of economists from academia and from government met to try to hash out a problem with data gathering that has become more and more serious here in the US and has more and more distorted how we value the American economy itself. At heart is how imports into the US are accounted for.

“For example, when a part for perhaps $100 is imported from China and is used in an American automobile … something that happens more and more and more often these days … the stats show that the finished car is American-made because it was assembled here in the US and in the process the US GDP is raised by that same $100 when in fact it should have been deflated by that figure instead. In the process, American workers who might in the past have made the part in question are no longer doing so and are obviously made redundant, hence a job or jobs is lost.

“The unemployment data then ‘finds’ that unemployed worker and accounts for him or her, but the car that is assembled does not, and when it is produced and sold and its value makes its way through the system, it appears that productivity has risen … and rather dramatically so, when in fact it has not. As one of the economists attending that meeting said,

” ‘We don’t have the data collection structure to capture what is happening in a real-time way, or what is being traded and how it is affecting workers. We have no idea how to measure the occupations being ‘offshored’ or what is being ‘inshore.’ (...)

” ‘What we are measuring as productivity gains may in fact be nothing more than changes in trade instead.’

“This is not an insignificant problem, for as the US has become more and more international in its trading scope the data has become more and more important. Back in the 1975, imports into the US were only 5% of our total economic activity, but in recent years that has swelled to 12%, excluding imports of energy. Thus, many imports into the US are being, and have been, and will continue to be, valued as though they were manufactured here in the US, when indeed they were manufactured abroad and merely assembled here in the US.

“In autos, in computers, in appliances, this is a large and growing problem, but this is a problem too in the areas of services. For example, when an accounting firm out-sources some of its number-crunching to an accounting firm in India, for example, and then bills a client here in the US in US dollar terms, the work is done abroad but billed here and the work is recorded as having been done in the US, adding to US GDP when clearly that is not the case. It happens too, these days, more and more often in medicine, when patient files are sent to India or somewhere else abroad for diagnosis and the patient is billed here in the US as if the ‘work’ had been done here. GDP rises here in the US when it really should have been accounted for in India; productivity goes up; GDP goes up, when in reality neither has happened. ‘ Tis a conundrum.”

There's been a lot of talk about improved productivity and increased GDP - while employment is stagnant or declining. It appears that we need more accurate measures of what's happening in the domestic economy and not be mislead by "end result" statistics.

ALSO: I do some technical support for a doctor who is involved with pre-analysis of medical records in India (which he gives the final review) and that kind of work is substantial and it's expanding fast.


posted by Quiddity at 12/12/2009 09:33:00 AM

Google's Chrome browser (3.0.195.33):

Okay as a backup, but why all the fuss? It is another example of presenting less information to the user:

• No full Page Title unless you hover the mouse over the tab.
• No status bar. If you hover over a link, it is displayed in a kind of thin pop-up at the bottom, but if you then right click it disappears (before you decide to release - or not - for a new tab or new window.
• Favorites/bookmarks are pulled down from the right side of the window, instead of the left (as is the way in FF and MSIE). Why the change?

For some reason rendering a page - even one already viewed - is much slower than Firefox. Click on a tab and it's whitespace for seconds(yet the window/tab is "active" in that you can pull down bookmarks or tools menus). And connecting to sites seems to be different; lots more timeouts. This is on an XP machine.

The task/process relationship is obscure (e.g. 6 tasks and 9 processes).

Not many options (like warn on close multiple tabs).

After using it for many hours, one tends to prefer Firefox, even if FF crashes every so often. Firefox feels lighter, even though it uses much more memory - to the point where swapping takes place.


posted by Quiddity at 12/10/2009 12:10:00 AM

Paul Volker:

In the London Times:

One of the most senior figures in the financial world surprised a conference of high-level bankers yesterday when he criticised them for failing to grasp the magnitude of the financial crisis and belittled their suggested reforms.

Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, berated the bankers for their failure to acknowledge a problem with personal rewards and questioned their claims for financial innovation.

On the subject of pay, he said: “Has there been one financial leader to say this is really excessive? Wake up, gentlemen. Your response, I can only say, has been inadequate.”

As bankers demanded that new regulation should not stifle innovation, a clearly irritated Mr Volcker said that the biggest innovation in the industry over the past 20 years had been the cash machine. He went on to attack the rise of complex products such as credit default swaps (CDS).

“I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth — one shred of evidence,” said Mr Volcker, who ran the Fed from 1979 to 1987 and is now chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

He said that financial services in the United States had increased its share of value added from 2 per cent to 6.5 per cent, but he asked: “Is that a reflection of your financial innovation, or just a reflection of what you’re paid?”

Why has this guy been sidelined by Obama?


posted by Quiddity at 12/09/2009 01:25:00 PM

Question for Cheney:

The former vice-president on Hannity:

I don't know what's going to happen in those trials, the thing that's disturbing is I don't know what the Justice Department does either. If it's an absolute certain thing, then Holder has the problem of saying we're going to have a balanced trial, and they'll have the opportunity to defend themselves and so forth. If it's not a certain thing why are you bringing him here. I mean we know [Khalid Sheik Mohammed is] guilty. He's responsible for the death of thousands of Americans, and he ought to be punished as such.

So, why didn't you execute him?


posted by Quiddity at 12/09/2009 10:44:00 AM

Palin on Global Warming:

The Washington Post published an op-ed from Palin's shop (it's unclear how much, if any, she wrote herself). Of interest are the following excerpts: (emp add)

With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point.

... revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts ...

... e-mails reveal that leading climate "experts" deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics ...

I got clobbered for my actions by radical environmentalists nationwide ....

... instead of staying home from Copenhagen and sending a message that the United States will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices, the president has upped the ante.

That's a lot of name-calling.

Also, this:

... any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs.

If global warming moves along the expected trajectory, the costs of shifing the planet's infrastructure to adjust to the changes will be enormous.

UPDATE: Ambinder (!) takes a critical line-by-line look at what Palin wrote.


posted by Quiddity at 12/09/2009 10:10:00 AM

The esteemed Stanley Fish writes a positive review of Sarah Palin's book:

Reaction

Positive:

• Ann Althouse
• News Busters
• Sarah Palin for President in 2012!

Negative:

• Mark Kleiman
• Whiskey Fire

Excerpts from Fish: (emp add)

My assessment of the book has nothing to do with the accuracy of its accounts.

As I remarked in a previous column, autobiographers cannot lie because anything they say will truthfully serve their project, which, again, is not to portray the facts, but to portray themselves.

Do I believe any of this? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she does, and that her readers feel they are hearing an authentic voice. I find the voice undeniably authentic (yes, I know the book was written “with the help” of Lynn Vincent, but many books, including my most recent one, are put together by an editor). It is the voice of small-town America, with its folk wisdom, regional pride, common sense, distrust of rhetoric (itself a rhetorical trope), love of country and instinctive (not doctrinal) piety.

Fish could have portrayed Palin accurately, but also show that "the voice of small-town America" is (a) a minority voice that should not dictate national policies, (b) wrong on policies (e.g. science, economic safety-net in today's world). But he is more enchanted by the social construct Palin and others live in.

Asked for comment, a wise observer noted:

I'd hasten to add that [Fish] also gives literary criticism, the University of Florida, opinion-writing, possessing the name Stanley and wearing shoes a bad name. His is the voice of a complete and utter ass.

Neil Gabler warned us the simpletons would go for her, but he forgot to mention maroons with PhDs.

posted by Quiddity at 12/08/2009 11:08:00 AM

David Broder's formula for failure:

From his op-ed:

Corrupt and inefficient as [the people running Kabul] may be, they are less of a threat than the Taliban would be. And so we must prop them up.

Especially since he also writes:

[While American troops are in Afghanistan] the Taliban can continue to exploit public frustration with the dysfunctional Afghan government, recruiting new fighters perhaps as fast as McChrystal can woo people away.

posted by Quiddity at 12/04/2009 03:45:00 AM

Obama's big joke:

From his remarks at the jobs summit:

... we heard from a broad cross-section of thinkers about the urgent need for more effective worker training. And Randall Stephenson from AT&T talked about a successful partnership with San Antonio community colleges to train workers for jobs that the company is committed to bringing back from India.

At what wages?


posted by Quiddity at 12/03/2009 09:45:00 PM

Fed chairman suggests dishonoring Social Security bonds:

In the news:

"Well, Senator, I was about to address entitlements," Bernanke replied [to Senator Bennett]. "I think you can't tackle the problem in the medium term without doing something about getting entitlements under control and reducing the costs, particularly of health care."

Bernanke reminded Congress that it has the power to repeal Social Security and Medicare.

"It's only mandatory until Congress says it's not mandatory. And we have no option but to address those costs at some point or else we will have an unsustainable situation," said Bernanke.
...
"Willie Sutton robbed banks because that's where the money is, as he put it," Bernanke said. "The money in this case is in entitlements."

Bernanke has showed his hand. He's got to go.

UPDATE: More on Bernanke by Cenk Uygur.


posted by Quiddity at 12/03/2009 04:24:00 PM

Give the rich 2010:

The Washington Post argues, unpersuasively: (emp add)

Extend the estate tax

Congress should vote to make the 2009 levels permanent.

... the estate tax, having gradually dwindled, is set to be eliminated entirely next year -- only to spring back to life, full-force, in 2011.

The least bad, hold-your-nose alternative would be to set the tax permanently at its 2009 level, exempting the first $3.5 million of any individual estate -- $7 million for a married couple -- from taxation. At this level, 99.8 percent of estates are not subject to the tax. (...)

Making the 2009 level permanent would drain nearly $400 billion from the federal treasury from 2012 to 2021 compared with letting the estate tax revert to the rules in effect in 2001, when the tax was set at 55 percent with a $1 million exemption per person.

... the ordinary legislative inclination -- do nothing and let the tax expire in 2011 -- is also unsustainable. People are entitled to some stability for purposes of estate planning. Once the estate tax has lapsed, reinstituting it at any level will be portrayed as a tax increase, and good luck with that in an election year. In an era of increasing income inequality, at a moment of trillion-dollar deficits, it seems hardly too much to ask of the wealthiest that -- after transferring $7 million to the heirs -- they pay some tax on the rest.

What the Post does not tell you is what the 2009 rate is. It's 45%. "Doing 2009" is not simply a matter of 2001 with a higher exemption, but the Post is willing to let you think that's the case. Why is the Post not informing their readers?

Also, the "instability" that the Post is fretting about is hardly one that will bother estate planning. 2010 is a pure gimmie for the ultra-rich. Let them have it, and then take the schedule back to 2001 levels.

And the already-in-the-law reinstitution is, if anything, a Bush tax increase. The Post is of the mindset that even in these days of massive deficits, a tax increase for the wealthy is something that cannot be implemented, even if it's on autopilot. The Post would rather cut Social Security benefits or Medicare or something like that.

UPDATE: A bill along the lines of what the Post advocates, passed in the House 225 - 200.

Votes:

	Yeas	Nays	PRES	NV
Democratic	225	26		6
Republican		174		3

posted by Quiddity at 12/03/2009 04:26:00 AM

Bernanke blues:

From Naked Capitalism: (original emphasis)

Progress on “No on Bernanke,” Including Sanders Putting Hold on Confirmation

The efforts to block Bernanke’s confirmation are getting some traction.

First, Bernie Sanders of Vermont said he is putting a hold on Bernanke’s confirmation. A hold (in lay terms) is a threat to filibuster. This is actually pretty serious and seldom done. It takes 60 votes to beat one back, and there are enough procedural roadblocks that a filibustering Senator can throw so that it holds up Senate business for a few days, even if it is ultimately unsuccessful. And by current tallies, there are a few Senators on the right who are also vehemently opposed to Bernanke and would support this move.

Now so far, this is merely an obstacle to reappointment, but this is still much more serious opposition than anyone would have expected even a week ago.

Second, a Rasmussen poll (hat tip reader Andrew) released today found that only 21% of Americans favor Bernanke’s reappointment. This is significant not simply due to the lousy results, but that Rasmussen bothered to run the poll at all. This was not a client sponsored poll; Rasmussen thought this was newsworthy enough to run this on its own. Admittedly, a large proportion are undecided, but twice as many oppose a Bernanke reappointment as support it.

From Rasmussen: (emp add)

Ben Bernanke begins the formal process tomorrow for confirmation to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, but 41% of Americans think President Obama should name someone new to the post. (...)

Republicans are more strongly opposed to Bernanke’s reappointment than Democrats and adults not affiliated with either of the major parties. However, investors support a second term for Bernanke by more than two-to-one over non-investors.

Yeah.


posted by Quiddity at 12/02/2009 09:53:00 PM

Tiger Woods:

Man, that story is everywhere. National networks, local news, radio, Internet, etc.

Not just the bare story, but extended segments about dealing with infidelity, post-divorce settlements, how it will affect golf, other athletes in similar situations. One news program showed - in its entirety - that Taiwanese computer animated simulation of what "might have happened".

This is a prime motivator for taking a complete break from the news for a week. It had better be gone by then,


posted by Quiddity at 12/02/2009 07:55:00 PM

Fascism defined:

According to Umberto Eco:

Characteristics of fascism are as follows:

1. The Cult of Tradition,
2. The Rejection of Modernism,
3. The Cult of Action for Action’s Sake,
4. Disagreement as Treason,
5. Fear of Difference,
6. The Main Privilege is to Be Born in the Same Country,
7. The Followers Must be Humiliated by the Wealth and Force of their Enemies,
8. Life is Lived For Struggle,
9. Contempt For the Weak,
10. Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero,
11. Disdain for Women and Condemnation for Non Standard Sexuality,
12. Respect for the Majority and Disdain for Individualism,
13. Respect for Impoverished Vocabulary and Elementary Syntax in Order to Limit Complex and Critical Reasoning

There are allegedly 14 characteristics, but from the list provided it's not clear how that number is arrived at. Perhaps the last element is missing the Oxford comma and "Elementary Syntax ..." is a separate entry.


posted by Quiddity at 12/02/2009 05:20:00 PM