March 18, 2010
These are the good old days, Part Three
My conservative cousin from New York finds support for my "these are the good old days" theme in Great Britian:
Your post on Obamacare was really on point. Once the federal government becomes so deeply involved in allocating health care, it will come to be a dominant focus of political discourse.
Over the years watching on C-Span the British Prime Minister's Question Time, I've observed that a large portion of this exercise is devoted to specific questions about the quality care provided by The National Health Service in members' districts. A question on the terrorists threats to the UK will invariably be followed by a passionate query from a Member asking the PM if he's aware of nurses being re-assigned at a hospital in Sheffield. The PM seems to spend as much time on parochial health care issues as on national security.
The politics of deciding who gets what in the way of medical treatment doubtlessly will push aside traditional affairs of state. Every member of Congress will need to hire several staff members just to manage constituents' complaints about their care. Elections will be won and lost on the basis of who can get the most in the way of health care for their districts.
We will become the Gulliver of nations, a great power whose leaders are tied up in strings as they spend much of their time addressing the medical complaints, valid and imagined, of their electorate.
By the time I get to Phoenix (health care edition)
Video of Bret Baier's 18-minute interview of President Obama in the White House yesterday is below; a transcript of the interview is here. The interview was broadcast on the the Fox News Special Report with Bret Baier. Having previously declared Fox News an illegitimate organization, Obama's strategists must have arrived at a health care reconciliation package of their own. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Most of the interview is devoted to Obamacare and related questions of process. Is the Louisiana Purchase in or out? Is the Cornhusker Kickback in or our? Is Gatorade in or out? Is the Connecticut hospital in or out?
By the time the bill is voted on, Obama says, Obama will know, and so will Baier, because the bill will be posted online. All will become clear in the fullness of time. To paraphrase Jimmy Webb, we'll laugh when we read the part that says we're payin', 'cause we've paid so many times before.
Obama apparently can't say at the moment exactly what's in and what's out of the bill that is imminently to be voted on. There is some mystery about the contents. Obama does defend the Louisiana Purchase; unlike Nebraska, Louisiana's staying bought.
By my lights, the attention to procedure in the interview is excessive. The distasteful procedural issues, however, fairly represent the deceptive talking points supporting the horrendous substance of the legislation. When Baier asks Obama about double counting the purported Medicare savings in the bill, Obama all but says, "I'm dancing as fast as I can." There is good reason Obama hasn't made himself available to be questioned on the substance of the bill by a knowledgeable reporter.
Baier is incredibly persistent in pressing his questions over Obama's evasions and filibusters. Obama's technique for dealing with difficult questions is on display throughout, as well as his reactions of frustration and irritation. Baier manfully resists Obama's domination of the interview. Putting the seriousness of the issues to one side, I found this to be an incredibly entertaining piece.
Via NRO's The Feed.
UPDATE: Memeorandum compiles comments on the interview. Ann Althouse critically observes Obama's evasions. Michelle Malkin attends to Obama's invocation of the Hawaiian earthquake, a highlight that whizzed right by me. Seth Liebsohn's assessment is on the money: "Bret Baier just concluded the single best interview of President Obama in a year, by any reporter....Bret showed the rest of the press how to do it from now on."
Power Line Bookshelf
March 17, 2010
These are the good old days, Part Two
A friend and occasional Power Line contributor writes:
If [Obamacare] passes, the Dems will own every doctor complaint out there. Moreover, the complaints will multiply, and not just because care will deteriorate as demand increases and supply decreases. They are going to multiply because the care-seeking population is about to become the Baby Boomers -- i.e., the most indulged, demanding and complaining generation in a hundred years, or maybe ever. The Dems are (apparently) fixing to take over medicine at exactly the time The Giant Complaining Horde shows up at the door.
Of course, the irony, as ever with these egalitarian programs, is that people with money will still come out ahead. One reason I found out about [my] liver cancer in time to do something about it was that, knowing I had a potential problem, I paid $4,000 out of my own pocket for an exotic annual physical exam beyond what insurance would reimburse.
What is actually going to happen is that there will spring up a quasi-underground medical practice for people who can pay their own bills and do not rely on Medicare or (what will become dwindling) private insurance. Indeed, this has already started to happen with boutique clinics like the one I used. If I were a shrewd businessman, I would figure out some way to franchise it, or something, and make a fortune.
The basic thing the Dems detest is inequality born of the fact that people who think about what they're doing tend to come out ahead of people who don't. Oh well.
And in other news, did I tell you that my doctor never returns my calls?
We're Gonna Win, Twins
Spring can't come too soon to the Upper Midwest. That's always true, of course, but especially this year, as the Minnesota Twins open their 2010 pennant drive in brand-new Target Field. Baseball fans here are giddy with excitement. The team will be good, despite losing closer Joe Nathan for the season to elbow surgery. And despite not having signed superstar catcher Joe Mauer to the anticipated ten-year deal; not yet, anyway.
This preview offers a suitably optimistic assessment of the team's prospects. We've added Orlando Hudson, J.J. Hardy and Jim Thome to our already-strong lineup. Sure, there are always things that could go wrong. Like Justin Morneau's back. Like the starting pitching, which looks solid; but then, it did at this time last year, too.
But even if the Twins don't win their division, which would be an upset, it will be a fun season. Because the Twins are just a fun team. In the gym last night I read a Sports Illustrated article about a phenom catcher named Matt Wieters, who is about to play his first full season in the majors for the Baltimore Orioles. The article was effusive--Wieters' college teammates nicknamed him "God"--and suggested that Wieters is following in Joe Mauer's footsteps. Maybe. But Wieters is 23. Mauer is 26, and he's won three AL batting titles and an MVP award.
A lot of the excitement surrounding the Twins centers on Target Field, which will open the regular season on April 12. Target Field has been dubbed "the coolest ballpark in America." High praise, but if you read the linked article from Twin Cities Business magazine, you may be persuaded.
One thing is for sure: there will be days when Target Field is the coldest park in MLB. The younger generation, reared on the unlamented HHH Metrodome, doesn't remember the April days when 1,000 brave fans wore down parkas to Twins games at the old Met, occasionally watching the action through flurries of snow. They used to spray-paint the dirt green to make it look as though the grass was up. Night games in September got cold, too.
But no one here in Minnesota is thinking about that. The field at the new park is heated, so snow will melt, and a remarkable drainage system will make the grass field playable in all but the heaviest downpours. Plus, the concourses are heated so the fans needn't be cold, even if the players are.
From a construction standpoint, the Target Field project was remarkable. It is built on a tiny plot of horrible soil--so bad that the stadium doesn't rest, structurally, on the soil at all:
Steel pipes, 10 inches in diameter, were driven 100 feet down to bedrock, then filled with concrete. This isn't wildly unusual, [M. A. Mortenson project manager Dan] Mehls says, except for the number of them, which was 3,300--more than 62 miles of pipe--and the fact that it took six months to drive them all. Target Field actually sits on those columns. You could dig out 100 feet of dirt from beneath the stadium, Mehls says, and it would just stand there.
Not only that, the park is squeezed amid highways and railroad tracks, next to the county's garbage burner. Target Field may be the country's most legitimately urban ballpark:
Nevertheless, it is a thing of beauty:
The season can't begin soon enough. In the meantime, maybe this will tide us over--the Twins' song, one of the best in major league sports, I think. Unfortunately, the original version of the song, dating to 1961, can't be found anywhere on the web. This is the "jazzy" 1980s version, but you can still get the idea:
We can also daydream about highlights of Twins seasons past. Rod Carew was one of the Twins' greatest stars; the new park has giant art works, portraits of Carew and Kirby Puckett etched into wood. I think I once saw Carew steal home, but memory is tricky and I can't be sure. Once, he stole home twice in the same game:
And, of course, we can reminisce about Game 6, the occasion of the only paranormal experience I've ever had, far away in Munich, Germany. Here in the Upper Midwest, no explanation is necessary. It's just Game 6:
Spring can't come soon enough. Despite unseasonably warm temperatures and plenty of rain, the snow pile in the street in front of my house is still six feet high.
Are our allies guilty by association?
We've written before about President Obama's willingness to follow only the second half of the Godfather's adage, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Abe Greenwald has described the phenomenon this way: "If you're an enemy we're sorry; if you're a friend you're sorry."
In the aftermath of the latest manifestation of this phenomenon -- the fit Obama has thrown against Israel -- Robert Kagan compiles the case histories. Our "sorry" friends include, in addition to Israel, Great Britain, France, several Eastern European countries, Japan, and India. The nations Obama has courted include Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and Burma.
Kagan notes that Obama is departing from a 60-year old American grand strategy when it comes to allies. I'm not nearly as learned as Kagan, but I think he's understating the matter. Isn't it fair to say that Obama's counterintuitive approach is unprecedented?
Kagan declines to speculate about why Obama curries favor with our enemies while treating our friends with disdain. For my part, I've been unable to move beyond the two tentative explanations I offered last July:
Perhaps there is a side of him that harbors contempt for nations that find large amounts of common ground with the U.S., a country for which Obama himself feels the need constantly to apologize. Or perhaps, Obama sees himself as a philosopher king, a "neutral" who stands above the usual politics of favoring particular nations. From this lofty, ahistorical perch, it may be possible to view Britain as "the same as the other 190 countries in the world."
Reality takes an unreal shape
In a post called "Is Eric Holder a Dope?," we noted a colloquy between Attorney General Holder and Rep. John Culberson in which Holder testifed that Osama bin Laden and Charles Manson are comparable people, at least to the extent that they both have "the right to go before a jury [and] get the acts that [they are] charged with proven beyond a reasonable doubt."
Holder went on to downplay the practical consequences of his position, telling Culberson:
Let's deal with reality. You're talking about a hypothetical that will never occur. The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden. He will never appear in an American courtroom.
But, as John noted in an update to the post, General McChrystal says it's the military's goal to capture bin Laden alive. And with good reason. Bin Laden may well remain actively engaged in plotting attacks against the U.S. and others. In all likelihood, he also possesses valuable information about terrorist networks. Thus, killing him, when capturing and interrogating him is an alternative, would be a grossly irresponsible act.
But, it is also the natural outgrowth of this administration's policy on dealing with detainees. Obama and Holder view detainees as a problem -- where do we house them; do foreigners like how we treat them -- not as part of the solution -- an invaluable source of information with which to combat terrorism and terrorists.
Moreover, the Obama administration's policy on interrogating terrorists reinforces its inability to see detainees as part of the solution. The less harshly we are allowed to question them, the less value they have.
Thus, Holder's odd and irreponsible position that, realistically, we will never capture bin Laden isn't just an escape hatch to tough questions from a congressman. It is the logical consequence of administration policy. Unfortunately, as Gen. McChrystal's reaction shows, it is an illogical approach to keeping America safe.
If it matters, Holder's gymnastics are also an illogical escape hatch. If Holder wants to kill, rather than capture, bin Laden under all circumstances, then bin Laden can't be comparable to Charles Manson, a criminal we would (and did) capture.
Holder appears to be deeming bin Laden entitled to a jury trial that he guarantees we will prevent. And he does so while admonishing us to "deal with reality." The Democrats are giving reality an unreal shape these days.
The Current Tally
Byron York's sources say their best estimate is that there are now 204 votes for the government health care takeover bill, 209 votes against it, and 18 undecided. The good news, one could infer, is that the Republicans only have to carry seven of the 18 to block the bill, while the Democrats have to convince 12 of the 18 to vote Yes in order to pass it. The bad news is that all 18 undecided votes are Democrats.
It is hard to believe that Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts won't be able to get there, by hook or by crook. Still, we need to keep up the fight to the end--and beyond. If the current bill, whatever it is, becomes law, taxes will rise immediately but the health care "reform" provisions will mostly be put off for several years. I agree with Paul and others that once socialized medicine is actually established, it will be difficult or impossible to undo. But that won't happen under the current bill. Rather, as I understand how the legislation works, there will be a window of several years during which Republicans can try to repeal or amend the legislation. So no matter what happens this week, Obamacare will be a millstone around the Dems' necks for years to come. That's how it looks to me, anyway.
This survey, a joint project of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest Advance and Pajamas Media, suggests how deeply unpopular some of the key provisions of the Democrats' legislation are with the public.
For reasons that are obviously related, this was a red-letter day, as for the first time, President Obama's approval rating broke into negative territory on the Gallup poll. Among voters, of course, Obama has been under water for a long time.
Is Eric Holder a dope?
Attorney General Eric Holder testified yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee. As you mght expect, members took the opportunity to press Holder on his views regarding terrorists' rights. And Holder appears to have given the subject some thought! Fox News reports:
Republicans pressed Holder over recent decisions to prosecute terrorism suspects in civilian courts, and they suggested he intends to treat terrorism suspects as "common criminals."
Holder said such suggestions tend to "get my blood boiling," calling them "anything but the truth."
He said the "apt" comparison is to mass murderers like Charles Manson, who is currently serving a life sentence for orchestrating a killing spree in the 1960s.
Trying to explain the analogy, Holder said mass murderers like Manson still reserve the right to go before a jury and have the charges against them proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Holder was asked whether that means Usama bin Laden, if captured, would be tried in a civilian court and afforded the same rights as Charles Manson.
"In some ways I think they're comparable people, in some ways," Holder said.
More coverage of Holders' testimony is accessible here, but I haven't found a transcript of it. In the news reports, Holder appears unwilling or unable to address the legal distinctions among criminal defendants, prisoners of war and unlawful enemy combatants. Here is one key distinction: Only criminal defendants have a right to trial by jury.
Invoking Charles Manson may make for brilliant argument in a college bull session, but are we supposed to take this seriously from the Attorney General of the United States in the midst of a war against an enemy that does not observe any legal norms? The more Holder talks, the more he sounds like a dope.
JOHN adds: Scott's wish is my command. Here is the colloquy from yesterday's hearing:
MOLLOHAN: Yes. Finally, Attorney General Holder, there is the concern, or the argument at least, made that holding trials in civilian courts somehow afford detainees too many rights. As a lawyer, I always wondered about those arguments with the -- would like very much to hear you speak to that concern.
HOLDER: Well, I'm really glad you asked me that question because that's one that tends to get my blood boiling. The notion that a defendant in an Article III court is somehow being treated in an inappropriate special way that he's being coddled is anything but the truth. A person charged with murder, and many of these defendants are, these defendants charged with murder are treated just like any other murder defendant would be.
The comparison to are they getting more rights than the average American citizen is not an apt one. The question is are they being treated as murderers would be treated. And the answer to that question is yes, they have the same rights that a Charles Manson would have, any other kind of mass murderer. Those are the comparisons that people should be making in trying to make the determination about how terrorists are being treated and not compare them to average citizens who create no harm, who have committed no crimes.
***
CULBERSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Attorney General for appearing before us. In response a moment ago to a question from the chairman, you said that terrorists have the same rights as Charles Manson, correct?
HOLDER: I said that murderers have the same rights as Charles Manson. And if these people are charged with murder in essence that's -- those are the kinds of rights that they would get.
CULBERSON: And terrorists who have murdered U.S. citizens and the approach of your Department of Justice is they have the same rights as Charles Manson?
HOLDER: In the sense that a murder has the right to go before a jury, get the acts that he's charged with proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Yes.
CULBERSON: So therefore, Osama bin Laden in your opinion has the same rights as Charles Manson?
HOLDER: In some ways I think they're -- they're comparable people. In some ways...
CULBERSON: That's incredible. This is where the disconnect between this administration and your mindset is so completely opposite that of where the vast majority of the American people are, where my constituents and I just have a deep seated and profound philosophical difference with the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, the leadership of this Congress. This is war. And in time of war we as a nation have never given constitutional rights to foreign nationals -- enemy soldiers certainly captured overseas.
And Senator Lindsey Graham asked you this question. And I know you've got time to think about it. At the time he asked the question you couldn't provide him with example. Could you provide us with an example of when in time of war the United States has ever granted a foreign national captured on a foreign battlefield U.S. constitutional rights? Has that ever happened?
HOLDER: You're dealing with a situation that is different from anything that we have ever seen before. Different from anything that we've ever seen before. We try to analogize this to wars where there were people in uniform, where you had signing ceremonies that ended declarations on that -- on -- on battleships in -- in, you know Tokyo Harbor. That is not the kind of war that we are facing.
And though we try to, you know, analogize the tools, and analogize the rules, they don't necessarily apply in the same way. What Osama bin Laden is responsible for are both, as I said -- and I've consistently said -- both acts of war, and also criminal acts. And when I was referring to the Charles Manson analogy, that was just to talk about the rights that he had within a courtroom.
I understand we are at war with Al Qaida, and that's why we have 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan...
CULBERSON: Right. But...
(CROSSTALK)
HOLDER: ... is why we have taken all kinds of other measures -- some of which I can't talk about -- in Pakistan. We -- we're not fighting this from a law enforcement preventive mode. We are using law enforcement as one of the tools, but...
CULBERSON: Right.
HOLDER: ... we are also using military means to defeat this enemy.
CULBERSON: Which is -- which is why you support the Second Circuit Court's decision on Padilla that the president lacks the authority to detain a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant on U.S. soil?
HOLDER: I think the courts -- that is -- that is not clear at this point, that the United States has the ability to, as the president tried to do in that case, hold incommunicado and without a lawyer an American citizen on American soil.
What that brief said was that there are other tools that the executive branch has and that it should make use of in order to effectuate the neutralization, the incapacitation of that person, as opposed to simply locking them away and not giving them a lawyer.
CULBERSON: Right.
HOLDER: Again, we're talking about American citizens on American soil.
CULBERSON: Right. The key is, you said the president has other tools. The president is the commander in chief. And this is where the profound disconnect comes between where America is and where you are in this administration and where this leadership of the Congress is.
HOLDER: I would disagree with the characterization...
(CROSSTALK)
HOLDER: ... there is a split between America and the leadership of this administration.
CULBERSON: There -- there really is, because you saw it, I think, in the Massachusetts election. This was one of the key issues in the election of Scott Brown is even the voters of Massachusetts, as liberal and different in their philosophical views as they are from my constituents in Texas, even the voters of Massachusetts understand that Osama bin Laden does not have the same rights as Charles Manson, as you have just stated.
Is your -- your opinion that they...
HOLDER: I said that they only have the same rights within a courtroom.
CULBERSON: Right. Well granting Osama bin Laden the right to appear in a U.S. courtroom, you are clothing Osama bin Laden with the protections of the U.S. Constitution. That's unavoidable, and something that you've skipped right past.
HOLDER: Let's deal with reality...
(CROSSTALK)
CULBERSON: And it's giving constitutional rights to enemy soldiers that is the profound problem, sir.
HOLDER: Let me -- you're talking about a hypothetical that will never occur. The reality is that we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden. He will never appear in an American courtroom.
CULBERSON: But it is...
(CROSSTALK)
HOLDER: That's a reality. That's a reality.
CULBERSON: But it's clearly your position and the position of this administration that on a -- that you believe, on a case-by-case basis, that -- and your tendency would be to grant constitutional rights to enemy soldiers captured on foreign battlefields.
Has that ever been done before in U.S. history?
HOLDER: Well...
CULBERSON: At a time of war?
HOLDER: Well, I assume that you are a supporter of military commissions. Is that correct?
CULBERSON: Absolutely. In a time of war, yes, sir, I support what the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed when those German terrorists were captured, as Mr. Wolf said, on U.S. soil -- they were let off on the beaches of Florida and Long Island.
HOLDER: Well, even in those military commissions, those people are given constitutional rights, are they not?
CULBERSON: Well, they are in a military commission not clothed with all of the protections of the U.S. Constitution. They are treated by the military as enemy combatants, captured at time of war.
And the question is, as...
HOLDER: But they're not put up against the wall and shot. They have the ability to confront those who accuse them. They have the rights to lawyers.
(CROSSTALK)
HOLDER: They have many of the same constitutional rights...
(CROSSTALK)
CULBERSON: ... severely restricted rights in the military tribunal. Is the problem, we're at war, and you don't seem to recognize that we are at war, just as though we were at war with the Germans in World War II, but the -- the people we're fighting are such cowards, they clothe themselves as women and hide behind children and hide in mosques, as they did in -- in the Gaza Strip, as they do in attacking us.
And it is the president's responsibility, as commander in chief, to protect the country. And the president's granted great discretion by the U.S. Supreme Court in -- as commander in chief deciding when and where to try these people.
It was President Roosevelt's decision that the German terrorists be tried in a military tribunal. It was President Bush -- and not given the full protection of the Constitution. It was President Bush's decision that foreign nationals captured on foreign battlefields not be tried in civilian court and given the full protection of the Constitution.
Because we're at war. And time lost in interrogating these people means lives lost. And it is the -- it is one of the principal reasons, actually, when you look at why Scott Brown won his race, it's not only because the people of Massachusetts opposed the president's health care plan but because this administration consistently -- and here, once again, today, we now learn that you think Osama bin Laden is -- should be given the same rights as Charles Manson in a court of law.
And that's just not acceptable to the people that I represent, to the people of America. And it represents a just profoundly different approach that's never been done before in the history of the country.
(CROSSTALK)
HOLDER: What I have -- what we have said and what I have said is that on a case-by-case basis you make the determination of where you can bring the strongest case -- where will I have the greatest chance of success?
There are things that you can do in Article III courts that you cannot do in military commissions. You cannot have, for instance, cooperation agreements. You don't -- that does not exist in a military commission.
We have the ability to incarcerate people for extended periods of time.
CULBERSON: Right.
HOLDER: And one only has to look at what has happened through the use of the Article III courts over the course of the past year and to see the plots that we've broken up, the intelligence that we have gathered...
CULBERSON: Yes, sir.
HOLDER: ... and that has allowed our military to be more effective in the field.
Is Holder a dope? We report, you decide.
UPDATE: Gen. Stanley McChrystal, taken aback by Holder's assurance that bin Laden will be shot on sight, told reporters that our goal is still to capture him alive:
When McChrystal was asked whether the U.S. had given up on capturing bin Laden alive, he said, "Wow, no."
If bin Laden enters Afghanistan, "we would certainly go after trying to capture him alive and bring him to justice," McChrystal told Pentagon reporters from Kabul. "I think that is something that is understood by everyone," he said.
Almost everyone, I guess.
These are the good old days
As they got older, my parents noticed to their dismay that their friends talked more and more about their doctors. According to my parents, nearly all of their friends liked their doctors. However, there was always something to complain about -- a personality quirk, a failure to return a call, a long stint in the waiting room, a grouchy billing administrator. Grievances like these tended to dominate the conversations that so annoyed my parents.
If Obamacare passes, President Obama and the Democrats will become part of, and perhaps dominate, most of these conversations. Every excessive wait, every missed phone call, every postponed appointment will become Obama's fault.
This will be true even if the quality of the doctor-patient relationship does not deteriorate under Obamacare. It is human nature when something goes wrong to romanticize the past, forgetting that the same thing probably went wrong just as often back in the day. And, since most Americans, including the elderly, are reasonably satisfied overall with their health care, it will be easy to romanticize the past. Thus, blaming Obamacare will be the natural response to the ordinary frustrations that, in reality, are part-and-parcel of any doctor-patient relationship.
It is obvious, moreover, that the quality of the doctor-patient relationship for those who now have insurance will decline under Obamacare, and probably sharply. For one thing, Medicare funding is being slashed. The Democrats say that these cuts will be offset entirely by ending fraud, waste, and abuse. In reality, they will be "offset" by a vast increase in irritating events -- long waits, inability to see the doctor of one's choice in a timely manner, etc.
Medicare cuts aside, Obamacare would provide increased medical services for tens of millions of people who presently are uninsured (these people get medical services now, but not to the extent they would under Obamacare). At the same time, the number of providers would not increase. To the contrary, studies purport to show that perhaps one-third, or even more, of all doctors would leave the profession. Frankly, I don't believe these numbers; when doctors threaten to quit practicing, I think they are mostly just talking. My guess is that perhaps 5 percent, and no more than 10, will actually exit.
But even if there is no attrition, it will still be impossible to maintain current service levels for those who now have insurance in the context of a vast increase in total service. Rather, it is inevitable that, if Obamacare becomes law, the medical service level for virtually all Americans will reside somewhere between what it is now for the insured and what it is now for the uninsured.
This, of course, is what left-liberals want; indeed, many of them see such equality as morally imperative. But it is a recipe for endless complaints by those Americans who presently are insured, i.e., the vast majority of Americans.
These complaints won't be confined to the elderly. Old people complain more about their dealings with doctors primarily because they spend so much more time with them. But I've never met a person who likes being blown off by a doctor or sitting for 40 minutes in the waiting room, plus an extra 15 in the examining room before the doctor arrives. Nor have I ever met a person who enjoys hearing his or her aging parents complain about their medical service, especially when the complaint is justified.
In some ways the Democrats' stubborn quest for Obamacare resembles Republicans perseverance with the war in Iraq. At some point, it became clear that the Iraq war was ruining congressional Republicans politically. Yet, they continued to support the effort because they thought it was the right thing to do. Most congressional Democrats, similarly, are supporting Obamacare because they strongly believe in it (some, though, are simply yielding to intense pressure from their leaders).
But there is this key political difference between the Iraq war and Obamacare: the Iraq war eventually wound down and will soon end entirely. Obamacare (unless repealed, which strikes me as something of a pipe dream) is forever. It promises to annoy, if not enrage, millions of people for as long as anyone is around to remember, however imperfectly, what things were like before the Democrats overhauled the health care system.
Maybe the House can adopt a rule deeming these memories forgotten.
Is breathing room anything like Lebensraum?
The AEI Irantracker's most recent news roundup provides excerpts from remarks by Iran's Presdient Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing a seminar on job creation:
* "The Islamic revolution of Iran is a humane revolution reaching beyond the geographic boundaries of Iran..."
* "Our second duty is an efficient presence in the international arena..."
* "How can we work outside the international relations? International relations impact all nations..."
* "The Iranian nation will never submit to the pressure of the hegemonic powers..."
* "Wherever we want to travel, the imperialists approach the authorities of that country and pressure them not to invite Iran. Wherever we desire to sign contracts, they go and pressure that country and ask why they want to engage with Iran. They think they can restrict Iran. In the beginning, they said that they had to change the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but after a time they understood that their statements were futile. Afterward they said that the Islamic revolution of Iran had to be contained within a certain geographic region..."
* "Our existence and our breathing room require that we expand our borders of conflict even closer to the command centers of the enemy. One who sits and waits for the enemy approaching the borders and pressure him will be forced to dress in the robe of misery. We see that they say 'we are concerned about Iran's presence in Latin America, Asia and Africa,' since they have seen that wherever Iran goes, search for justice, dignity, humanitarianism and humane culture rise against their culture of materialism and rebelling against God. They don't want us to be present in international relations and we see that they choose silence in the face of great victories of the Iranian nation..."
Ahmadinejad appears to have been made progress in his historical studies. In addition, his gibe about the silence of those he deems his adversaries is more or less well deserved. One can only hope that someone is paying attention.
Civility for thee...
We've followed the speeches given by Obama administration NEH chairman Jim Leach here (commenting on Leach's "The tension between speaking and listening") and here (commenting on Leach's "Bridging cultures: NEH and the Muslim world").
One finds in both speeches Leach's praise of Lawrence Durrell's highly literary Alexandria Quartet. Would someone who has actually read all four novels of the Alexandria Quartet really say, as Leach did in his "tension" speech, that "Certain frameworks of thought define rival ideas," or instruct his audience that "The choice for leaders is whether to opt for unifying statesmanship or opportunistic partisanship"? I would like not to think so.
Leach deduces a serious relativism from the Quartet's experiment with point of view. For a relativistic kind of guy, however, Leach seems awfully sure of himself. One must wonder about Leach's relativistic point of view. Is it exempt from the Leach uncertainty principle? How can he be so sure that he is right, and the point of view of other Americans wrong? Or is the Leach uncertainty principle the final revelation?
When it comes to passing judgment on his fellow Americans, we find that Leach quickly sheds his advocacy of respect for differing perspectives. The Daily Caller reports that Leach kicked off his "civility tour" in New York on March 4 with "Civility in a fractured society," a speech condemning "divisive tendencies." Among those Leach singled out for special treatment were Tea Partiers:
This afternoon I visited the New York Historical Society. At its wondrous, NEH-supported exhibition on "Lincoln in New York" I was mesmerized by a portrayal of several citizen movements. Pictured was a 30,000 strong rally of New Yorkers calling themselves "Brooklyn Soporifics" who objected to Lincoln and his anti-slavery stance. Next to it was a picture of a group of like-dressed, brown-suited torch bearers called "Wide Awakes" who were marching the streets of the city in support of Lincoln during the same 1860 campaign.
"It would be unfair to make philosophical analogies to the tea and coffee parties a century and a half later," Leach said, essentially making the analogy (as the Daily Caller observes).
One can observe the paradox of the "respect" advocated by Leach toward the end of his speech: "The national interest is not served by a dysfunctional, rules-hamstrung Legislature, a corporatist Court, an irreconcilable face-off between the Legislature and the Executive, and most of all, a citizenry in which individuals have an increasingly difficult time respecting those with whom they differ." Why? "Nihilism is not the American way." Ouch!
Where is the Alexandria Quartet when you need it? For a guy who badly needs a course in remedial writing, Leach communicates his point (and he does have one) when he wants to: those who disagree with him are un-American.
Cool Cole
Today is the anniversary of the birth of the great Nat "King" Cole. Cole was born on St. Patricks's Day, though until Daniel Mark Epstein did the research for his biography of Cole, we weren't entirely sure that the year was 1919. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama and grew up in Chicago after his father moved the family there in 1923 to pursue a career in the ministry.
Cole first made his name as a jazz pianist. He developed an intensely loyal jazz audience with the King Cole Trio (Oscar Moore on guitar and Wesley Prince on bass), the outfit that established the piano/guitar/bass format as a formidable jazz vehicle. It is almost unbelievable, given Cole's talent as a vocalist, that the Trio in fact began as an instrumental combo. You can see a little of Cole's grace on the piano in the video of "Route 66" below with the Trio (plus one):
Cole was a child prodigy on the piano. He took it up at age 4 and played by ear until he was 12, when he began taking lessons. By age 15 he had dropped out of high school to become a full-time professional musician. William Ruhlmann tells the rest of the story here.
Earl Hines was Cole's original inspiration: "Everything I am I owe to that man, because I copied him." Like Louis Armstrong, Cole must have been a man of incredible inner strength to withstand the racial indignities of the era and convey nothing but ease and joy in his music.
"Sweet Lorraine" was one of Cole's favorite songs. Indeed, Cole recorded it with the Trio in 1941 at the group's first Decca session. I don't know whether Cole's version of "Sweet Lorraine" charted, but 118 of his recordings did, placing him in the company of Crosby (368), Sinatra (209), Elvis (149), Glenn Miller (129) and Louis Armstrong (85) in the empyrean of American popular music. In the video below, Cole performs "Sweet Lorraine" with Oscar Peterson on piano, Ray Brown on bass, and Herb Ellis on guitar. Coleman Hawkins joins in for a solo on the instrumental break.
Cole's career with the Trio was sufficient to allow England's Proper Records to compile the wonderful four-disc set Cool Cole, which ends in 1950 and consists entirely of Trio recordings. It comes with an informative booklet and costs all of about $25. (First posted in 2007.)
March 16, 2010
Why Be Like Sweden?
Our Europhile President and many Congressional Democrats aspire to make the United States more like Sweden. More like our outdated image of Sweden, anyway; the real Sweden is undergoing something of a free market renaissance. In this video from the Center For Freedom and Prosperity, a Swedish economics student--OK, some stereotypes are still valid--explains the lessons we can learn from that country's economic history:
The Democrats seem to be the last ones to realize that the ideology they are trying to impose on us has been thoroughly discredited.
Obama's self-defeating crusade against Israel
President Obama is attempting to use a mistimed announcement by Israel of its intention to build housing units in East Jerusulem as a means of pressuring Israel into making major concessions to the Palestinian Authority. Israel has apologized for the timing of its announcement, but the White House is demanding much more in the way of atonement.
Obama's ploy has drawn strong criticism from mainstream American Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC -- outfits that certainly don't make it a habit to speak harshly about the American government. And now, the White House's approach has been criticized by the editors of the Washington Post.
The Post comes at the issue based not on the equities, but on its standard for assessing nearly all matters pertaining to Israel -- whether Obama's conduct is advancing or retarding the "peace process." To me this is a warped perspective because the peace process is an illusion.
But the Post's perspective is an important one because it purports to reject what Obama is doing even on its own terms (the Post assumes that Obama is trying to advance the cause of peace, not simply letting off steam after a tough year by venting against a country he can't stand; I'm not so sure). If Obama's actions fail to garner support even from those who would like Israel to do at least some of what Obama is demanding -- and from an institution like the Post that is more than willing to criticize Israel -- then the administration has little hope of winning over mainstream Israelis and Americans for its crusade against the Netanyahu government. And without such support, that crusade is likely to be as unsuccessful this year as it was early last year when Obama and Hillary Clinton attempted to browbeat Israel into making concessions.
In fact, it is the lesson from last year that forms the basis for the Post's criticism of the administration. The editors write:
Mr. Obama risks repeating his previous error. American chastising of Israel invariably prompts still harsher rhetoric, and elevated demands, from Palestinian and other Arab leaders. Rather than join peace talks, Palestinians will now wait to see what unilateral Israeli steps Washington forces. Mr. Netanyahu already has made a couple of concessions in the past year, including declaring a partial moratorium on settlements. But on the question of Jerusalem, he is likely to dig in his heels -- as would any other Israeli government. If the White House insists on a reversal of the settlement decision, or allows Palestinians to do so, it might land in the same corner from which it just extricated itself.
Only this time, Netanyahu may not be quite as willing to bail Obama out as he was before.
The Post continues:
A larger question concerns Mr. Obama's quickness to bludgeon the Israeli government. He is not the first president to do so; in fact, he is not even the first to be hard on Mr. Netanyahu. But tough tactics don't always work: Last year Israelis rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu, while Mr. Obama's poll ratings in Israel plunged to the single digits. The president is perceived by many Israelis as making unprecedented demands on their government while overlooking the intransigence of Palestinian and Arab leaders. If this episode reinforces that image, Mr. Obama will accomplish the opposite of what he intends.
It's impossible to see how Obama's petulent, opportunistic conduct is consistent with any other image.
Is That A Threat Or A Promise?
Barack Obama says he won't campaign for any Democrats who vote against the government medicine bill. Somehow, I don't think that's going to have the intended effect.
Throw the Bums Out
Voters seem to be paying attention to the corrupt processes the Democrats are using to try to take control of the health care industries, and they don't like them. I'm pretty sure that's the explanation for Scott Rasmussen finding Republicans with a ten-point lead in the generic Congressional ballot, 45-35%. That's the biggest lead Rasmussen has found for the Republicans in the three years he has been measuring generic ballot preference. No wonder Nancy Pelosi is having a hard time convincing Democrats from swing districts to walk the plank for Obamacare.
Obamacare through the prism of Romneycare
Tim Cahill is the state treasurer of Massachusetts. He recently bolted the Democratic Party to run for governor. The Boston Globe reports Cahill's pointed comments on Obamacare as with a local twist:
State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, an independent candidate for governor, today offered a wide-ranging and scathing criticism of the state's universal health care law, saying it is bankrupting Massachusetts and will do the same nationally, if a similar plan is passed in Congress.
"If President Obama and the Democrats repeat the mistake of the health insurance reform here in Massachusetts on a national level, they will threaten to wipe out the American economy within four years," Cahill said in a press conference in his office.
Echoing criticism leveled by Congressional Republicans in recent weeks, Cahill said, "It is time for the president, the Democratic leadership, to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan that does not threaten to bankrupt this country."
Cahill, who bolted the Democratic Party in July, has been a long-time critic of the state's health insurance law. He said he was calling today's press conference to respond to Governor Deval Patrick's accusation last week that he and other gubernatorial candidates have been "missing in action" in tackling health care concerns.
Cahill said it is the governor who has not done enough to lower costs imposed by the state's health insurance law, which Cahill said "has nearly bankrupted the state."
Cahill said the law is being sustained only with the help of federal aid, which he suggested that the Obama administration is funneling to Massachusetts to help the president make the case for a similar plan in Congress.
"The real problem is the sucking sound of money that has been going in to pay for this health care reform," Cahill said. "And I would argue that we're being propped up so that the federal government and the Obama administration can drive it through" Congress.
Commonwealth Connector, the independent state agency established to help residents find the health insurance, has "totally failed," to create competition and connect people with affordable insurance, Cahill said, pointing out that 68 percent of the residents it serves receive subsidized care.
"We haven't done anything about driving down costs," Cahill said. "We haven't helped small business. We haven't changed the way we pay for health care and the way we deliver it."
More here.
Could Cahill's remarks provide an omen? Aaron Blake construes what I would deem a message of hope from Cahill's remarks: "This doesn't bode well for the Democrats' health care bill."
Via reader Dan O'Brien in Holyoke.
3,000 percent!
Stumping for Obamacare yesterday in Ohio, Obama touted its manifold virtues like the patent remedy salesmen of old. For whatever ails us, this legislation is the cure. Here Obama touts the legislation's magical reduction of expenses for employers with an incidental benefit to employees:
Now, so let me talk about the third thing, which is my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for families, for businesses, and for the federal government.
So Americans buying comparable coverage to what they have today -- I already said this -- would see premiums fall by 14 to 20 percent -- that's not my numbers, that's what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says -- for Americans who get their insurance through the workplace.
How many people are getting insurance through their jobs right now?
Raise your hands.
All right. Well, a lot of those folks, your employer it's estimated would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent, which means they could give you a raise.
Even conceding that Obama misspoke -- what number did he mean to cite? -- the more appropriate question would have been: "Do you believe in magic?"
One wonders at what point embarrassment, let alone respect for the intelligence of the audience, might set in.
Via Rush Limbaugh.
