I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from and correcting these mistakes to make us safer, for ultimately the buck stops with me. As president, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people, and when the system fails, it is my responsibility.
Over the past two weeks, we've been reminded again of the challenge we face in protecting our country against a foe that is bent on our destruction. And while passions and politics can often obscure the hard work before us, let's be clear about what this moment demands.
We are at war. We are at war against Al Qaida, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people, and that is plotting to strike us again. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them.
And we've made progress. Al Qaida's leadership is hunkered down. We have worked closely with partners, including Yemen, to inflict major blows against Al Qaida leaders. And we have disrupted plots at home and abroad and saved American lives.
And we know that the vast majority of Muslims reject Al Qaida. But it is clear that Al Qaida increasingly seeks to recruit individuals without known terrorist affiliations, not just in the Middle East but in Africa and other places, to do their bidding.
That's why I've directed my national security team to develop a strategy that addresses the unique challenges posed by lone recruits. And that's why we must communicate clearly to Muslims around the world that Al Qaida offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death, including the murder of fellow Muslims, while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress.
To advance that progress we've sought new beginnings with Muslim communities around the world, one in which we engage on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect and work together to fulfill the aspirations that all people share -- to get an education, to work with dignity, to live in peace and security.
That's what America believes in. That's the vision that is far more powerful than the hatred of these violent extremists.
Here at home, we will strengthen our defenses, but we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. That is exactly what our adversaries want. And so long as I am president, we will never hand them that victory.
We will define the character of our country, not some band of small men intent on killing innocent men, women and children.
And in this cause, every one of us -- every American, every elected official -- can do our part. Instead of giving in to cynicism and division, let's move forward with the confidence and optimism and unity that defines us as a people, for now is not a time for partisanship, it's a time for citizenship, a time to come together and work together with the seriousness of purpose that our national security demands.
That's what it means to be strong in the face of violent extremism. That's how we will prevail in this fight. And that's how we will protect our country and pass it, safer and stronger, to the next generation.
First, striking this provision from the final bill will make it much more difficult to pass final health reform legislation in the Senate and that's a huge mistake when we're closer than ever to completing a journey that began with Harry Truman. If passing health care reform was easy, it would've happened decades ago. It's not. It requires tough choices. And it's worth it.
Second, this is an idea that will help health reform succeed in the long run. It will create competition and place sunshine on the process of pricing health insurance premiums.
Third, it will help control future health care costs without -- I repeat without -- directly taxing employees. Unlike a cap on the existing tax exclusion of health insurance benefits, which I oppose, this provision will not require employees to include a portion of their employer provided benefits as part of their taxable wages.
Fourth, the excise tax included in the Senate-passed health care bill will affect only a small portion of the very highest cost health plans -- a total of 3% of premiums in 2013. The vast majority of health plans fall below the thresholds set in the Senate plan and would be completely unaffected by the provision. In addition, the Senate plan provides special protections to plans held by workers in high-risk professions -- like police and firefighters -- as well as by those over 55.
Fifth, for the small sub-set of plans that are affected, the likely impact will be to increase workers' wages. MIT economist Jon Gruber recently found that the excise tax included in the Senate bill would lead employers to raise wages by $223 billion between 2010 and 2019. In 2019, wages for those affected by the provision will be higher by about $660 per household. I repeat -- raise wages. After spending years and years hearing from workers tired of seeing their unions forced to spend all of their energy at the bargaining table just to hold on to health care instead of negotiating for better wages, we now have a way to help increase wages and improve health care simultaneously.
Look, make no mistake, I didn't cook this idea up because I think it's the best or the only way to improve health care -- but it's a good idea that also helps get health care passed. And if there's one thing Ted Kennedy taught us all, it's that in legislating on core issues, you seize those moments and marry the practical and the policy.
Does the Senate-passed bill cast too broad a net by setting the excise tax threshold too low? Yes. This could affect some of the hardest working American families. So let's fix it, not nix it. I believe the final health care reform bill will include appropriate adjustments to preserve its cost containing benefits while increasing the fairness of this provision. But let's get back to the business of doing that instead of fighting to kill a provision that improves health care -- and improves the chances of passing health care this month.
The article that convinced me of the importance of the Excise Tax is here, written by Erza Klein.
Over the course of this debate, I've repeatedly talked with union leaders and analysts who wanted to convince me of their side. One of the arguments they frequently used was that they had negotiated their contracts knowing that a dollar in health benefits was worth more than a dollar in wages, because it's exempt from taxation. That, of course, is exactly the problem. The current system sets up an incentive for workers to prefer that relatively more of their total compensation comes in the form of health benefits than wages. At a time when we need pressures to control costs, that's an incentive to increase them. As the CWA example shows, a lot of people have benefited from this system up until now, but at some point, we need to call a stop to it.
I've stopped listening to and watching Ed Schultz in recent months because of his "my way is the only way" stance on the Health Care Debate. My plan was to give it about a year, and see calm the waters were before wading back in.
Here's the deal. Byron Dorgan was a bit of an odd political duck. He was a Liberal Senator, from a blood red state, that routinely whupped his opposition by 30-60 points an election. Now that Dorgan is retiring (and don't be surprised if he's not the first name on the list for any cabinet vacancies in the Obama Administration) the current and popular Republican governor of North Dakota, John Hoeven, would look to be a shoo-in. So Ed has got to know that he might be the only shot the Democrats have at holding the seat...short of Dorgan changing his mind.
Now, Ed's got a fairly popular MSNBC Show...even though I've deleted it from my DVR. It's taken him a long time to get where he is. To give the Ed Show up (which he'll have to do) in order to run for a seat he might not win has got to be weighing on him. But I also know for a fact that he loathes Hoeven, in much the same way Al Franken despised Norm Coleman. Ed might want to stay in TV, but I know he'd love to take a shot at Hoeven. It's almost more important to him than holding the seat.
So, the long and the short of it is, I don't know what he's going to do. Ed is couching his language veeeerrry carefully. He's not ruling it in...but he's sure as hell not ruling it out. If you asked me for a prediction, I think he might do it.
I must warn you that my predictions are worthless at this stage. I thought Ken Salazar was going to run for Governor of Colorado, and ten seconds after I had that thought...this appeared.
Also, Dad reminded me this morning, if nothing else, Ed's running might demonstrate to show progressives that their way does not always command 50%.
That is the implicit and sometimes explicit charge here, that President Bush somehow did it right, and President Obama is somehow doing it wrong.
It‘s worth noting that whatever we as a country were doing on September 12th and in the weeks after, doesn't seem to have worked all that well. It was about three months after September 12th that we got the failed terrorist attack that was essentially exactly like the one that happened this Christmas Day. Three months after 9/11, Richard Reid tried to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner with explosives that had been hidden in his shoes. Whatever we were doing with our 9/12 mentality wasn't enough to prevent that.
Our 9/12 mentality also wasn‘t able to prevent the growth and maturation of al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, al Qaeda chapters in Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, strong enough to pull off major terrorist strikes like the raid on the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 2004, which left nine dead, the attack on oil company compounds in Al-Khubar in Saudi Arabia that same year that left 22 people dead, and the brutal murder of American engineer Paul Johnson also in Saudi Arabia in 2004.
An article in Sunday‘s “Washington Post” detailed the extent to which United States‘ missteps in Yemen allowed al Qaeda to expand and grow there as well.
This super-focus 9/12 mentality that conservatives now say we need to return also wasn‘t able to capture the perpetrators of 9/11, as we learned incidentally from last week‘s suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers in Khost, Afghanistan. We are still looking for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Jordanian double agent recruited by the CIA was brought in to help U.S. officials find Zawahiri, 8 ½ years after our super focus 9/12 mentality.
The danger in these Bush policies being romanticized and retroactively imbued with some sort of magical efficacy they didn‘t really have is that we may start putting those failed policies in place again.
Today, we heard President Obama announce a new program for screening passengers coming into the United States.
That program was formally announced by the TSA this week. It calls for extra screening procedures for passengers traveling to the United States from 14 foreign countries.
That type of program, of course, evokes roughly one of the things the Bush administration did starting in 2002 when John Ashcroft announced a new system wherein any male under the age of 25 from this list of countries would have to register with authorities if they were working or visiting or living in the United States. It was called the NSEERS System.
That system that performed extremely well, produced precisely zero terrorism prosecutions. But it did turn a whole lot of people against the United States for a lifetime. It might make us feel better to have that sort of list, but those countries we just scrolled on the screen, you may have noticed didn't include the nations of Jamaica or England. Remember the shoe bomber, Richard Reid? He was a British citizen born to a family of Jamaican immigrants. He was radicalized at a mosque in London.
So, our super focus 9/12 mentality came up with the hugely costly, arguably quite counterproductive system that would not have screened out the next attempted bomber anyway.
By the way, the new Obama administration list from the TSA also doesn't include Jamaica and England. Not that it should. Not that there‘s anything special about Jamaica or England, but if we're trying to apply even the wisdom of hindsight here, doesn't it seem weird to build the same failed system all over again with the same known obvious loopholes?
It‘s one thing to pound your chest and brag on profiling because it makes liberals mad and it makes you feel tough. But how does the fact that it doesn't work intrude on your macho, macho feelings about it?
The danger of the Bush administration‘s approach being lauded as this good, tough approach that we wish we went back to is that it will currently increase the political appeal of emulating those failed approaches, being gratuitously unconstitutional in order to look tough is not the same thing as actually keeping us safe. No matter how much Mr. Obama's critics may want it to be so.
As I said before, we're starting to see something of a Liberal pushback against other Liberals in the media. Hendrik Hertzberg's piece in the New Yorker is merely the most literate example of this.
But there was a another quote mentioned in the piece that got my attention. One saying that Obama is, and I quote:
"...an Uncle Tom groveling before the demands of the corporations that are running our country.”
Yes, I had a problem with this! (In case the title of this article didn't clue you in.)
If this was the first time Ralph Nader had used racially charged rhetoric in regards to this particular President, I'd have just been angry at him. But it's not.
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader accused Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic Party nominee, of downplaying poverty issues, trying to "talk white" and appealing to "white guilt" during his run for the White House.
During a Sunday press conference and campaign rally attended by RAW STORY, Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader claimed that liberals and Democrats who will vote for Sen. Barack Obama as the "least worst candidate" are actually trapped in "political slavery."
During a radio interview on Election Day, independent candidate Ralph Nader said of Barack Obama, "His choice, basically, is whether he's going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations."
Okay, Nader supporters...what am I to conclude from this? Believe me when I say, there are plenty of ways to go after this President. I know this because I've watched you do it for the last six months, and as wrongheaded as I think some of the criticism has been, as much as it has pissed me off...I can't recall a single instance (and I've been trying) where Liberals and/or Progressives on this site or others resorted to racial rhetoric to get their point across.
So why is Ralph Nader, your supposed hero, ALWAYS GOING THERE?!!?
Newsflash, white folks. Because of your history with African-Americans, because of slavery, Jim Crow, and the general crappy way you've treated us for the last three hundred years (as America's only involuntary immigrants), you have lost the collective right to use certain bits of the language.
Don't like it? Tough. You never paid up forty acres and a mule. I think you got off cheap.
Mr. Nader may think that by using incendiary language he's going to quote-unquote "wake people up", but what he's really telling me that he's got an inferiority problem. Like the Tea-Baggers, the Birthers, and frankly a majority of the GOP, he cannot believe, nor can accept the fact that a black man got elected instead of him. So he's going to go out of his way, to remind himself, that despite the fact that Barack Obama is now the President, he's still superior.
Let's be clear, this is about Ralph Nader. Not about you. Ralph Nader has every right to bash the President, to call him a Corporatist, a sell-out, what have you. He doesn't have the right to inject race into his arguments...
...and still, he keeps doing it.
This is about him. Not about you.
It only becomes about you, should you keep excusing this nonsense.
The only conclusion I can come to is that Ralph Nader has no problem sticking up for the little guy, as long as the little guy knows his place.
Krugman is essentially arguing that the current economic news is in fact a "blip" -- good news that is transitory, largely because of the "inventory bounce." He then argues that the good news will all go away soon. But let's look a little further. What's his proof? Notice how there is no mention of a specific set of numbers from the current economic news which bolsters his argument. He is merely saying "it's happened before." Using Krugman's logic we might as well bet on the Florida Marlins to in the World Series this year. Why? They've won it before.
What Krugman is really saying -- and what he should have outright said -- is we're not out of the woods yet and we need to guard against thinking we are out of the woods. That would have been an entirely appropriate argument to make. This is an argument against "getting comfortable" with the current situation when in fact the economy still has a long way to go.
But in defense of Dr. Krugman (who certainly doesn't need me to defend him), I think that's exactly what Krugman was saying...albeit in a slightly more drawn out way.
I've said it before. Krugman is a typical professor (y'know, aside from the New York Times column, New York Times blog, regular appearances on MSNBC, and...you know, the whole...Nobel Laureate thing) in that he's got a universe of knowledge in his head, and sometimes doesn't react well when people don't understand what the hell he's talking about. (Bondad clearly does). This frustration tends to show up in his writing. He also has a tendency, when really, really mad, to ignore political realities and go into "just get it DONE" mode (which Dr. Krugman is kinda in now).
But the fact of the matter is, he does know what he's talking about. He may not have provided numbers in this particular column Bonddad refers to, but he certainly has in the past, and will again in the future. He's worried about 1937. So am I. So are we all.
Do I think Krugman is being overly pessimistic? Yeah, probably...given his history with the Stimulus. But is he right to point out that the same Stimulus might not have been enough? Hellz yeah.
The following is a letter Andrew Sullivan received in regards to the Crotch Bomber, and the nature and true intent of Terrorism. It was so good, I felt a need to repost it here. Andrew advisers his readers to read the whole letter. I advise the same:
I keep hearing this even described as a failed terrorist attack on an airplane. But was it really? I keep hearing about how the system failed, but did it really? Think about it. First, what is the major goal of terrorism? It is not to bring down airplanes. It is not to destroy the West. It is, pure and simple, to create terror in people. Why? Because when people are afraid they overreact. And this includes most of us, yourself included.
If the intent of al Qaeda in this latest instance was to bring down an airplane, then it failed. But if its intent was to create fear and overreaction, then it succeeded Personally, I think it was the latter. It is quite possible (in fact I think probable) that the people who planned this event, and used the young man from Nigeria as a tool, were aware that due to security measures in place, there was no way they could actually get a bomb through that would actually work. The detonation equipment needed would have been detected. The same applies, by the way, to the shoe bomber.
Again, think about it. If you wanted to blow up a plane, would you attempt it from your seat, where somebody could quite possibly stop you? No, you would go to the washroom where you could set off the bomb without disruption.
Of course, if it failed to go off, then people wouldn't necessarily know what you were trying to do. Therefore you have to make sure it is one in the open, or the very failure is perceived as a terrorist attack. The fear result is the same whether or not the bomb goes off.
In addition to the torture lovers advocating a return to waterboarding, the administration sets up more stringent guidelines for air travel (most of which are unlikely to be effective at all) and other people call for the resignation of the head of DHS. In other words, the response is what al Qaeda and other terrorist groups want.
Al Qaeda has lost a lot of its prestige and influence in the Muslim world. They need something to get it back. How better than to do something that creates a reaction on the part of the US or Great Britain that shows just how bad we are and how we are so anti-Islam. After 9/11, recruiting by al Qaeda suffered until we invaded Iraq. That alone increased recruitment. Then when our torture policies became evident, it increased more. Lately, however, it has declined again. If we as a nation respond poorly to this "successful" attack, then they will achieve all their goals.
Mark Halperin's list of five things President Obama did well in his first year and five things Obama did poorly in his first year is quite a document. As others have noted, the five things Obama did well, according to Halperin, amounted to "governing the country." The five things that Obama did badly (aside from Halperin's critique of the White House's internal policy process) are mainly about image management. To wit: "Managing his public image." The most egregious, though, is "wooing official Washington."
(Since I don't know how to format a quote within a quote, go to the article to read the ridiculous passage Erza's talking about.)
Apparently, the administration -- which is governing during one of the most crises-laden periods in recent history and which is still operating without a number of its key officials -- should be spending more time partying. The charitable interpretation is that Halperin thinks this prioritization is making Obama's life unnecessarily hard: The White House could be getting better press coverage, and more support from established powerbrokers, if it was fanning out to more embassy parties, and that would make governing easier.
You wonder, however, whether Halperin recognizes the rot and corruption he's suggesting in "official Washington." The same goes for his item on Obama's media failures, which argues that Obama's "image makers have not been deft enough in finding a happy medium that allows Obama to be Obama while neutralizing some of the more poisonous, potentially indelible story lines."
Official Washington consists mainly of people who are paid to understand American politics. They shouldn't need to be feted at parties. Indeed, if their conclusions are being changed by glimpsing Larry Summers at the British Embassy, they're doing a terrible job. Either Obama is governing well and is worthy of respect or he isn't, but the assessment can't be that he's governing well but not coming to enough parties. At least, not unless we're in some serious "Fall of Rome" days here in Washington.
Similarly, a journalist who is so uninformed about merits of what's actually going on that a slick call from David Axelrod changes her opinion of Obama's performance should be fired. It's one thing to play the perception game during campaigns. But governance actually has real, tangible things you can evaluate. Is Obama closer or further from passing health-care reform than his predecessors? Will the bill improve or hurt the situation? Could it have been substantially better or worse given the congressional constraints? If Halperin really believes that Obama's image should be in better shape than it is, then that's an indictment of his -- and my -- profession, not of the White House.
(And for the record, I prefer Stephanie Miller's "Crotch Bomber" reference.)
Bloggers have had a great time exposing the inconsistency on the pro-torture right. Why should Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab be tortured as an enemy combatant while Richard Reid was prosecuted by civilian authorities under Bush? Isn't the unconscious truth obvious? One has an English name; the other has a very foreign-sounding Muslim name. One was born in Bromley and one in Kenya. One is "us"; the other is "them". And it is much easier to torture them than to torture us. It just seems to me that this distinction has no moral, legal or strategic basis.
Does President Obama have a problem with his political base? That conclusion seems inescapable in recent weeks, as prominent liberal voices have expressed their unhappiness with the president, especially in regards to compromises in the health care reform legislation passed last month in the Senate. Howard Dean, for one, said he would prefer to "kill the Senate bill" and start over, as did groups like MoveOn.org and prominent progressive bloggers like Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos.
Encapsulating the theme, Doonesbury's Mark Slackmeyer -- the comic strip's most "unreconstructed" liberal -- vented his frustration with Obama during a week in which the fictional NPR talk show host pronounced Obama a "complete disappointment" and declared that Obama had "totally lost me."
Now of course, Doonesbury is a work of fiction, but you still have to assume that if a pollster asked, Slackmeyer would have answered "disapprove" when asked to rate the president's performance. How many real-world liberal Democrats share that sentiment?
According to the daily tracking poll conducted all year by the Gallup organization, very few.
The chart below shows Obama's approval rating tabulated by a combination of party and ideology (published on Gallup's Web site). While Obama's rating has declined across the political spectrum, nearly nine out of 10 liberal Democrats -- an average of 87 percent in December -- approve of the job Obama is doing as president.
Granted, the link is just to blogpost on TPM, but it well illustrates my own dissatisfaction with Huffington Post in recent months. I can't tell you how many times I've clicked on a Headline, only to find the exact opposite is true in the body of the article:
All the Huffington Post wants traffic. They want you to spread their rumors and links all over the place, regardless of the veracity of their stories.
Even though I'm in Texas, the chief business of this blog continues. Providing easy access for my Dad (and occasionally Heidi) to get at the Speeches and Pressers than the President gives:
UPDATE: 12:54pm Pacific: MSNBC cut off the part of the speech that dealt with Iran. He had some choice words for the regime, and I'll try to put them up should I find them online.
UPDATE: 5:45pm Pacific: Okay, here we go.
Transcript:
The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens, which has apparently resulted in detentions, injuries, and even death.
For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights. Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days. And each time that has happened, the world has watched with deep admiration for the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people who are part of Iran’s great and enduring civilization.
What’s taking place within Iran is not about the United States or any other country. It’s about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves. And the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.
As I said in Oslo, it’s telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. Along with all free nations, the United States stands with those who seek their universal rights. We call upon the Iranian government to abide by the international obligations that it has to respect the rights of its own people.
We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran. We will continue to bear witness to the extraordinary events that are taking place there. And I’m confident that history will be on the side of those who seek justice.
I know it's a bit of an odd question, given what happened in Detroit just a few days ago. But you've got a piece at ForeignPolicy.com saying, in effect, that when it comes to stories about Al-Qaeda, the Arab Media doesn't really give @#$% anymore.
In most of the Arab newspapers which I follow on a daily basis, the failed airplane plot didn't even make the front page -- or, at best, got a small and vague story. Gaza dominates the headlines, as it often does. Yemen continues to command considerable attention because of the ongoing clashes between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi movement, something which has been of far more consistent interest to the Arab public than to the American. Iran's protests are covered heavily. Most of the better papers also focus on local political issues. One of the only papers to cover the story prominently is the deeply anti-AQ Saudi paper al-Sharq al-Awsat, which leads with "passengers save America from a terrorist catastrophe." It's the same on the major pan-Arab TV stations. On the al-Jazeera webpage, the story doesn't even appear on the Arab news page, while a bland story about the airplane incident is only the sixth story on the international page (the same place it held in the broadcast news roundup; yesterday it was the third story in the news roundup, with the killing of 6 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza the lead). It does not crack the top 6 stories on the al-Arabiya website today.
The Arab media's indifference to the story speaks to a vitally important trend. Al-Qaeda's attempted acts of terrorism simply no longer carry the kind of persuasive political force with mass Arab or Muslim publics which they may have commanded in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Even as the microscopically small radicalized and mobilized base continues to plot and even to thrive in its isolated pockets, it has largely lost its ability to break out into mainstream public appeal. I doubt this would have been any different even had the plot been successful -- more attention and coverage, to be sure, but not sympathy or translation into political support. It is just too far gone to resonate with Arab or Muslim publics at this point.
For the sake of argument, let’s take the most expansive theory of how Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger jet. According to the Wall Street Journal, Abdulmutallab gets an explosive device from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen; takes a couple of layovers to get on the plane; boards with his device; ignites it; it fizzles; passengers and crew subdue him. And we’re supposed to be scared of this?
As I said, we’re going to assume those direct ties exist for the sake of argument. The Times account is more skeptical. But go with it. What does this say about al-Qaeda?
First, al-Qaeda’s signatures are redundance and simultaneity. Think 9/11, Madrid, London: all used multiple operatives focused on multiple targets, acting in unison. That’s to ensure something blows up if and when something goes wrong. But here Abdulmutallab acted alone. There can be little doubt the operation was intended to go off on Christmas, for the obvious symbolism, so we would have seen evidence of a coordinated attack by now. The inescapable if preliminary conclusion: al-Qaeda can’t get enough dudes to join Abdulmutallab. And what does it give the guy to set off his big-boom? A device that’s “more incendiary than explosive,” in the words of some anonymous Department of Homeland Security official to the Times.
And if Abdulmutallab didn’t have clear ties to al-Qaeda? That he’s part of the cohort of self-starters al-Qaeda is trying to inspire, not train and direct? That’s good news too, because his capabilities weren’t sufficient to bring down the plane. As I reported in this piece, the most salient facts about this recent slew of attempted terrorist attacks is that they either failed outright or they didn’t kill many people.
Combine that, as I did in that piece, with the growth in capability of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement since 9/11 and we have… a manageable threat. As Matthew Yglesias writes, it doesn’t do any good to blow this out of proportion, since blowing things out of proportion to spur an overreaction is Usama bin Laden’s explicit strategy.
Ackerman, to my eternal surprise, follows this with a short burst on Afghanistan:
I saw Dylan Matthews tweet that the conclusion to draw is that the Afghanistan war isn’t worth the money and the effort given the diminished scope of al-Qaeda’s capabilities. And I respect the contention, as it gets to the heart of the question. But I think it’s wrong. As I argued in this very long post, we have a credible approach in place to break al-Qaeda’s strategic depth and core operational capability; box it into a situation where it can’t export significant acts of terror against us or our allies; and we can do this along a reasonable timetable of the next several years, prompting us to significantly draw down our military presence in Afghanistan. And then the “Long War” is… over. And by over, I mean that we can restore our security posture to one where terrorism is primarily an intelligence and law enforcement preoccupation, not a military one, since al-Qaeda will be the 21st century version of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a once-fearsome and now-marginal enemy. If we stop now, we risk unnecessary metastasis of al-Qaeda, giving them a new lease on life at a moment when it really looks like if we fight somewhat further we can be done with this awful problem and this painful legacy of a miserable decade.
Over the past decade, according to BTS, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. Dividing by six, we get one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.
These departures flew a collective 69,415,786,000 miles. That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 mles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.
Assuming an average airborne speed of 425 miles per hour, these airplanes were aloft for a total of 163,331,261 hours. Therefore, there has been one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne. This can also be expressed as one incident per 1,134,245 days airborne, or one incident per 3,105 years airborne.
There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.
For the first time in a weekly address, the President is joined by the First Lady as they celebrate Christmas. They both honor those serving overseas, those who have sacrificed for their country, and the families that stand by them.
Madam President, as we are here in the Senate today, Washington rests under a blanket of snow, reminding us here of the Christmas spirit across the nation -- the spirit that is bringing families happily together for the holidays. Unfortunately, a different spirit has descended on this Senate. The spirit that has descended on the Senate is one described by Chief Justice John Marshall back in the Burr trial: "those malignant and vindictive passions which rage in the bosoms of contending parties struggling for power."
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Hofstader captured some examples in his famous essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."
The "malignant and vindictive passions" often arise, he points out, when an aggrieved minority believes that "America has been largely taken away from them and their kind. Though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion." Does that sound familiar, Madam President, in this health-care debate? Forty years ago he wrote that.
Hofstader continued, those aggrieved fear what he described as "the now-familiar sustained conspiracy" -- familiar then, 40 years ago; persistent now -- "whose supposed purpose," Hofstader described, "is to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism." Again, familiar words here today.
More than 50 years ago, he wrote of the dangers of an aggrieved right-wing minority with the power to create what he called "a political climate in which the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible."
A political environment "in which the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible."
The malignant and vindictive passions that have descended on the Senate are busily creating just such a political climate. Far from appealing to the better angels of our nature, too many colleagues are embarked on a desperate, no-holds-barred mission of propaganda, falsehood, obstruction and fear.
History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrels have rolled through taunting crowds. Broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner waving secret lists. Those malignant movements rightly earned what Lord Acton called "the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict upon wrong."
But history also reminds us that in the heat of those vindictive passions, some people earnestly believed they were justified. Such is the human capacity for intoxication by those malignant and vindictive political passions Chief Justice Marshall described. I ask my colleagues to consider what judgment history will inflict on this current spirit that has descended on the Senate. Let's look at what current observers are saying as a possible earlier indicator of the judgment history will inflict.
Recently the editor of the Manchester Journal-Inquirer editorial page wrote of the current GOP, which he called "this once-great but now mostly shameful party," that it "has gone crazy," "is more and more dominated by the lunatic fringe," and has "poisoned itself with hate." He concluded, "They no longer want to govern; they want to emote."
A well-regarded Philadelphia columnist wrote of the "conservative paranoia" and "lunacy" on the Republican right. The respected Maureen Dowd, in her eulogy for her friend, William Safire, lamented "the vile and vitriol of today's howling pack of conservative pundits."
A Washington Post writer with a quarter-century of experience observing government -- married to a Bush administration official -- noted about the House health-care bill, "the apalling amount of misinformation being peddled by its opponents." She called it "a flood of sheer factual misstatements" about the health-care bill and noted that "the falsehood-peddling began at the top."
The respected head of the Mayo Clinic described [video] recent health-care antics as "scare tactics" and "mud."
Congress itself is not immune. Many of us felt President Bush was less than truthful, yet not one of us yelled out, "You lie!" at a president at a joint session of Congress. Through panics and depressions, through world wars and civil wars, no one ever has -- never -- until President Obama delivered his first address.
And this September, 179 Republicans in the House voted to support their heckler comrade, and here in the Senate, this month, one of our Republican colleagues regretted, "Why didn't I say that?"
A Nobel Prize-winning economist recently concluded thus: "The takeover of the Republican Party by the irrational right is no laughing matter. Something unprecedented is happening here, and it's very bad for America." History's current verdict is not promising.
How are these unprecedented passions manifested in the Senate? Well, several ways:
First, through a campaign of obstruction and delay, affecting every single aspect of the Senate's business. We have crossed the mark of over 100 filibusters and acts of procedural obstruction in less than one year. Never since the founding of the republic, not even in the bitter sentiments preceding the Civil War, was such a thing ever seen in this body. It is unprecedented.
Second, through a campaign of falsehood about "death panels" and cuts to Medicare benefits, and benefits for illegal aliens, and bureaucrats to be parachuted in between you and your doctor. Our colleagues terrify the public with this parade of imagined horrors. They whip up concerns and anxiety about "socialized medicine" and careening deficits. And then they tell us the public is concerned about the bill. Really.
Third, we see it in bad behavior. We see it in the long hours of reading by the clerks our Republican colleagues have forced. We see it in Christmases and holidays ruined by the Republicans for our loyal and professional Senate employees. It's fine for me, it's fine for the President; we signed up for this job. But why ruin it for all of the employees condemned by the Republicans to be here?
We see it in simple agreements for senators to speak, broken. We see it, tragically, in gentle and distinguished members -- true noblemen of the Senate who have built reputations of trustworthiness and honor over decades -- being forced to break their word and double-cross their dearest friends and colleagues. We see it in public attacks in the press by senators against the parliamentary staff. Madam President, the parliamentary staff are non-partisan, professional employees of the Senate who cannot answer back. Attacking them is worse than kicking a man when he's down; attacking them is kicking a man who is forbidden to hit back. It is dishonorable.
The lowest of the low was the Republican vote against funding and supporting our troops in the field at a time of war. As a device to stall health care, they tried to stop the appropriation of funds for our soldiers. There is no excuse for that; from that there is no return. Every single Republican member was willing to vote against cloture on funding our troops, and they admitted it was a tactic to obstruct health-care reform. The secretary of defense warned us all that a "no" vote "would immediately create a serious disruption in the worldwide activities of the Department of Defense." And yet every one of them was willing to vote "no." Almost all of them did vote "no"; some stayed away, but that's the same as "no" when you need 60 "yes" votes to proceed; voting "no" and hiding from the vote are the same result. And for those of us here on the floor to see it, it was clear; the three who voted "yes" did not cast their "yes" votes until all 60 Democratic votes had been tallied, and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion.
And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.
The insurance industry -- one of the most powerful lobbies in politics -- is another reason. The bad behavior you see on the Senate floor is the last, thrashing throes of the health insurance industry as it watches its business model die. You who are watching and listening know this business model if you or a loved one have been sick -- the business model that won't insure you if they think you'll get sick, or you have a pre-existing condition. The business model that if they insure you and you do get sick, Job One is to find loopholes to throw you off your coverage and abandon you alone to your illness. The business model, when they can't find that loophole, that they'll try to interfere with or deny you the care your doctor has ordered. And the business model that, when all else fails and they can't avoid you or abandon you or deny you, they just stiff the doctor and the hospital, and deny and delay their payments for as long as possible -- or perhaps tell the hospital to collect from you first -- and maybe they'll reimburse you. Good riddance to that business model. We know it all too well. It deserves a stake through its cold and greedy heart, but some of our colleagues here are fighting to the death to keep it alive.
But the biggest reason for these desperate acts by our colleagues is that we are gathering momentum. And we are gathering strength. And we are working toward our goal of passing this legislation. And when we do, the lying time is over.
The American public will see what actually comes to pass when we pass this bill as our new law. The American public will see first-hand the difference between what is, and what they were told. Facts, as the presiding officer has often said, are stubborn things. It is one thing to propagandize and scare people about the unknown; it is much harder to propagandize and scare people when they are seeing and feeling and touching something different.
When it turns out that there are no death panels, that there is no bureaucrat between you and your doctor, when the ways that your health care changes seem like a pretty good deal to you and a smart idea -- when the American public sees the discrepancy between what really is and what they were told by the Republicans, there will be a reckoning. There will come a day of judgment about who was telling the truth.
Our colleagues are behaving in this way -- unprecedented, malignant and vindictive -- because they are desperate to avoid that day of judgment. Frantic and desperate now, and willing to do strange and unprecedented things, willing to do anything -- even to throw our troops at war in the way of that day of reckoning.
If they can cause this bill to fail, the truth will never stand up as a living reproach to the lies that have been told. And on through history, our colleagues could claim they defeated a terrible monstrosity. But when the bill passes, and this program actually comes to life and it is friendly -- when it shelters 33 million Americans, regular American people in the new security of health insurance, when it growls down the most disgraceful abuses of the insurance industry, when it offers better care, electronic health records, new community health centers, new opportunities to negotiate fair and square in a public market, and when it brings down the deficit and steers Medicare toward safe harbor, all of which it does, Americans will then know, beyond any capacity of spin or propaganda to dissuade them, that they were lied to. And they will remember.
There will come a day of judgment -- and our Republican friends know that. And that, Mr. President, is why they are terrified.
Obama's is the least cynical of the seven presidencies I've covered. It is a presidency that took effective action to prevent a depression, that has refused to engage in arrogant jingoism in its dealing with the rest of the world and--most important--spent its political capital on the most important piece of social legislation, health care reform, of the past 45 years.
That Rich would even implicitly compare Barack Obama, who has made a significant and very substantive intellectual effort to deal with every problem he's faced, with an adulterous golfer is facile to the point of slander...And so is the judgment that the country is "mired in a sand trap with no obvious way out." From where I sit, the country is facing very difficult problems--caused, in large part, by the right-wing extremism Rich seems to be crediting here--but it is in much better shape than it was a year ago. And the way ahead seems very clear to me: After a thirty year period during which the very notion of governance was ridiculed, we need to take the work of government seriously again. Barack Obama is doing precisely that.
You can disagree with Obama's decisions and his philosophy. You can argue that that he has tried to take on too much. You can argue that health care reform was the wrong priority in the midst of a deep recession. But you cannot gainsay the intensely serious nature of this presidency. And to give any credit to the notion that Obama is "spineless" requires a fundamental lack of knowledge about what he has been trying to accomplish this year...and about the limits of the possible.
I think Klein's point shouldn't be lost, at the same time, its hard for me to take his side on...well, anything, given that he's been subject to the same level of histrionics that he accuses Mr. Rich of engaging in.
Let's just say that if you're a reader -- or anyone else that doesn't rise to what Mr. Klein thinks is Mr. Klein's level of brilliance -- he gets a mite bit prickly.
That being said, my hope for the new year is that we all cut each other some slack.
And let’s also not fail to take note of those who had a chance to join in this historic moment, and punted.
I’m not talking about the progressives who have rejected this bill because they don’t think it’s good enough; I disagree, but I respect their motives. I’m talking instead about the self-described centrists, pundits and politicians, who have spent years lecturing us on the need to make hard choices and actually come to grip with America’s problems; you know who I mean. So what did they do when faced with a chance to help confront those problems? They made excuses.
After months in which the Senate health care bill was held up over efforts to find some form in which she would agree to sign on to it, Sen. Snowe (R-ME) now says she will oppose it because it is being "rushed."
If it's bill killer stuff you want Fort McHenry is definitely not the site for you. (besides, Kos and most of HuffPo are filling that bill for ya, so go enjoy!).
But amidst all the strum and drang, to quote the oft-hated Rahm Emanuel (Loved in 2006, loathed in 2009) "What you're seeing is the progressive backlash against the progressive backlash."
True dat. He is a sampler platter of today's highlights.
Is Obama really such a wimp? Or is he dealing with the harsh reality of: 1) the legacy of the Bush era; and 2) a divided Democratic party that has, in many ways, betrayed him?
It's hard to imagine that this is the health care plan that Obama envisioned during the campaign. Nor did he want to have to send tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan. But imagine the outcry had Obama begun to exit Afghanistan. He would have been the victim of a new stab-in-the-back legend on the right that might well have destroyed his presidency before it even had the chance to get off the ground. When it comes to health care, Congress will surely revisit it in coming years. Whether or not the bill contains a Medicare expansion, Obama is exactly right to say that it represents the biggest potential Democratic accomplishment since the establishment of Social Security. Little Joe Lieberman can pout and strut all he wants, but ultimately he'll be a mere footnote in the history of the bill.
The blunt fact is that Obama has been president for one measly year. Compared to the blunders that other presidents have committed early on, Obama is looking good. If the economy improves, he will look even better. So ignore the tedious and hypertrophied Obama bashers. And never forget that he is as as good and intelligent and decent a president as America will ever have. He still has a chance to become one of the greatest. Eight years from now, after Obama has successfully served two terms, that judgment may well look like a commonplace.
...
Joe Conason (from the end of a pretty positive profile of Howard Dean)
But the real crux of the argument between Dean and the bill's supporters is less about the details than over what this act means for the future of healthcare in America. For those who want the bill to pass despite its defects -- a position that I have come to share -- this is the moment when the nation decides that health insurance must be provided to every citizen, period. That tidal shift is why right-wing politicians and pundits are so ferociously opposed to this bill -- and why its passage would represent an important victory on the way to restoration of the American social contract.
The law for the law of unintended consequences is also an important reminder that this bill represents the beginning, rather than the end, of health-care reform. “I am not the first president to take up this cause,” Obama said back in September, “but I am determined to be the last.” He will not be the last, or even close to it.
But this bill is a start. It gives states the tools – new money, new regulations, new programs, new processes – to begin fixing the health-care system. Maybe just as importantly, it recognizes that, eventually, we’re going to have to fix the fix to the health-care system, too. Passing this flawed-but-important bill is, in part, a leap of faith. It is a bet that we, as a society, can solve our problems. It is an admission that we never get it totally right, but that that’s no excuse not to try. It is a decision to trust ourselves to do our best with what we know now, and apply the hard-won knowledge of experience when we know more later. It says so right in the legislation.
There are those who oppose this bill, and its aims, in its totality. I don’t agree with their opposition, but I respect it. Those who would let their disappointment with a small piece of the bill cancel out their support for the overarching effort are, however, making a far more serious mistake. Chances to take large steps forward on longstanding problems do not come often in American politics. This legislation is not perfect, but it can be moved in that direction. The same cannot be said for the status quo.
There's another factor that liberals should consider: the fate of their non-health-care priorities. The plain political fact is that if this bill dies, it will cripple Obama's presidency. Certain impassioned progressives are this week saying, "So what? We don't work in the White House. His political fortunes aren't our concern."
But how about the dozens of other issues that are of concern to progressives? If health-care reform dies, the Democrats will be pummeled in 2010, just as they were in 1994 when Clinton's bill went down. Failure breeds failure. The 12 years that followed that shellacking were dark times for progressive ideas. Any liberal who wants to risk going back to that era should have his head examined.
A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.
But meanwhile, pass the health care bill.
...
Ronald Brownstein (took a bit of a cheap shot at the start of his article, which, even though I'm mad at the Bill Killers, wasn't cool)
Minorities don't seem to have much doubt about their investment in this debate. In November's Kaiser Family Foundation health care tracking poll, two-thirds of non-white Americans said that their family would be better off if health care reform passes. Though the evidence suggests that non-college whites could also receive a disproportionate share of the bill's spending (since they constitute more of the uninsured), they are dubious: just one-third of them believe they would be better off, a reflection of the mounting skepticism about government such blue-collar whites are expressing across the board. Yet the most skeptical group is the college-educated whites, the same constituency that has the most access to health insurance today: only about one-fourth of them expect to be better off under reform.
Against the backdrop of those attitudes, it's instructive to compare Dean's blithe disregard for the Senate bill to the more measured and sensible tone that Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, struck when he held a teleconference Thursday to discuss the debate. Stern recapitulated the concerns that many on the Left hold about the bill--the adequacy of the subsidies for the uninsured, the bite of the "Cadillac" tax on high-end insurance plans. But Stern also insisted: "We can't just focus on what we don't like--it's the largest expansion of coverage since Medicare, it's the largest expansion in Medicaid; with the bill it would make things way better than what our current system does, for our members at least."
Stern didn't commit to endorsing the final bill, but he pointedly refused to join Dean in urging the Senate to tear up its work. Stern can't surrender to the vanity of absolutism because he represents a predominantly lower-income and minority constituency with a tangible stake in the outcome of this epic legislative struggle--not only for themselves but for their relatives, neighbors and friends. For much of the constituency that Dean and the digital Left represent, by contrast, the health care debate may be largely an abstraction--just another round in their perpetual struggle to crush Republicans and ideologically cleanse the Democrats.
...
David Weigel (posted the same paragraph about Minority support for HCR, then followed up with this dark little warning):
A plugged-in Virginia Democratic strategist told me, after Creigh Deeds’s bumbling gubernatorial campaign came to an end, that there was a tide shift when Deeds appeared to say he would opt the state out of a public option if it passed the Senate. Black voters, especially, wanted health care to pass — it made it tougher to get them out to vote for Deeds when he said that.
Young Chuck moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, 'Sorry Chuck, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.'
Chuck replied, 'Well, then just give me my money back.'
The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I went and spent it already.'
Chuck said, 'OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey.'
The farmer asked, 'What ya gonna do with a dead donkey?
Chuck said, 'I'm going to raffle him off.'
The farmer said 'You can't raffle off a dead donkey!'
Chuck said, 'Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead.'
A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, 'What happened with that dead donkey?'
Chuck said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898.00.'
The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'
Chuck said, 'Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.'
Look, if Mogulescu wants to defend Howard Dean and rip on the White House's attack on Howard Dean, fine. I disagree with it. I'm not wild about the White House making a target of Howard Dean. (I'm also not sure, this isn't part of a larger strategy to mollify Conservative Democrats, but that's waaaay too Machevellian.)
But that's not what makes this a stupid blog post.
The Press Secretary is does not craft the White House's communications strategy. Robert Gibbs merely is the spokesman, the mouthpiece. The guy actually crafting the communications strategy...and thus telling Robert Gibbs to take a shot at Howard Dean...is Dan Pfeffier, also known as the White House Communications Director. If Mogulescu wants to call for someone's firing (which is stupid it and of itself), he should be calling for Pfeffier's head, not Gibbs.
In the long view, it's a tiny, nit-picky error...but at the same time, we don't live in an age where we can afford nit-picky errors. If we're going to argue about Policy and Politics, we need to understand how they both work.
The President looks back to the bipartisan Patients Bill of Rights, a bill that was defeated in Congress at the hands of special interests and their supporters, and notes that health insurance reform covers the same ground and much more in terms of giving the consumers the upper hand over their insurance companies. He calls on the Senate to allow an up-or-down vote, and for those opposing reform to stop using parliamentary maneuvers to drag it out.
Randi Rhodes talked to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), and got the Senate Conferees. These are the dudes (and in this case, I mean that literally) who'll be in there with the House Delegation, creating the Conference Report for the final Senate Health Bill, aka the one last chance to make the HCR Bill better.
The conferees are pretty much who I'd expect: Harkin, who's on the Senate HELP Committee; Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), also on the HELP Committee, Max Baucus (D-MT), and of course Harry Reid (D-NV).
Overall, this is pretty good news in that three of the four are pro-Public Option in their thinking (though Max Baucus wanted to include it, but couldn't get a Chairman's Mark out of Committee with it).
Does this mean one more chance for the Public Option?
Uhhh, probably not.
Conference Reports, unfortunately, can be filibustered, so the more odious parts of the Senate Bill (aka, the stuff that makes it suck) are probably going to have to remain.
So, does that mean Nancy has to show up and and just take everything the Senate throws at them? Not necessarily.
If I'm Nancy Pelosi, there are a few main areas I'd concentrate on. Can't bring back the Public Option, bring back this stuff and she'll go a long way to easing the hurt in the House. They are:
Improve the Subsidies for working families. These have gotten less generous as the Senate Debate has gone on. The more money, the better in this case.
Improve the Timeline to get the good stuff out the door faster. One of the things delaying implementation of HCR until 2014 is deficit concerns. Moving the schedule up means increasing strains on spending. If the GOP is against this anyway, even with Spending limits, I don't see the need to acquiesce on making the bill deficit neutral in the near term. As long as its deficit neutral over the ten year period, the President keeps his promise. This is both good policy and good politics.
Improve the cost controls. Ironically, the Medicare Commission (one of the controls) might get strengthened in the Senate Bill, and strengthed by Traitor Joe (it's what he was talking about when Al Franken smacked him down). But more is always welcome.
At the minimum, President Obama needs some face time with the people he's pissed off. I think that means a sit down interview with Keith Olbermann. (Yes, I'm still pissed at him for last night, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have issues that should be addressed, so don't cut him off). Face time in the Oval Office with Howard Dean. And I think a town hall at Yearly Kos wouldn't be a bad idea either, and yeah Kos should moderate.
This isn't about changing minds, it's about airing out...and not in a nasty or "screamy" way. I think the President should let what I'll call the Angry Left (for shorthand's sake) get a chance to speak their mind (underline: speak).
It's the kind of thing that wouldn't have happened under Bush.
The question is where does this analysis lead you. The smarter brand of rightwinger I know believes—or at least professes to believe—that the corrupt nature of the political process means that any effort to seriously remediate social problems through public action is doomed. Therefore, the best thing one can do politically is nothing. Or perhaps cut the minimum wage.
Another place it can lead you is the place where Kevin [Drum -- of Mother Jones] and I are. You complain about this stuff. And complain and complain and complain. And fight and fight and fight. And at the end of the day when what emerges from the piranhas’ den is better than nothing, you say yes and live to fight another day. I think if you read Andy Stern’s letter you’ll see that’s what he’s saying too.
But the place where I think it can’t lead you is the place where I think a lot of the people on the left want to go. That’s a place where you’re so shocked and horrified by the corruption of the system that you think that if you can persuade two or three left-wing senators to say “no” that suddenly a better legislative product emerges. If you think that’s going to happen, you should spend some time reading Glenn Greenwald posts about how screwed up Washington is.
Paul Krugman has been one of the...well, better critics of the Administration. I've spent my days wincing at some of his commentary. I've spend my mornings growling at what he said, even with an occasional "what the @#$%, Paul??"...
...but in the end, I still read him. (The man's a !@#$%ing PhD and Nobel Prize winner in Economics, for pity's sake. I read Galbraith because of him. I might read Keynes because of him.)
If I have to put a finger on how I feel about him is, he's an incredibly smart man with very a literate temper. I can feel the frustration oozing off the page at times. (A not-so-veiled "Oh my God, you really don't get it" tone that I often hear from Professors -- you hear that, Dad?).
I think his Math is impeccable, and the predictions connected to them are unusually on the mark, at least in the neighborhood. (So far, he was wrong that the Stimulus wasn't big enough to turn around the economy, but right that it was small enough lead to a jobless recovery.) I don't think he gives as much acknowledgment to Political realities as he should (see: frustration), but he will acknowledge when he's made a mistake.
And I also love his acknowledgment of the "shit sandwich" concept (no, he doesn't use those exact words, but you'll get what I mean), of which the Senate Health Care Bill is one:
Steve Benen is right: for the most part the debate among progressives about whether the final product on health reform is worth supporting has been edifying. Serious people are making serious arguments, in a way that puts conservatives, who have offered nothing but smears and lies, very much to shame.
That said, some of the arguments here annoy me — in particular the line I’ve been hearing from some quarters that progressives who say we should hold our noses and pass the flawed Senate bill are just like the “liberal hawks” who supported the Iraq war.
No, they aren’t. And I don’t say that just because, as it happens, I stuck my neck way out in opposing Iraq, and was more or less the only columnist with a spot in a major newspaper to say outright that the Bush administration was misleading us into war.
Look, I don’t know for sure what motivated the liberal hawks; you’ll have to ask them. Some, I hope, were genuinely naive: despite all the signs that we were being sold a bill of goods, they just couldn’t believe that an American president would start a war on false pretenses. Others, I suspect, were being careerists, aligning themselves with where the power seemed to lie; sad to say, their career calculations were justified, since to this day you’re generally not considered “serious” on national security unless you were wrong about the war.
What’s going on with health care is very different. Those who grudgingly say “pass the thing” — a camp I have reluctantly joined — aren’t naive: by and large they’re wonks who have looked at the legislation quite carefully, understand both its virtues and its flaws, and have decided that it’s a lot better than nothing. And there isn’t much careerism involved: if you’re a progressive pundit or wonk, the risks of alienating the people to your left are at least a match for the risks of alienating people to your right.
Now, the pass-the-thing people could be wrong. Maybe hopes of improving the new health care system over time, the way Social Security has been improved, will prove to have been fantasies; or maybe rejecting this bill and trying again, a strategy that has failed many times in the past, would work this time. But it’s a carefully thought-out, honest position. And arriving at that position has, in my case at least, required a lot of agonized soul-searching.
And maybe I’m being unfair, but I don’t seem to see the same degree of soul-searching on the other side. Too much of what I read seems to come from people who haven’t really faced up to what it will mean for progressive hopes — not to mention America’s uninsured — if health care reform crashes and burns, yet again.
This is a moment of truth; it’s not a time for cheap shots or name-calling.
