On November 9, 1989, 20 years ago today, the Berlin Wall fell and East Europe's path to freedom was open

With the wall, the Soviet Empire came crashing down and Europe began a new era of liberty and democracy.

The Purple Center nominated for Weblog Award as best new political blog of 2009

You -- anyone -- can vote for The Purple Center by going here.

Hey, give the moderate center a chance. There are plenty of smart lefty and righty blogs out there -- but precious few that support pragmatic, centrist politics without the bombast and verbal bomb-throwing of the ideological partisans.

AARP stabs senior citizens in the back, endorses $400 billion of cuts in Medicare, so it can make more money selling insurance!

Video of AARP staffer telling "members" to take a flying leap last August

The so-called American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has endorsed the House health care bill in a move that stabs its millions of senior citizen members in the back. Why? So that AARP can sell more insurance policies -- its biggest source of revenue, that's why. From the Chicago-Tribune:

Why else would the nation's largest lobbying organization, sworn to protect the interests of senior citizens, watch silently as Congress plans to cut Medicare spending by $400 billion to pay for its health reform legislation? Could it be that the interests of seniors and AARP are not exactly aligned?

Let's follow the money. AARP takes in more than half of its $1.1 billion budget in royalty fees from health insurers and other vendors that market services with the organization's name. Medicare supplementary policies, called "Medigap" plans, make up the biggest share of this royalty revenue.

AARP has an interest in selling more, not fewer, Medigap plans, of course. But there is a competitor on the block.

A growing number of seniors are enrolling in a new form of Medicare coverage Medicare Advantage where they don't need Medigap.

[snip]

Congress' health reform bills would cut spending for Medicare Advantage by at least $150 billion. President Obama has singled out Medicare Advantage, saying it is a give-away to private insurance companies. But virtually all of the extra money goes back to seniors in the form of better benefits, so it's seniors who have the most to lose.

AARP is endorsing a bill that will deliver a huge blow to Medicare -- one that will lead over time to fewer doctors accepting Medicare, longer waits for seniors, and an inevitable decline in accessible quality care -- so that AARP can make more billions of dollars selling Medigap insurance.

Where does all that money AARP rakes in from insurance and other products it sells go? Beats me, although the pretense that AARP is a "lobby" for seniors can no longer be used as the rationale for its enormous budget. As they've proved time and again, older folks are well able to do their own lobbying by contacting their representatives and voting for candidates that fight for their interests. And seniors are very much aware of how much they stand to lose under health care "reform," as virtually every poll has shown for months.

AARP is not a membership organization in any sense. It's a self-appointed service entity -- sort of like AAA -- that peddles products with coupons and discounts for its "members." The "members" did not vote on AARP's endorsement of massive cuts in Medicare (does anyone really doubt the outcome if they had been given that opportunity?). As an AARP member, you don't even get to elect delegates to some representative body or the group's top leaders, like many unions and professional organizations. In fact, you can spend all day navigating AARP's elaborate website and you won't even find a mechanism to send the group an email to protest! (On the other hand, you can easily sign up for "action" to back the group's stand on health care.)

I think AARP has just managed to destroy its reputation as a non-partisan representative of the interests of senior citizens. The group's huge staff need not worry about losing their phony baloney jobs, though. They can always start selling memberships to 45 year olds. Why not 35 year olds, come to think of it? Those coupons and discounts might look just as good to people of any age.

What's your opinion? Post a comment.

Welcome Legal Insurrection readers

As right wing smashes "RINO" in NY-23, the Democrat wins! But another GOPer. Rob Astorino wins more a big race without right-wing help

Big Conservative loser, Doug Hoffman




Big Republican winner, Rob Astorino



Of course, the big stories of election night, 2009, are the Republican victories in Virginia, where Barack Obama's 2008 win had set up high expectations of that traditionally "red" state turning "blue," and in New Jersey, often regarded as among the deepest of the "blue." (Looks like purple is getting to be an even more popular color!)

In some ways, though, the most fascinating outcome of the night was in the special election to fill an historically Republican House seat in upstate New York's 23rd Congressional District. There, Doug Hoffman, a conservative candidate running on the Conservative Party line after failing to get the GOP nomination, ran a tough campaign against the Republican nominee, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava. Hoffman drew an outpouring of support from conservatives around the nation who regarded Scozzafava's nomination as an abomination, due to her having taken a wide range of moderate and even liberal positions. Hoffman was endorsed by Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty and a veritable who's who of the conservative movement. And he appeared so many times in recent days on Sean Hannity's and Glenn Beck's TV programs that it was a wonder he had any time to campaign in the district!

Hoffman did succeed in driving Scozzafava out of the race. She withdrew last weekend and then threw her support to Democrat Bill Owens. Conservative pundits, bloggers and "tea party" activists, along with Hannity, Beck and other on-air personalities, all whooped it up about this big victory over the detested "RINO," Scozzafava. On the eve of the election, the righties were throwing down the gauntlet to moderate Republicans everywhere, threatening a dozen or more challenges next year, based on their great success in NY-23.

Only one problem with that. Hoffman lost, and the Democrat, Bill Owens, won! It's hard to see that the whole Hoffman phenomenon amounts to anything more than a right-wing hissy fit that winds proving the contention of level-headed Republican leaders that their party needs to welcome folks into a "big tent" or risk losing more elections to Democrats. Not incidentally, Owens was chosen as a moderate Democrat who would reflect the mood and views of voters in a district that has been reliably Republican for a century but not necessarily all that conservative. Good call by the Democrats.

Meanwhile, in downstate Westchester County (population, about one million) -- running a race for County Executive that received virtually no media attention -- Rob Astorino, host of a Catholic radio show and a sometime politician, beat a three-term incumbent Democrat by a whopping 58-42 margin, despite the county's huge, two-to-one Democratic advantage in registration and its recent history of delivering big victory margins to Democrats.

Unlike Hoffman, Astorino did not have big national Republican and conservative names endorsing and campaigning for him: no Sarah Palin, no Fred Thompson, no Sean Hannity, no Glenn Beck. Astorino also had no upsurge of excitement in the right-wing blogosphere and no deluge of outside campaign contributions. Astorino's campaign also had basically one message: taxes in Westchester County are too high, and it's the long-time Democratic County Executive's fault.

So there was Hoffman moaning and groaning on Fox News about the nation going to hell in a basket due to those tax and spend liberal Democrats and their me-too RINO chums like Dede, supposedly to inspire the GOP "base" to new heights of enthusiasm and voting in a heavily Republican district. He lost. Meanwhile, Astorino ran a conventional campaign and delivered a simple, low-key message that resonated with voters in an overwhelmingly Democratic county. He won big.

I wonder which approach makes more sense?

What are your thoughts about Election 2009? Post a comment.

UPDATE: In New York City's other big suburb, Nassau County, the Republican challenger to the Democratic incumbent County Executive appears to have lost by only 237 votes. No word on any recount yet, but such a tiny margin is bound to be challenged.

Unbelievable provocation: Russians war game a nuclear attack on Poland!

Kaliningrad: A Russian enclave on Baltic between Poland and Lithuania

Coming hard on the heels of the Obama Administration's "reset" of US-Russian relations and scrapping of planned U.S. missile defense installations in Poland and The Czech Republic, Vladimir Putin's Russia has radically upped its pressure on Poland, the Baltic states and the rest of the former Soviet-controlled eastern Europe in a forceful assertion of what it regards as its rightful sphere of influence. Needless to say, Poles are upset by Russian war games that included a mock nuclear attack on Poland and an exercise in which troops stormed a "Polish beach," actually on the Baltic coast of Kaliningrad, the small Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania:

The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops.

Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the "potential aggressor".

The documents state the exercises, code-named "West", were officially classified as "defensive" but many of the operations appeared to have an offensive nature.

The Russian air force practised using weapons from its nuclear arsenal, while in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which neighbours Poland, Red Army forces stormed a "Polish" beach and attacked a gas pipeline.

The operation also involved the simulated suppression of an uprising by a national minority in Belarus – the country has a significant Polish population which has a strained relationship with authoritarian government of Belarus.

Karol Karski, an MP from Poland's Law and Justice, is to table parliamentary questions on Russia's war games and has protested to the European Commission.

His colleague, Marek Opiola MP, said: "It's an attempt to put us in our place. Don't forget all this happened on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland."

The post-Soviet democracies, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Albania, are all NATO allies. Their ties to the West -- and particularly to the United States -- are their only guarantee of freedom from future domination from Moscow. For the past decade and a half, they have been able to count on strong U.S. support, even as the new Russian strongman, Putin, began to flex his muscles. Nothing has changed. There is nothing the West can or will get from Russia -- in the Middle East, Central Asia or anywhere else -- that would come close to offsetting the abandonment of half of Europe less than two decades after the collapse of Soviet power. President Obama must make chrystal clear to Russia that the West does not take kindly to Russian imperial revanchism .

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

Pelosi and House Democrats stick it to seniors with health care "reform" bill that will slash Medicare by $400 billion

Nancy Pelosi announces a bill to strip millions of seniors of their quality care

The House health care plan unveiled yesterday by Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a lot that is commendable in its 2000 pages. But it's not at all commendable that the bill, which will cost $894 billion over 10 years, is "deficit neutral" only because it slashes more than $400 billion from Medicare in that period. Senior citizens are to see a significant decrease in the accessibility and quality of their health care, in order to pay for nearly half the cost of extending coverage to others.

The Congressional Budget Office's scoring of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act -- which might as well be named the Medicare Reduction Act -- cites these "savings" to be achieved in the Medicare program:

Permanent reductions in the annual updates to Medicare’s payment rates for most services in the fee-for-service sector (other than physicians’ services), yielding budgetary savings of $229 billion over 10 years...

Setting payment rates in the Medicare Advantage program on the basis of Medicare spending per beneficiary in the fee-for-service sector and changing the way that payments to Medicare Advantage plans reflect differences in the health status of enrolees, yielding savings of an estimated $170 billion...over the 2010–2019 period.

The massive $229-billion reduction would drive hoards of doctors to refuse to participate in Medicare -- and there are already far too many who don't, due to reimbursement rates far below those of private health plans.

Oh, but Democrats are saying in stage whispers that no one should worry about the reduced fee-for-service payments, because they'll "fix" that in a separate bill. Of course, that makes the claim of deficit neutrality for H.R. 3962 duplicitous. But seniors also need to worry that the Democrats may not be able to keep their promise of a sly "fix." If the bill passes, as is, it becomes the law of the land, period. By the time that happens, who knows what the political environment will be like. How many people predicted early last summer that we'd be into November with no health care bill passed by either the House or the Senate? Seniors would be foolhardy in the extreme not to worry that H.R. 3962 will set the terms of their health care for a long time to come.

The Medicare Advantage plans from which $170 billion would be cut currently enroll 11 or 12 million seniors. These plans have been cast by Democrats as too generous to the insurance companies that offer them, because the companies get as much as 14% more from the feds than providers under the regular Medicare program. There are two things wrong with that argument: first, as indicated above, the regular Medicare reimbursement rates are lower than they should be to ensure that providers accept Medicare patients; and second, the whole point of the Advantage programs was to pay insurers more to induce them to offer managed-care (HMO) plans that would provide better overall quality of care for patients with multiple health problems, emphasize wellness and prevention, and eliminate the need for seniors to navigate through mountains of Part A, Part B and Part D insurance paper work. That's why a quarter of all Medicare enrolees prefer Advantage plans.

Anyway, didn't President Obama and other Democrats say over and over about health care reform that if you like your current plan and your current doctors, you won't have to change? Well, if this bill passes, Medicare Advantage plans will disappear and millions of seniors will be thrown into regular Medicare. Not incidentally, these millions will be chasing many of the same doctors and other providers who might opt out of Medicare anyway.

Medicare arguably is one of the signal achievements of the Democratic Party of the last 50 years. Why would Democrats want to eviscerate one of their great successes? Republicans may exploit the huge negative impact on Medicare of the House bill as a talking point -- but Republicans are not going to stand up for Medicare in the long run.

Democrats who support the House bill may think they can bob and weave around the issue of Medicare cuts and hope that seniors remain in the dark or confused about the impact of the bill (or distracted by minor additional benefits for Medicare recipients in the bill, such as an increase in drug coverage). If so, they would be wise to think again. Seniors are already well aware of the fact that they will get the short end of the stick under health care "reform." That's why only 36% of people over 65 support the proposal in a recent poll. Seniors are by far the most reliable voters. It will be tough to conceal the impact of the cuts when they actually happen, and seniors will be really, really pissed when they go to the polls.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Hot supermodels strip to cool down in 350 climate change video

Hey, if the folks at 350.0rg, International Day of Climate Action, keep putting out powerfully persuasive informational material like this, they might be able to lower the carbon target to 300. In any case, it sure does beat Al Gore!

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

Public option still dead after all, as Joe Lieberman says he'll filibuster it

Joe Lieberman to Majority Leader Reid: "Ha, gotcha that time, Harry!"

Wow, that was quick.

Yesterday, Harry Reid announced that the previously dead public option was alive and that he was bringing a health care bill to the floor that included a public option with an opt-out provision for states. Because Harry did not appear to have the 60 votes needed to pass such a bill over the unified opposition of every Republican, some cynics speculated that he was just trying to appease labor and other constituencies that matter in his own 2010 reelection bid.

Today, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman confirmed that Reid does not have the votes:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.

Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid has said the Senate bill will.

"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now."

Lieberman added that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line."

Joe will get a lot of pressure to change his mind, but the guy is not easily swayed by mere pressure. What's more, Joe has staked out a position that makes it easier for other reluctant moderate Democrats like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln to say simply, ditto that.

Reid may have screwed himself by alienating the one Republican who actually voted for one of the Senate reform bills. Maine's Olympia Snowe put herself out on a limb by doing so, with the clear stipulation that there was to be no public option except through a "trigger." Now, Snowe is ticked off at what seems to have been a humiliating bait and switch.

Nice work, Harry!

What do you think? Post a comment.

UPDATE: Hard on the heels of Lieberman's announcement, his 2006 opponent, Ned Lamont, said his was getting a lot of e-mails urging him to run again in 2012. Sure, the MoveOn.org-DailyKos crowd would love to knock off Joe, but Lamont wisely sidestepped. He managed to best Joe in the 2006 Democratic primary in a campaign fueled by the peak of liberal opposition to the war in Iraq. But Joe, running as an independent with a Republican also in the race, beat him soundly (by 10 points) in the general election. Besides, 2010 is a long way off.

UPDATE 2: Another Democratic moderate, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas reiterates her opposition to a public option.

Here's why Obama and the Democrats need to govern from the center

If they want to govern successfully, President Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress must govern from the center and not be constantly distracted by the objections and demands of their party's left wing.

This is true for the simplest of reasons: not enough Americans are liberals to form a strong enough base of support for a sharp turn to the left.

The results of Gallup's latest survey of how Americans identify themselves ideologically, shows this breakdown:

Conservative 40%

Moderate 36%

Liberal 20%

In other words, three quarters of all Americans are not liberals. Couple this with Gallup's map of ideological identification by state (which I described in an earlier post here), and the reason for the powerful pull in American politics towards the center is clear.

This doesn't mean that the current Democratic agenda is unpopular. Far from it. Gallup's respondents may think the words liberal, moderate and conservative mean many different things, after all. A good many of the self-described moderates undoubtedly lean Democratic and are inclined to follow Democratic leaders. What's more, on some issues -- boosting the economy, regulating Wall Street, reforming health care, for example -- ordinary voters may be a lot more open to a range of solutions than their self-identifations imply.

Still, the gravitational pull of the center cannot be escaped. Pushing too far to the left -- or the right -- will inevitably result in the voters' slapping you down. I don't think there is the slightest doubt that if the Obama Administration consistently pursues the course demanded by the House Progressive Caucus, MoveOn.org, the liberal commentariat and the left-wing blogosphere, the 2010 elections will produce a huge backlash against Democrats. There is no clever political strategy that can forestall such a development. It will happen because of the nature of the electorate.

Fortunately, so far, centrist Democrats -- in particular, 15 or so moderate Democratic Senators -- have held back a foolishly leftward lurch. But the Democratic Party has been known before to shoot itself in the foot. Much depends on Obama's good sense and smart leadership. We'll see.

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

White House Nixonian assault on Fox News is wrong, wrong, wrong

Congressman: Republicans and Fox News are "the enemy of America"

When the President of the United States allows or encourages the White House staff to launch an all-out attack on a purveyor of news and opinion he doesn't like, declaring Fox "not a news organization" and following up by trying to ban Fox from the White House TV press pool, it is not just politically foolish or dumb, although it is both those things. It's just wrong, wrong, wrong. Indeed, it's positively Nixonian. In some ways, it worse than anything Nixon and Agnew did in their public pre-Watergate campaign to smear the "liberal media."

For decades, whenever I've heard people on the right complain about what they perceived to be a liberal slant at The New York Times, the Washington Post or CNN, my attitude was always, well, let them get their own newspaper or all-news TV channel. The Sulzberger family, Katherine Graham and Ted Turner were entitled to push whatever politics suited them, just as William Randolph Hearst and Henry Luce had done in earlier years. That's the essence of First Amendment rights (the three broadcast networks, with their public franchises, occupy different ground). If they showed bias, people would notice, and those who didn't like it would stop relying on them. And that's exactly what happened.

That's why the Washington Times exists today. It's why The Wall Street Journal is now competing directly with the NYT and WaPo on a wide range of non-business news. And its exactly why Roger Ailes started Fox News.

The White House makes the argument that Fox is different from MSNBC or CNN. All these networks have opinion shows, but Fox supposedly allows bias into its regular news programming, while the others, it's implied, don't. Even if that were true, so what? The counter-argument is that MSNBC, in particular, is just as biased in what stories it chooses to cover or not cover and how it presents them. So when a Republican becomes President again, will it be OK for the White House to ban MSNBC?

Of course not. Anyway, news bias is in the eyes and ears of the consuming public. News organizations have always been politically biased. That's why so many newspapers were originally named "Democrat" or "Republican." That's why the Hearst organization's support was considered crucial for several generations of national politicians. It's why Henry Luce's Time magazine was a powerful force behind the Old Guard GOP. It's why liberals were beside themselves when the old Dorothy Schiff-owned New York Post was bought by Rupert Murdoch. The three broadcast networks have to be held to a different standard because they're using our airwaves. But there are scores of perfectly good cable channels going unused, so anyone who doesn't like the news seen on CNN or MSNBC can start their own. Oh, they did!

It is, of course, shockingly thin-skinned of Obama to fret so much about Fox News that he sends his people out to delegitimize Fox as a GOP propaganda outfit. But it's worse than that. The Executive is enormously powerful. The clear message has been sent to all the other media that they had better not "follow" Fox when it breaks stories, even solid stories, that the White House doesn't like, lest they wind up persona non grata with the President, too. As seen in the video above, members of Congress are taking their cues from the President to ramp up the bitter partisan rhetoric which Obama promised he would eschew. And naturally, the left blogosphere has exploded with applause.

Fortunately, the rest of the mainstream media has not been easily herded into line with the White House. All the other TV news networks refused to conduct White House-organized interviews if Fox was to be excluded from the pool. ABC's White House correspondent, Jake Tapper, asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs pointedly where he got off declaring "one of our sister organizations" not a legitimate news organization. Influential liberal commentators have weighed in critically too. And some moderate Democrats in Congress are already voicing concerns about the White House attacks on Fox and others coming back to bite them.

The press does not have to be immaculately "objective" -- as if that were ever possible. And it certainly does not need to be deferential or even impeccably polite to the people in power. We're all better served by a press that makes noise, upsets apple carts, disturbs the serenity of those we've entrusted with governmental authority. Rather than try to delegitimize such folks as "enemies," Obama should get used to it. That's not to say that Obama needs to go on Sean Hannity's show and subject himself to hostile and silly questioning. And every White House has a right to play favorites among the press. But Obama should not be so insecure as to worry about members of his Administration getting a few tough questions from Chris Wallace, Major Garrett or Shepard Smith.

What do you think? Post a comment.

UPDATE (Oct. 27): Fox News ratings have soured since the White House attack, up nearly 10% across the board. "As for competition against the cable also rans, Fox News is sweeping the top 11 cable news slots in the 25-54-year old demographic...and the top 13 slots in all demos."

Sports that might welcome Rush Limbaugh

Rush's money is no good in the NFL, but who says the guy can't find a sporting place to park some of his millions?

For openers, there is this bunch.



The Australian cricket team can probably use a few bucks.



Ditto that for these guys. En guard!.



If you don't know what hurling is, keep it quiet around this mob from County Kerry.



And what about the true roots of football?!



On the lighter side, this really is an Olympic sport!



So is this. OK, I don't understand what they're doing anymore than you do.



And last by hardly least, the world would be a better place if we had more competition in the ancient Scottish art of the caber toss.



Stumped about what happens next to that pole? Watch the video below.


Any other ideas for where Limbaugh can invest his dough? Post a comment.

Fate of health care bills still in hands of moderate Democrats

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark), one of a dozen moderate Democrats whose votes are needed to pass any health care reform proposal

As I posted many times before (most recently here), the fate of the various health care bills in the House and Senate is in the hands of from eight to a dozen or so moderate Democrats in the Senate (and to a lesser extent, their counterparts in the House).

The almost daily combat covered widely in the media for months pitting reform supporters against Congressional Republicans and the conservative commentariat has obscured the real issue: what approach will secure the votes of all 60 Senate Democrats? Now that Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has voted to report out the Senate Finance Committee bill, the number of Democrats needed may be 59 (although it's still far from clear what final bill Snowe might support). Getting to 59 is still a steep climb, considering the centrist tendencies of this lot.

As Politico reports, a final bill is a long way off:

Senate Democrats took their new found momentum for health reform into closed-door talks with White House aides Wednesday but still faced a months-old problem: centrist Democrats who aren’t sold on Obama-style reform even now.

If Democratic leadership hoped Republican Olympia Snowe’s decision to cross party lines Tuesday would inspire her fellow middle-of-the-roaders, they were mistaken.

[snip]

“There are many competing views on how best to reform health care within my caucus,” Reid acknowledged Wednesday before ducking into the first of what will be many negotiating sessions with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who ushered a bill through the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “I know this isn’t going to be easy.”

And it's not going to get any easier if action slips into election year 2010, when many not-so-moderate freshman and sophomore Democrats elected in 2006 and 2008 may not want to hand their opponents a high-profile issue:

And on the House side, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer raised the prospect that the bill might slip past Christmas and into 2010 – which could be politically disastrous for President Barack Obama, who is trying to pass health reform this year to put some distance between the vote and the midterm elections.

Nonetheless, many liberal Democrats continue to bang the drum for a more expensive and government-heavy plan -- one with a "public option" -- than the one pieced together by Max Baucus to attract support from moderate Democrats and snare Olympia Snowe in the bargain. And the left wing of party is throwing a hissy fit, demanding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid discipline his caucus and punish any moderates who won't toe the party line. It's interesting to note that a year ago, the same lefty talking heads and bloggers were praising the virtues of the Democratic Party's big tent politics, compared to the narrow ideologically-driven conservatism of the GOP. Well, welcome to the big tent, guys!

Here's my take: the public option is dead, dead, dead, and trying to resurrect it will only result in further delay in forging a consensus bill that can pass both Houses. Push it out to the Christmas break, and there will be no bill at all come January.

What's your take? Post a comment.

Corzine mocks Christie's waistline. Will other fatso politicians weigh in?

In their increasingly nip-and-tuck race for Governor of New Jersey, incumbent Jon Corzine, running behind, has taken to thinly veiled mockery of his opponent, Chris Christie, for being, er, a bit on the tubby side. As you can see in the picture above, Christie does have a lot of weight to throw around. But what about all the other fatsos who have made it in politics without having to give up pizza and donuts or knock themselves out running, jogging, biking, or clearing brush? Will they leap (or at least step up) to Christie's defense?

For starters, this guy could chip in some heavyweight advice about wielding power -- and some tips on good cardiologists, too!



Barney Frank always has something to say.



John Murtha is one porker who knows how to deliver pork.



Chris Dodd is further living proof that Irish politicians can out-eat and out-drink all comers.



Then, there's Big Albert.



And the current Secretary of State for minor third-world countries may not pack heft in her portfolio, but......



Then, there is His Rotundness himself, New York's Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who makes Christie look like a marathon runner.



Got any favorite fatso politicians? Post a comment with a link.

Eight Senate moderate Democrats urge go-slow approach to health care bill

Eight moderate Democrats in the Senate -- whose votes are crucial to passing any bill -- have urged Majority Leader harry reid to slow down, allow time for the independent Congressional Budget Office to score the Senate Finance Committee (Baucus) bill and publish it online 72 hours before any vote.

In a letter to Reid, the eight wrote:

"At a time when trust in Congress and the U.S. government is unprecedentedly low, we can begin to rebuild the American people's faith in their federal government through transparency and by actively inviting Americans to participate in the legislative process," the Democratic senators wrote to Reid."

The senators, led by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said they wanted legislative text of the bill posted online, along with complete Congressional Budget Office cost estimates, 72 hours before the Senate takes its first procedural vote on the bill.

[snip]

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., one of the eight Democrats that wrote the letter to Reid, said she is worried about the impact of the bill on the federal budget.

"Democrats are really good at expanding coverage and programs, not really that great at doing it in a cost-effective manner," she said. "We feel very strongly about doing this in the most cost-effective manner possible."

Gee, you'd think doing it "in the most cost-effective manner possible" would be a no-brainer for all 100 Senators.

Make no mistake: the health care "debate" is not between Dems and the GOP, which can only carp from the sidelines, but among the three factions of the Democratic Party -- the "progressives," the moderates and the rest.

In addition to Lincoln, Bayh and Landrieu, the Senators signing the letter were:

Joseph I. Lieberman, Claire McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Mark L. Pryor and Jim Webb.

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

Polls: Public opposes health care reform 50 to 44

Click on image for details

According to Pollster.com, not much has changed since the end of August. Obama and the Congressional Democrats have their work cut out for them.

Got an opinion? Post a comment.

Cokie Roberts on Roman Polanski: "Take him out and shoot him" (video)

Appearing on ABC's "This Week," veteran ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts expressed in a few words the very non-Hollywood opinion about Roman Polanski shared by millions in this country and around the world:

Roman Polanski is a criminal. He raped and drugged and raped and sodomized a child. And then was a fugitive from justice. As far as I'm concerned, just take him out and shoot him.

Attaway, Cokie!

Anyone disagree? Post a comment.

British Army chief warns of "terrifying defeat" in Afghanistan, backs McChrystal; Brits ready to send more troops

General Sir David Richards, Chief of the British General Staff

America's most important ally would seem to be publicly pressing President Obama to back his own general in the field. From The Telegraph:

In an unprecedented intervention, the chief of the general staff described the conflict as "this generation's war" and added that failure by Nato would have an "intoxicating effect" on militant Islam.

[snip]

He said: "If al-Qaeda and the Taliban believe they have defeated us – what next? Would they stop at Afghanistan? Pakistan is clearly a tempting target not least because of the fact that it is a nuclear-weaponed state and that is a terrifying prospect. Even if only a few of those (nuclear) weapons fell into their hands, believe me they would use them. The recent airlines plot has reminded us that there are people out there who would happily blow all of us up."

The general's intervention comes at a crucial time, with the US General in charge of operations in Afghanistan calling for more troops to be sent to the country to fight the Taliban.

[snip]

Sir David has issued his unprecedented warning because he believed the public and even members of the government had not "woken up" to the "enormous risks" which would result if the war was lost.

He said: "Failure would have a catalytic effect on militant Islam around the world and in the region because the message would be that al-Qaeda and the Taliban have defeated the US and the British and Nato, the most powerful alliance in the world. So why wouldn't that have an intoxicating effect on militants everywhere? The geo-strategic implications would be immense."

[snip]

The Army chief declared that Britain was ready to send more troops to Afghanistan if called on to do so in the wake of the revised strategy which has been drawn up by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of Nato troops in southern Afghanistan.

And for good measure, Richards went out of his way to criticize what seems to be shaping up as the Joe Biden plan:

The general criticised plans put forward by some members of President Obama's administration – notably those of Vice-president Joe Biden, who is believed to support the view that Nato should reduce troop number in Afghanistan and concentrate on counter-terrorist operations using special forces. Sir David said this was a strategy which would not work.

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

Who's the mope in the White House who persuaded Obama to make a personal pitch for Chicago Olympics?

CNN anchor is dumbfounded at Chicago's first-round elimination

Sure, in a perfect world, Chicago's losing its Olympic bid is no big deal, and the President would be congratulated for giving it the old college try.

But politics is politics, and when the President of the United States very publicly -- and in the face of criticism -- puts the prestige of his office behind something -- anything -- losing has a cost, at least in political terms. As Politico's Ben Smith put it within minutes of the news:

There's a reason the president is rarely dispatched to a summit whose outcome is uncertain.

And Chicago's elimination in the first round of voting has to raise questions about whether the White House was getting accurate information about how competitive this was from Chicago's Olympics organizers.

The White House staked, and lost, some prestige on that one.

Exactly. So who in the White House called it so very wrong and urged Obama to change his mind publicly and make the 11th hour trip to Copenhagen? When the trip was announced, just about everyone assumed that it must be because Chicago was going to win, since no one would be foolish enough to put the Presidency behind a loss at a time when there really are so many other bigger fish to fry. After all, no one would have faulted Obama had he stuck with his original plan to send the First Lady.

It had to be one or more of the Obama Chicago crew: Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, political advisor David Axelrod, or family friend and consiglieri Valerie Jarrett -- or maybe all three. OK, maybe they got misleading intelligence from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley or were hoodwinked by the IOC. Still, it's their job to figure these things out. And it's just politics, not rocket science.

My money is on Jarrett who has the deepest ties to Chicago's elite and whose White House portfolio of "public engagement and intergovernmental affairs" means that liaison with Chicago's leadership on matters like this is her prime responsibility.

Obama's campaign team last year was widely lauded for its smarts and effectiveness, but their record in the White House isn't up to that standard. Look for changes as the second year of Obama's term draws near.

Got an opinion? Post a comment.

UPDATE -- I should add that I thought a Chicago Olympics would have been a good thing for Chicago, the USA and the Olympics. Why the IOC chose Rio, which is widely believed to be a cesspool of flith, crime and degradation, is utterly beyond me.

UPDATE 2: Unbelievable. "A sense of stunned bewilderment suffused Air Force One and the White House. Only after the defeat did many advisers ask questions about the byzantine politics of the Olympic committee. Valerie Jarrett, the president’s senior adviser and a Chicago booster who persuaded him to make the trip while at the United Nations last week, had repeatedly compared the contest to the Iowa caucuses.

"But officials said the administration did not independently verify Chicago’s chances, relying instead on the Chicago 2016 committee assertions that the city had enough support to finish in the top two. Mr. Obama, Michelle Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Ms. Jarrett worked the phones in recent weeks without coming away with a sense of how behind Chicago really was."

UPDATE 3: Larry Sabato asks the obvious question, "Will anyone’s head roll for causing Obama this acute embarrassment on the international stage?"

Polanski update: Not all sexual predators get off as easy as famous movie directors

For 30 years, Oscar winner and child rapist fugitive Roman Polanski, rather than serving his time in a California prison, has been luxuriating at numerous homes in France and Switzerland -- like this tranquil Swiss chalet (more pics here) where he often retreats, hopefully without any children in the neighborhood:



Meanwhile, less notable sex offenders -- who actually served their sentences (richly deserved, no doubt) but lack both wealth and powerful friends like Harvey Weinstein -- have been living in shantytowns under interstate overpasses, like this guy in Miami:



Ah, but let's not forget that Weinstein, Woody Allen, Whoopi Goldberg and so many of their Hollywood friends are all strongly for equal justice.

Thoughts about Polanski? Post a comment.

President Obama must begin to govern from the center, not cater to the likes of Michael Moore

Two faces of the Democratic Party: Sen. Blanche Lincoln and filmmaker Michael Moore

If folks like Michael Moore have their way in Washington and in the counsels of the Democratic Party, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1992, won't be reelected again in 2010.

Moore, never one to miss a chance at publicity, especially when he's selling a movie, puffed himself up into his quite considerable full size and bloviated the other day on the future he sees for Democrats:

“To the Democrats in Congress who don’t quite get it: I want to offer a personal pledge. I – and a lot of other people – have every intention of removing you from Congress in the next election if you stand in the way of health care legislation that the people want,” Moore told supporters of women’s groups and unions gathered at the headquarters of the government watchdog group Public Citizen.

“That is not a hollow or idle threat. We will come to your district and we will work against you, first in the primary and, if we have to, in the general election.”

Lincoln is, indeed, in trouble down home -- but has no need to fear that Moore and the left wing of her party will knock her off in either a primary or a general election. Republicans will take care of that, but with a clear-cut boost from Moore and company.

As I reported in a recent post, independent political analyst Charlie Cook and many others believe that the leftward tilt of the Democratic agenda this year has already alienated a large part of "purple America" -- the independent and moderate swing voters who went decisively for Obama and the Democrats to punish the GOP for its failures. As a result, Cook now believes that Democrats will suffer substantial losses in 2010 -- possibly even control of the House -- at the hands of "an electorate growing just as disgusted with the Democratic majority as it did with the Republican one in 2006."

So, you'd think that self-anointed "progressives" like Moore, who never tire of casting themselves as the only people in America concerned about working families, the environment and so much else, would have enough sense to take it easy, lest control be returned to the GOP in two or four years.

No, they don't. Far from it, they're doing everything possible either to enact an agenda that is simply too radical for an American consensus or to wreck the Democratic Party in the process by driving moderates like Lincoln from office. Allow them to get away with this and Arkansas will be represented in the Senate by a Republican far more conservative than Lincoln (and five or six other Senate seats could change parties with similar results).

Come to think of it, that's what Moore and company really want, isn't it? Even more polarization -- a deep divide between an aggressive left and an equally aggressive right -- because they enjoy the thrills of fierce political combat. It works wonders in pumping up their self-righteousness and feeding their sense of superiority.

The rest of us just want a competent, reasonable practical-minded government presided over by principled but sensible people who can disagree but still find ways to work together.

President Obama can make this happen -- if he plants his own feet firmly in the center and insists that his party join him there.

What do you think? Post a comment.

A great American Democrat speaks to the United Nations

I thought of this when I saw the despicable Muammar Gaddafi and the dangerous Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holding forth at the UN. Not much has changed at the UN General Assembly in three decades, since that great American, proud Democrat, and captivating speaker, Daniel Patrick Moyhihan, gave the dictators and despots of that time (who included Gaddafi even then, God help us) hell. But one thing has changed. They're not making them like Pat Moynihan anymore.

It was November 10, 1975. The United Nations General Assembly had just approved by a vote of 72 to 35 and 32 abstentions the infamous Resolution 3339, which condemned Zionism as a form a racism. The resolution was the culmination of a Soviet Bloc push that began on the heels of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war to forge an anti-Israel coalition of Arab, African and Communist nations. After Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog brilliantly defended his nation and the Zionist movement and devastatingly excoriated supporters of the resolution, then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and future U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan delivered a blistering attack on the 72 nations that voted yes. Some said it was undiplomatic of him. UN member states would take offense. Perhaps, they would like the US less. Nonetheless, this is part of what Pat Moynihan said, because it needed to be said:

The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.

[snip]

There will be time enough to contemplate the harm this act will have done the United Nations. Historians will do that for us, and it is sufficient for the moment only to note the foreboding fact. A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-semitism--as this year's Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov observed in Moscow just a few days ago--the Abomination of anti-semitism has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty--and more--to the murderers of the six million European Jews. Evil enough in itself, but more ominous by far is the realization that now presses upon us--the realization that if there were no General Assembly, this could never have happened.

As this day will live in infamy, it behooves those who sought to avert it to declare their thoughts so that historians will know that we fought here, that we were not small in number--not this time--and that while we lost, we fought with full knowledge of what indeed would be lost.

[snip]

The proposition to be sanctioned by a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations is that ``Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.'' Now this is a lie.

[snip]

What we have here is a lie--a political lie of a variety well known to the twentieth century, and scarcely exceeded in all that annal of untruth and outrage. The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that is it not.

[snip]

Now I should wish to be understood that I am here making one point, and one point only, which is that whatever else Zionism may be, it is not and cannot be ``a form of racism.'' In logic, the State of Israel could be, or could become, many things, theoretically, including many things undesirable, but it could not be and could not become racism unless it ceased to be Zionist.

Indeed, the idea that Jews are a ``race'' was invented not by Jews but by those who hated Jews.... It was a contemptible idea at the beginning, and no civilized person would be associated with it. To think that it is an idea now endorsed by the United Nations is to reflect on what civilization has come to.

It is precisely a concern for civilization, for civilized values that are or should be precious to all mankind, that arouses us at this moment to such special passion. What we have at stake here is not merely the honor and the legitimacy of the State of Israel--although a challenge to the legitimacy of any member nation ought always to arouse the vigilance of all members of the United Nations. For a yet more important matter is at issue, which is the integrity of the whole body of moral and legal precepts which we know as human rights.

The terrible lie that has been told here today will have terrible consequences. Not only will people begin to say, indeed they have already begun to say that the United Nations is a place where lies are told, but far more serious, grave and perhaps irreparable harm will be done to the cause of human rights itself. The harm will arise first because it will strip from racism the precise and abhorrent meaning that it still precariously holds today. How will the people of the world feel about racism and the need to struggle against it, when they are told that it is an idea as broad as to include the Jewish national liberation movement?

As the lie spreads, it will do harm in a second way. Many of the members of the United Nations owe their independence in no small part to the notion of human rights, as it has spread from the domestic sphere to the international sphere exercised its influence over the old colonial powers. We are now coming into a time when that independence is likely to be threatened again. There will be new forces, some of them arising now, new prophets and new despots, who will justify their actions with the help of just such distortions of words as we have sanctioned here today. Today we have drained the word ``racism'' of its meaning. Tomorrow, terms like ``national self-determination'' and ``national honor'' will be perverted in the same way to serve the purposes of conquest and exploitation. And when these claims begin to be made--as they already have begun to be made--it is the small nations of the world whose integrity will suffer. And how will the small nations of the world defend themselves, on what grounds will others be moved to defend and protect them, when the language of human rights, the only language by which the small can be defended, is no longer believed and no longer has a power of its own?

There is this danger, and then a final danger that is the most serious of all. Which is that the damage we now do to the idea of human rights and the language of human rights could well be irreversible.

The idea of human rights as we know it today is not an idea which has always existed in human affairs, it is an idea which appeared at a specific time in the world, and under very special circumstances. It appeared when European philosophers of the seventeenth century began to argue that man was a being whose existence was independent from that of the State, that he need join a political community only if he did not lose by that association more than he gained. From this very specific political philosophy stemmed the idea of political rights, of claims that the individual could justly make against the state; it was because the individual was seen as so separate from the State that he could make legitimate demands upon it.

That was the philosophy from which the idea of domestic and international rights sprang. But most of the world does not hold with that philosophy now. Most of the world believes in newer modes of political thought, in philosophies that do not accept the individual as distinct from and prior to the State, in philosophies that therefore do not provide any justification for the idea of human rights and philosophies that have no words by which to explain their value. If we destroy the words that were given to us by past centuries, we will not have words to replace them, for philosophy today has no such words.

But there are those of us who have not forsaken these older words, still so new to much of the world. Not forsaken them now, not here, not anywhere, not ever.

The United States of America declares that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.

It took relentless efforts by the US and the West to get R. 3339 rescinded finally in 1991. In the intervening 16 years, the UN -- at least, the General Assembly -- lost a great deal of its credibility, trust and support. Naturally, its effectiveness in helping to secure peace waned as confidence in it drained.

The lesson most of us -- Democrats and Republicans -- took from the confrontation over R. 3339 was that American diplomacy must be tough smart, but also moral and rooted in principles -- our principles. We should never give that up -- or fail to honor our obligations to allies -- in the name of better relations with one or another thuggish regime.

Pat Moynihan understood that. Pity there aren't more like him.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Final act in health care reform drama: the seniors will decide

The health care "deciders" -- America's old folks

In a post four months ago, I wrote this:

Here is my prediction: seniors are not paying much attention to this whole issue now, because they have health insurance. In all likelihood, they also don't think Obama and a Democratic Congress will monkey with their coverage. When they start to pay attention, watch out on Capitol Hill, because these folks vote. I mean, they ALL vote.

Then, in a post one month ago, I added this:

Sure enough, polls show that seniors are the major group that is least supportive of the various health care reform schemes, and the steady erosion of Obama's public approval ratings is being driven in significant part by seniors.

And that was when seniors were just skeptical but -- what with all the smoke and mirrors surrounding multiple health care bills and Obama's serial speeches -- not yet really sure that Medicare benefits were going to be cut. Now the cat is out of the bag:

Congress' chief budget officer is contradicting President Barack Obama's oft-stated claim that seniors wouldn't see their Medicare benefits cut under a health care overhaul.

The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told senators Tuesday that seniors in Medicare's managed care plans would see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee.

The bill would cut payments to the Medicare Advantage plans by more than $100 billion over 10 years.

That's what the CBO chief had to say about just the $100 billion in cuts proposed for the popular Medicare Advantage plans. There is as much as another $400 billion in Medicate and Medicaid cuts being proposed (depending on which of the bills, which keep changing).

Folks, there is no way in hell that this Congress is going to pass a bill that relies on such huge cuts in Medicare. Only the safest Democrats could risk voting for something that will, as surely as the sun rises in the morning, rouse seniors to vote against them. The only thing worse for your reelection prospects is to cut Social Security benefits.

Mark my words: any final bill will have to be radically changed -- somehow -- to eliminate the Medicare cuts or it won't pass.

What are your thoughts? Post a comment.

Even the IRS shuns it -- but Kirsten Gillibrand still backs ACORN

Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand not seeing eye-to-eye on ACORN

Now, it's the Internal Revenue Service that won't be doing business anymore with the pimp-and-prostitute-stained group, ACORN. According to AP:

The IRS says it is severing ties with ACORN, the community activist group involved in a scandal after employees were caught on video giving advice to a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp.

The Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday it would no longer include ACORN in its volunteer tax assistance program. The program offered free tax advice to about 3 million low- and moderate-income tax filers this spring.

Little wonder, since ACORN was caught giving advice to a supposed about how to cheat the IRS while setting up a whorehouse with underage girls from Latin America, among other things. So who would ever trust this group to give tax advice to poor people, who have quite enough problems already?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. that's who. The Senator, appointed eight months ago by constantly embattled Governor David Patterson, is one of only seven senators to vote against a measure to block federal funds to ACORN, which passed 83-7 with overwhelming Democratic support. Gillibrand's senior colleague, Chuck Schumer, voted to defund the group, and nearly all of New York's leading Democrats are on Schumer's wavelength.

So what's up with Gillibrand? A former "Blue Dog" in the House, Gillibrand has been running hard and fast to acquire and polish enough liberal credentials to fend off any primary challengers. But sheesh, someone should tell her that most Democrats -- voters, that is -- don't much care for this ACORN bunch of mopes. She's handing her eventual GOP opponent a powerful issue to use against her next year.

Time to back down from this indefensible defense of ACORN, Senator.

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

N.Y. Gov. Patterson freezes ACORN contracts; Kirsten Gillibrand all alone supporting ACORN

David Patterson and Kirsten Gillibrand: is she still applauding him now?

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

Acting like nearly every other public official in his state and the country with half a brain and any heart, New York Gov. David Patterson has ordered a freeze on all state contracts with ACORN.

Patterson's move leaves appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand all alone as the only major statewide official who blindly supports the deeply tainted, publicly funded mess known as ACORN.

It's important for New Yorkers to persuade Giilibrand of the error of her ways. Despite lop-sided votes to defund ACORN in the House and Senate, it's far from certain whether both Houses will pass and agree on a final measure. Pressing the current handful of ACORN supporters like Gillibrand to retreat could make a big difference when Congress takes up the issue again. And as an appointed Senator up for election in 2010, Gillibrand is, well, more persuadable than most.

So, New Yorkers: let Gillibrand hear from you. Contact her by going to her website here.

Previous posts on Gillibrand's defense of ACORN here, here and here.

Got an opinion? Post a comment.

Charlie Cook: Democrats at risk of losing "purple America"

Click to enlarge and check out all that purple

In the latest "Cook Report," the respected independent political analyst, Charlie Cook, lays out the major challenge now facing President Obama and the Democratic Congressional majorities simply and bluntly: the are fast losing independents and moderates and must focus on "purple America" or suffer big losses in 2010:

I am becoming convinced, based on this and other research, that although many independent voters are disappointed in specific things that Obama has done, they still hope that he will do well and believe that he might. To be sure, red America has already given Obama the thumbs down. And blue America just wishes he would be more liberal. But it's purple America, the independents who voted for Democrats in the 2006 midterm election by an 18-point margin, that makes the biggest difference right now [emphasis added]. Most House Democrats live in blue America and show little awareness that their party has a problem. However, the Democrats' majority is built on a layer of 54 seats that the party picked up in 2006 and 2008 that are largely in purple -- or even red -- America. Democrats ought to keep in mind that 84 of their current House members represent districts won by President Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008.

A whopping 48 of those Democrats -- eight more than the size of their party's majority -- are from districts that voted for both Bush and McCain. That America is very different from the Democratic base in blue America, and it sees many major issues very differently.

[snip]

The 17-point advantage that Democrats enjoyed in the January Gallup Poll (when "leaners" were included) shrank to 5 points in August. Their edge on the generic congressional ballot test has vanished, according to most national polls. For three years, Democrats enjoyed high single-digit or low double-digit leads on this question -- a very good indicator of which direction (and how hard) the political winds are blowing as a congressional election nears.

What we are seeing is an electorate growing just as disgusted with the Democratic majority as it did with the Republican one in 2006.

Indeed. The right and left may fuss and snarl at each other, but every time, the nation's vast purple center will wind up calling the shots. If you're the guy in power, once independents and moderate Democrats and Republicans begin to turn skeptical, much less negative, you'd better work hard to turn them around or the next election will be one you don't like.

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

Taxpayer group slams Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand for her support of ACORN

From Crain's New York Business:

A group that fights government waste blasted Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand Thursday for voting to continue funding for Acorn, the nationwide nonprofit reeling from a conservative sting operation now showing on YouTube.

Citizens Against Government Waste noted that Sen. Charles Schumer, Ms. Gillibrand's fellow New York representative and political benefactor, had voted Monday to stop the Department of Housing and Urban Development from funding Acorn, while only six senators joined Ms. Gillibrand in opposition. The Senate's vote tally was 83-7.

[snip]

Acorn is under fire because two amateur actors posing as a pimp and a prostitute used an undercover camera to record Acorn employees giving them advice on how to secure housing for a brothel. The pair visited a slew of Acorn offices across the country and found employees in four of them—Brooklyn, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and San Bernardino, Calif.—who took the bait. After the videos went live on the Internet Monday, Acorn fired the employees and did not defend their actions but said they should not obscure the organization's good work.

[snip]

“Cutting off funds to Acorn should have been the easiest vote of the year, yet these senators could not bring themselves to do it,” said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, in a statement. He went on to call the seven senators “nutty” and named them “porkers of the month.”

“Sen. Gillibrand deserves special opprobrium for her vote, since one of the videos was shot in Brooklyn's Acorn office, and the New York Post had a story on the scandal prior to the vote,” Mr. Schatz said. “Apparently Sen. Schumer reads the local papers, and Sen. Gillibrand does not.”

Democrats and all New Yorkers need to let Gillibrand know that supporting the bunch of mopes at ACORN is unacceptable. To send her the message, go to her website here.

And post a comment.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand defends ACORN, as her possible opponents and successor in the House vote to cut off its federal funding

Gillibrand sworn in, January 27, 2009. Will she be gone in January 2011?

New York's appointed Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, was one of only seven Senators to back pimp-and-prostitute tolerant ACORN in an 83-7 vote to block some federal funding to the discredited "community" group.

Now, the House has passed an even more sweeping measure that would cut off all Washington dough to ACORN. As in the Senate, the overwhelming majority of Gillibrand's fellow Democrats joined with Republicans to repudiate ACORN by a resounding vote of 345 to 75.

A solid majority of New York's House delegation -- including most Democrats -- voted yes. Conspicuously, Gillibrand's successor in the upstate House seat she vacated, Scott Murphy, voted yes. And three of the House members who have considered challenging Gillibrand in a 2010 Democratic primary -- Carolyn Maloney of Manhhattan, Carolyn McCarthy of Long Island, and Steve Israel of Long Island -- voted yes. (So did Republican Rep. Pete King who just recently said he would not seek the Senate seat next year, perhaps a decision he'll now rethink.)

And as I posted yesterday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and a host of other New York Democrats are making themselves part of the solution.

So what's with Gillibrand? Why is she making herself part of the problem?

Even after the latest undercover video of ACORN shot at a San Diego ACORN office -- the fifth released so far -- depicts an ACORN employee curiously willing to help smuggle underage (13-15) girls from El Salvador into the country to staff a whorehouse? Even though the White House has now said that ACORN must be held accountable? Even though it seems there are more videos to come of more ACORN employees at more offices helpfully "advising" a pimp and prostitute on their business.

As a New Yorker and a moderate Democrat, I was pleased by Gov. David Patterson's choice of Gillibrand to fill Hillary Clinton's seat. In her brief tenure in the House representing a relatively conservative upstate district, Gillibrand had gained a reputation for the brand of centrist politics I support. Not surprisingly, as a Senator, she has shifted some of her previous stands, particularly those concerning gun control and immigration. That's politics.

But backing ACORN puts her in bed with an especially scummy outfit and aligns her with the the most left-wing elements of the Democratic Party -- and may help put her out on her ear in January 2011. Maybe she thinks it will help her head off a Democratic primary next year, but the pols most likely to challenge her voted against funding ACORN! In any case, her vote on this issue (one of only seven!), far from fading from public view, will stand out as a major issue for her GOP opponent to hammer her with (this Marist poll shows her already running behind former Governor George Pataki).

New York Democrats -- and all New Yorkers -- should send Gillibrand this simple message: stop wasting public money on this bunch of mopes. There are dozens of dedicated, well-run, effective and honest community groups in New York State alone who can make far better use of those taxpayer millions.

To contact Gillibrand and email her that message, go to her website here.

And post a comment.

Welcome The Other McCain readers.

More on Gillibrand's support for ACORN at these blogs: Monroerising.com, Jumping in Pools, which asks whether Gillibrand has committed career suicide, VASS Political Blog, and JammieWearingFool, among others.

Attention New Yorkers: Why is our appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand one of a handful still backing ACORN?

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand thanks Gov. David Patterson for her new job

To all my fellow New Yorkers:

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who was appointed last January by our unelected Governor to fill Hillary Clinton's seat, is one of only seven Senators to vote against a Senate proposal to stop giving federal funds to ACORN, the mob of mopes who have been ensnared in a long list of scandals and investigations, most recently being captured on tape advising a "prostitute" and her "pimp" on ways to defraud banks and cheat the IRS.

The vote in the Senate was 83-7 to de-fund ACORN. Our senior Senator, Chuck Schumer, voted yes with the overwhelming majority, including most of the Senate's 59 Democrats. The U.S. Census Bureau has cut all ties to ACORN. With the deeply offensive "prostitute" video of ACORN employees in Brooklyn fresh in every one's mind, New York officials are cracking down. New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has launched an investigation of "pork-barrel grants given to ACORN by state lawmakers" (uh, oh). The Brooklyn DA has opened a criminal inquiry into the group. The leader of the City Council has frozen city funding earmarked for ACORN, and the state Comptroller plans added scrutiny of state funds destined for the group.

So what's Gillibrand got to say for herself? Only this:

Gillibrand has defended her vote, saying the group does good work that should continue, despite the bad actions of a few employees.

"While Sen. Gillibrand finds the actions of certain ACORN employees to be reprehensible and will ask ACORN leaders for a full investigation and plan to prevent any further abuse, the truth remains that thousands of New York families who are facing foreclosure depend on charitable organizations like ACORN [emphasis added] for assistance," said Bethany Lesser, a spokesman for Gillibrand.

Say what? Charitable organization? Senator, charity is when you give your own money to someone who needs help. ACORN passes out the taxpayers' money, so public officials like you should be paying close attention to whether they do a good job of it or pay mopes in New York, Baltimore, D.C. and California and lord knows where else to "advise" people who walk in off the street how to set up whore houses and get away with importinh teenagers for prostitution.

Gillibrand, a former upstate member of the House of Representatives who got elected in a largely Republican district by pretending to be a conservative Blue Dog Democrat, is now going all out to shed the conservative label and earn some street cred with New York City voters. Her diligent new work at pretending to be a liberal apparently has begun to pay off. She's already been endorsed by ACORN's political action committee! (Don't ask me how a group that takes millions in federal, state and city money can endorse candidates.)

It's time for New York voters -- especially Democrats like me -- to send Gillibrand a clear message: we don't want any more of the taxpayers' money to be wasted on ACORN, an outfit which has few accomplishments other than scandals in its history and which exists mainly to perpetuate itself and give cushy jobs to people who are then drafted into "political action" to keep the money flowing.

You can contact Gillibrand by going to her website here.

And post a comment.

Elite British SAS commandos are training Libyan troops: Part of the oil deal?

British Prime Minister (so far) Gordon Brown with his (weird) new pal, Muammar Gaddafi

Wow, the Brits must need the oil really bad. First, they release the Lockerbie mass murderer as part of what the British press has reported to be a deal for oil. And now, Britain's elite Special Air Service (SAS) has been dragged into training Libyan strongman, Muammar Gaddafi's troops. The Telegraph breaks this sorry-ass story:

For the past six months Britain’s elite troops have been schooling soldiers working for Col Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, which for years provided [Irish] Republican terrorists with the Semtex explosive, machine-guns and anti-aircraft missiles used against British troops during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Sources within the SAS have expressed distaste at the agreement, which they believe could be connected to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Britain’s relationship with Libya has been under the spotlight since Abdelbaset al Megrahi was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last month after being diagnosed as suffering from terminal prostate cancer and given three months to live.

Gordon Brown has faced claims that his Government helped engineer Megrahi’s release to promote Britain’s commercial interests, particularly energy, in Libya.

Downing Street has denied the allegations, but Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, has admitted that trade was a factor in deciding to include Megrahi in an earlier prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Megrahi was the only person convicted for the murder of 270 people killed in the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am flight 103.

The disclosure that members of the SAS are training their Libyan counterparts will further raise suspicions about exactly what has been agreed behind the scenes between Tripoli and Britain.

It will also infuriate families of the Lockerbie victims and further sour relations with America. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama told the Prime Minister of his “disappointment” over Megrahi’s release.

[snip]

Members of Britain’s elite regiment are angry at having to help train soldiers from a country that for years armed terrorists they fought against.

An SAS source said: “A small SAS training team have been doing it for the last six months as part of this cosy deal with the Libyans"

Any thoughts about this wretched business? Post a comment.

CNN, not the Coast Guard, should apologize for today's Potomac "shots fired" scare

Video of CNN's erroneous scare broadcast (h/t The Daily Beast)

The long and short of this story is that CNN screwed up. The network went live with a "story" about Coast Guard boats engaging a suspicious craft on the Potomac River this morning, as 9/11 ceremonies were underway at the Pentagon. In fact, what happened was that someone at CNN monitoring open radio traffic mistook a routine Coast Guard training exercise for the real thing and blasted the "story" out to the nation. Other news media scrambled to report it as well, and based on these news bulletins, some public agencies took steps (e.g., flights were grounded at the nearby airport). You can read the details here.

Not surprisingly, CNN and some other media tried to lay the error at the Coast Guard's door, suggesting that it was foolhardy to hold any training exercise on 9/11. But the Coast Guard refused to apologize -- rightly so -- a spokesman for the agency telling the media that this exercise in question was one it conducts several times a week involving a handful of boats and personnel. The White House backed the Coast Guard and laid the blame at the media's door.

Personally, I'm glad the Coast Guard continues to train its people day in, day out to be fully prepared to head off or confront another emergency like 9/11/01, God forbid.

CNN is taking some solace from the fact that the Coast Guard will conduct a "thorough review" of the day's events. In this story, the network does its best to imply that somehow this is still the Coast Guard's fault.

But really, CNN should be making the apologies. They would do themselves a favor by conducting a thorough review of their own to figure out how they can better report the actual news.

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

September 11, 2001 plus eight: Let's never forget

One thing about the evolution of Americans' views -- and disagreements -- about the 9/11 attacks that I'll never understand is the almost total lack of interest in what took place in Afghanistan as the U.S. counter-attacked swiftly and with devastating effect on al Qaeda. In brief, while the Pentagon had no contingency plans to operate inside land-locked Afghanistan, a tiny team of seven CIA officers, led by veteran Gary Schroen (who was pulled back from planned retirement), flew in an old Soviet helicopter over the Hindu Kush into the Panjshir Valley on September 23rd. For nearly a month, Shroen's team were the only Americans on this battlefront, gathering intelligence, forging an alliance with local Afghans, and developing the strategy and tactics that would result in the Taliban and al Qaeda being quickly routed with remarkably little loss of life.

As Shroen summed it up in a compelling and informative "Frontline" interview:

What happened there in those last few months of 2001 to me was a validation of what the agency could be and should be. We were ready; we had established contacts long before anybody thought we'd needed them; ... we had the means in the area to allow us to infiltrate into the hostile territory to meet with [Afghan] colleagues there who were besieged. We had the area knowledge; we had language skills. We did it right. We did it cheap. ... We probably, in my little operation in the Panjshir Valley, spent about $6 million during that period, and we ended up freeing the northern half of the country for probably $10 million total, and no loss of American life, except for [former Marine and CIA agent] Mike Spann, unfortunately. ...

On 9/11/09, read the whole interview. You'll be glad you did.

Your thoughts on this day? Post a comment.

Obama's health care speech: nothing new, strongly partisan and a missed opportunity

As usual, President Obama delivered an impressive speech to Congress and the nation Wednesday night. But the speech contained nothing of consequence different from what he had to say in mid-July, despite the many signs of deep and growing public anxiety about and opposition to Democratic health care reform proposals.

The major questions surrounding these proposals remain unanswered, including these in particular:

How will programs that will cost $1 trillion, give or take, be paid for?

The President offered no support to any specific financing scheme but seemed to say that much of the cost would be covered by cutting "waste, fraud and abuse" in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. No one believes this. The President did say he would reject any plan that "adds one dime to the deficit." Fine words but the deficit will be added to a great deal without a major, new revenue stream -- very likely taxes -- to pay for a comprehensive plan and the President provided no guidance on that all-important matter.

How can Medicare and Medicaid be cut by as much as $500 billion without any reduction in benefits or increased out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries?

The President said again that seniors would lose nothing, but no one believes this either.

Amidst sweeping changes of the roles of private insurers and payment methods, new efforts to extract savings from the current system, and a plethora of new federal rules and requirements, how is it possible that people who like the plan or doctors they have will be able to keep them?

If there is a government-run "public option," or a government-subsidized "co-op" option at the same time as private insurers are required to provide a certain specified benefits package and to insure everyone, while being barred from imposing lifetime benefit caps, isn't it obvious that private insurers won't be able to compete successfully with the government-linked plan over time so that large numbers of people will wind up having no choice

Obama had the opportunity to confront these questions head on and answer them laying out a new reform program that moderate Democrats and some Republicans could get behind. Unfortunately, he chose instead to give a basically partisan speech -- notwithstanding a few compliments to some GOPers and acknowledgement of a couple of GOP ideas. His aim seemed to be to mollify the left of his party, which had started to turn on him, while laying down a number of markers around which he can hope to rally Congressional Democrats and pressure those who are reluctant to back a sweeping, expensive plan.

I think he's missed a huge opportunity to bring about some really important health care reforms. He won't be able to rally or pressure enough moderate Democrats in the Senate to pass a bill that House progressives also support. He needs every single Senate Democrat to get the necessary 60 votes ("reconciliation" with only 51 votes simply won't work). The Senate's centrist Democrats are keenly aware of their states' and constituents' interests and are not easily pushed around, even by a President.

So we are still where we were in July. Nothing has changed -- except the President has put himself and his Presidency on the line without having provided Congress or the nation the clear leadership needed. My guess is that there will not be a bill passed and signed by the President anytime soon.

What are your thoughts about the speech and the issue? Post a comment.

GOP should punish Rep. Joe Wilson for "You lie" outburst against President Obama

Rep. Joe Wilson (R.-SC) making his loud point, "You lie!"

The whole country knows by now that Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted, "You lie!" at President Obama from the House of Representatives floor as Obama asserted that his plan for health care change would not cover illegal immigrants. The House GOP leadership and Senator John McCain, among others, immediately called Wilson's outburst wrong, and Wilson apologized. Most conservative commentators chimed in to criticize Wilson, too, although some seemed to go out of their way to downplay Wilson's rudeness by pointing to Democrats having treated President George W. Bush with less than courtesy.

So that's the end of it, right?

I don't think so. Wilson's behavior is inexcusable, so he should be made to pay a price, not get away with an apologetic phone call to Rahm Emmanuel. There can be no excuse because:

-- When the President -- any President -- speaks to Congress, he does so as the guest of both Houses. If a member can't stand a President or what he has to say, the member can stay away and put out statements of disagreement. But you don't invite the guy and then heckle him.

-- A member of Congress should be setting an example of decorum, civility in political discourse, and simple decency. We understand that political combat can sometimes be rough, but there are limits we all recognize intuitively. Wilson shattered those limits.

-- The President is not only the head of government and the leader of his political party. He's also our head of state. That does not in any way insulate him from criticism, however harsh. But criticism should be leveled in a way that respects the office. That's why Democratic disrespect toward President Bush does not and should not excuse Wilson. If we allow this coarseness toward one President, we can be sure that the next President will be on the receiving end of worse.

OK, but since Wilson has a safe GOP seat and voters there probably won't rebuke him, what can be done?

One thing -- the most appropriate thing, in my view -- would be for his colleagues in the House Republican Caucus to pass a formal statement of censure. It would be awkward for House Republicans, but they would be applauded for not allowing this to rest with the usual meaningless apology. Plus, GOPers will be able to hold Democrats to the same high standard in the future.

What's your opinion? Post a comment.

UPDATE -- Some House Democrats are pushing Wilson to make an apology to the whole House on the floor and threatening a motion of censure if he doesn't. I think the more significant end to this story would be a censure from his fellow Republicans. A censure by the whole House, with its huge Democratic majority, would be just another round in the seemingly endless bitter partisan quarreling -- and likely a Pyrrhic victory for Democrats.

Radical leftist "Truther" Van Jones resigns top White House job in dead of night on Labor Day weekend

Well, at least the White House knows how to bury an awful story for the President. Van Jones, the screwball left-wing radical inexplicably hired into a high-level, policy-making post in the White House has resigned, according to this AP story filed at 12:34 am, Sunday, September 6th.

The revelations about Jones' very recent and never repudiated leftist radicalism, as I blogged about here, were getting worse. The latest was the most repulsive. Jones was a key participatant in what truly can only be called an anti-American rally held on September 13, 2001 in Jones hometown, Oakland, California, where it seems every radical kook in the Bay Area took turns in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 denouncing the "growing climate of racism, nationalism and anti-Arab bigotry" in the U.S. This was no pacifist get together, but as the sponsoring organization put it, made up of "supporters of Palestine...police brutality activists, anarchists and socialists," among others, who "stood together against the threat of more US violence[!]."

Jones clearly played a major role in this over-the-top America-bashing exercise. Here's what the sponsors said about Jones' role:

"The bombs the government drops in Iraq [presumably referring to the First Gulf War] are the bombs that blew up in New York City," said Van Jones, director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, who also warned against forthcoming violence by the Bush Administration [emphasis added]. "The US cannot bomb its way out of this one."

This is raw stuff -- what you'd expect from a "radical Marxist-Leninist," as Jones once described himself, but not from a high official of a Democratic Administration.

Jones is gone, and good riddance. What remains, though, is the question of how and whyt such an extremist could snare himself a big-time slot in the White House. The President owes it to his country, his party and himself to find out who was responsible for overlooking Jones' manifest unsuitability and chastise him, her or them.

And let me say this again: liberals must step up and demand answers, too, rather than pretend that Jones is the victim of "racism" or a "witch hunt." Democrats won't keep the trust of the American people and the power that goes with it if they ignore extremism of the left.

What's your take? Post a comment.

President Obama must fire radical leftist "Truther" Van Jones -- now!

As President Obama grapples with growing uneasiness with and opposition to his policies from the broad center of American politics -- independents and moderate Democrats and Republicans -- the last thing he needs is one Van Jones in a high, policy-making position in the White House.

Jones is the so-called "green jobs czar," the guy who's supposed to guide policies aimed at boosting the U.S. economy in ways that also enhance the environment -- a delicate balance requiring someone with sound judgement and political skill.

But Jones, it turns out, is a guy who as recently as a decade ago was a leader of radical leftists and a founder of an expressly "revolutionary Marxist-Leninist" California group. Even more disturbing (if that's possible), Jones helped organize a January 2002 protest against the U.S. reponse to the 9/11 attacks, along with a host of leftist cranks at a time when 99.9 percent of Americans across the political spectrum were united in determination to retaliate against al Qaeda. Lest you think he changed his mind about this extremist stance, in 2004, Jones signed a "Truther" statement -- declaring 9/11 to be an inside job (you know, a vast Bush-CIA-Pentagon-Jewish conspiracy).

It is beyond comprehension how this obvious left-wing extremist got his big, cushy White House job in the first place. But he should be out the door fast. Obama has no chance -- repeat, no chance -- of retaining the support of the vital center if he places or tolerates radicals in important, policy-making posts.

While he's at it, Obama should find out who let this happen -- Rahm Emmanuel? David Axelrod? Valerie Jarrett? -- and treat that person to a stern trip to the wood shed.

This whole business is reminiscent of how some liberals have refused for decades to acknowledge that Paul Robeson was, in fact, a Communist with a capital "C," even though Robeson made no attempt to hide his CPUSA membership and affection for the USSR. It's inconvenient to do so, but liberals must stand up

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

Lockerbie bomber was set free in British oil deal

Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, killer of 270 men, women and children, gets the hero's welcome back in Libya

It was pretty obvious all along, but the Times of London now has the goods. It's enough to make you sick. Let's hope it's enough to bring down the UK government government of Gordon Brown(and its Scottish stooges). It's hard to see how the British people will stand for it.

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.

Read the whole story here. And more disgusting details here.

Any thoughts about this monstrous capitulation to terror? Post a comment.

GOP Chair catches on: Seniors are the people who will decide health care debate

I posted three months ago that seniors like those in the picture above would decide the outcome of the health care "reform" debate once they woke up to the fact that the major plans advanced -- some more than others -- would gouge Medicare, directly or indirectly, sooner or later to their detriment.

Sure enough, polls show that seniors are the major group that is least supportive of the various health care reform schemes, and the steady erosion of Obama's public approval ratings is being driven in significant part by seniors.

Enter GOP National Chairman Michael Steele. In an op-ed today, Steele proclaimed a Republican Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights that would, in his words, ensure that reform is "not funded on the backs of our nation's senior citizens. "

Steele has a simple point that no amount of scorn for inconsistency heaped on him by Democrats can deny: the principal health care reform bill teed up by Democrats in the House would cut Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars, all but eliminate the highly popular Medicare Advantage programs that currently enroll eight million seniors and reduce some payments to providers that most likely would result in fewer providers accepting Medicare patients. These provisions -- which are in the House plan very deliberately to "save" money that can then be used elsewhere -- are what makes seniors worry about reform, not hyperbole about "death panels."

The odd thing here, of course, is that one would expect Democrats to be defending the premier accomplishment of the Democratic Party of the last 50 years -- but they aren't. They are throwing up smokescreens to avoid facing the music with their most reliable voting constituents, while keeping their fingers crossed that Republicans won't appeal to seniors, simply because of traditional Republican opposition to "entitlements." And there is already a bit of a backlash against Steele in conservative circles for thus "pandering" to the old folks. Be that as it may, Steele has hit upon the Achilles Heel of the current sweeping Democratic proposals. If he and a few others keep pounding that drum, we will shortly see all but the hundred or so House Democrats who occupy totally safe districts begin to distance themselves from all but the kind of step-at-a-time changes Joe Lieberman suggested Sunday.

What do you think? Post a comment.

"Public option" is dead, dead, dead -- but left-leaning Dems refuse to bury it ( so far)

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) makes the case for the already dead "public option"

After weeks of watching public opposition to health care reform proposals increase and President Obama's approval ratings drop, the Administration apparently reached the conclusion that siding with the more sweeping House leadership version of reform, with its so-called "public option," had zero chance of making it through the Senate. Rather than see the opportunity to get both Houses to agree on something slip away amidst an increasingly negative public debate, the White House "signaled" furiously over the weekend that it was willing to drop the public option and consider coops instead as a counter to private insurers.

Not surprisingly, the left commentariat erupted in a combination of crushing disappointment and flat-out fury that Obama would sell out the One True Reform. And leaders of the House liberal bloc warned the Administration that some 60 members would never, never, ever vote for a bill that did not include a public option, thus making passage of any such bill impossible.

Won't anyone tell these guys that the public option is as dead Julius Caesar and all they can accomplish by opposing Obama on compromising with the Senate moderates and House Blue Dogs is to kill any reform bill? Well, I will.

It's dead because Obama and Health Secretary Sebelius said they could live without it. They may have backtracked a bit today to appease the outcry from the left for the moment and give Administration operatives time to smooth things over with unions and other key allies. But the deed it done. Obama can no longer go to the moderate Democrats -- Max Baucus, Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and others -- not to mention the few moderate Republicans -- conspicuously Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe whose votes might be decisive -- and say, we must have a public option. The moderates have been saying for weeks that the public option is a non-starter, and now Obama has said, OK, I can do without it. That genie is, as they say, out of the bottle.

The left-leaning blogosphere won't let go of this easily. Already, they have seized on a comment by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) to the effect that the proposed co-ops are a Trojan Horse for a public plan to complain that compromising with the Republicans on health care gets you nowhere because the GOP will not ultimately support any plan. Maybe so, but the stumbling block is not Kyl and the GOP Congressional leadership. It's the moderate Democrats who simply will not vote for a bill they consider to be too radical for their states and constituents. And it's the moderate Republicans whose votes may be needed to head off a filibuster.

So the self-styled "progressives" in the House are threatening to cripple Obama's Presidency before its first year is by submarining his premier proposal if it doesn't come up to their standards, and Howard Dean is sitting up there in Vermont making vague threats of primaries against Democrats who don't support a public option. I say, hooey. The House members will cave as soon as Rhambo swings into action to squeeze them for their votes. And successful primaries run by liberals against sitting Democratic Senators in less-than-liberal states like Montana and Arkansas? Good luck with that.

Some health care reform bill will pass before the year is out (unless the left goes totally bonkers and screws Obama), but it will be less sweeping -- more moderate -- than what's been prematurely labled "ObamaCare," and that's all to the good. The health care system is huge, complex and not altogether well understood. The potential for bad unintended consequences is enormous. What's more, a great many people like the much-distained status quo, at least where their health insurance is concerned.

As I posted some time ago, it will be better for everyone if reform is done piece meal. If this year's bill encourages greater portability, eliminates the pre-existing conditions dodge, expands eligibity for Medicaid, especially to provide insurance for the unemployed, and sets up a co-op to compete with private companies, that will be a lot to digest for a couple of years.

If people like Rep. Weiner (see the video above) think this is the only chance to pass a more comprehensive set of changes, they must have very little faith in the likelihood that voters will return Democrats to power. Of course, the irony is that if Weiner had his way, they probably wouldn't!

What's your opinion? Post a comment.

The Gallup maps: Why Obama needs to govern from the center

Here's why...

Gallup's in-depth state-by-state analyses of party ID and ideology

A couple of weeks ago, Gallup came out with an analysis, gleaned from six months of tracking polls during the first half of 2009, of party identification by state. The results (in the top map) showed a powerful Democratic hold on the electorate nationwide -- the continuation of the appeal to voters that elected President Obama and handed control of Congress to the Democrats last November.

As I pointed out at the time, although the poll results demonstrated clearly the ascendancy of the Democratic Party, they were not in any way "proof positive of a sustained leftward lurch of American politics," as many tried to claim.

The reason is simple: party identification and ideological affinity are two separate things -- overlapping, yes, but very much separate anyway.

Now, Gallup has released a second study of self-declared political ideology -- based on 160,000 interviews (a huge sample) over the same January-June 2009 period. Gallup asked people whether their views were "very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, or very liberal."

The second map above summarizes the results: only in the District of Columbia is there a larger proportion of liberals than conservatives. Even in Massachusetts -- a state with a liberal reputation (e.g., Kennedy and Kerry) that is second only to D.C. in pro-Democratic leaning, according to Gallup, only 29% call themselves liberal, while 30% say they are conservative and 38% self-identify as moderates.

Wait a minute! How can this be? How could Obama and the Democrats sweep the country if all the states they carried are colored one or another shade of green?

The answer is, of course, that most of the moderates and some conservatives joined with liberals in Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina and many other states, because voters were in a mood to fire the Republicans after eight years and two wars in the midst of a scary economic meltdown. The Obama supported by these legions of non-liberals came across as a thoughtful man of (dare I say it?) moderation; a "post-partisan" figure of national unity at a time of deeply felt crisis; a leader they could trust with their futures. To these millions of voters, he was not even an ideologue, much less a leader who would forge a significant shift to the left.

Well, now they're not so sure about that -- so Obama's (and the Democrats) standing in various polls is dropping steadily. To be sure, Democrats can still win in that crucial swath of light-blue states in the upper map that begins with North Carolina, runs north through Pennsylvania and then west to Arkansas, Missouri and Iowa. But all those states also have a moderately conservative bent seen in the green shades of the lower map. Their voters will gladly support Democrats in responsible steps to right the economy and very likely on some other key issues, as well. But they will decisively reject anything perceived as "too liberal."

I should add that I have a bone to pick with Gallup with respect to both of these maps, especially the one depicting ideological preference. It highlights the right and left poles -- while leaving the reader to wonder where the moderates are (no doubt, that makes for bigger news stories and more attention to Gallup). In fact, self-described moderates comprise a huge chunk of every state's population -- from a low of 32% to a high of 43%. Only in the most conservative state, Alabama, do conservatives outnumber the combined moderate-liberal total. So a "center-left" coalition (theoretically) could prevail in 49 states! And in fact, although Obama's victory was not nearly that overwhelming, it was support from moderates and even some conservatives that elected Obama and the sizable Democratic Congressional majorities in 2008.

The President, Speaker and Majority Leader will come to regret it, if they forget this obvious fact.

Any thoughts about this? Post a comment.

Reports: CIA drone-fired missile attack kills Baitullah Mehsud, leader of Pakistani Taliban

Waziristan Taliban chieftain Baitullah Mehsud in better times

We may never know for sure, but it's being reported widely that a CIA missile has blown Pakistan's most wanted terrorist, Baitullah Mehsud, the killer of Benazir Bhutto among countless other victims, to smithereens:

"There is strong indication" that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a CIA drone strike that targeted a house Wednesday, a senior administration official told ABC News.

U.S. and Pakistani officials believe Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead. U.S. and Pakistani officials believe that a strike in South Waziristan yesterday "very likely" killed Mehsud. U.S. officials said they had visual and other "indicators" that it was Mehsud, and that there is a 95 percent chance that he is among the dead. Pakistani officials are trying to collect physical evidence to be certain.

Baitullah Mehsud is enemy number one in Pakistan. He is believed to be behind some of the most spectacular attacks in that country, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 and suicide bombings in Lahore.

Recently, the CIA concentrated resources on tracking and targeting Mehsud partly at the behest of Pakistan's civilian government, led by Bhutto's husband, sif Ali Zardari. So Islamabad should be a bit happier place today.

This latest success should teach everyone a lesson about the capabilities of the CIA and America's intelligence community, which have lately come in for a wide range of criticisms from the left and the right. The CIA's Hellfire missiles fired from Predator and Reaper drone aircraft have been killing al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and fighters a lot more effectively than anything else being done by any arm of the U.S. Government or our allies.

Got an opinion? Post a comment.

UPDATE -- The New York Times reports that the Taliban has confirmed Mehsud's death last Wednesday in a CIA missile strike.