Why Massachusetts Voters Should Hold Their Nose And Vote For Coakley

January 17, 2010 — Ron Chusid

Polls continue to show the Massachusetts Senate race  too close to call. As I previously discussed, the weakness of the Democratic candidate as well as anti-incumbent sentiment could very well lead to a Republican victory. Andrew Sullivan has several posts on the race, including ones I will quote here which provide reasons for voting for or against Martha Coakley.

While Republicans will spin a victory for Brown as a repudiation of Obama, one of Sullivan’s readers gave this reason for backing Brown, saying it is not a vote against Obama:

I was a very early supporter of Obama. I was living in New Hampshire two years ago. I signed up to go door-to-door to talk to people about his candidacy and in contrast to Hilary. I trudged through feet of snow in the week before the primary. I entered homes and had great discussions with my fellow residents. I went to Claremont, NH and shook Obama’s hand. I rallied the night before the primary in Concord. He lost the state but I knew we were on the right side of history.

I’m with you in thinking that Obama is the best thing the Democrats have going for them right now. But I also think that in having the supermajority, they actually undercut him. They don’t have to compromise and so they don’t try to. Instead, what passes as legislation is a horrid mismash of corporate interests and traditional, not progressive, balms of the Democratic Party. I know this country can do much, much better. And I think Obama needs a less powerful Democratic party to make it happen, like Clinton did.

The writer continues to argue for ballot splitting and notes that “It also helps that Brown has already voted for a health care plan with a public option. So to someone like Malkin who was ready to toss away a Congressional seat in NY for ‘purity’, I now laugh at their support of Brown.”  This is also described as an act to promote GOP moderation along with opposing “hacks like Coakley.”

Let me say emphatically that my vote for Brown isn’t a vote against Obama. It’s a vote against the Democratic Party, and hacks like Coakley, but also a vote to help moderate the GOP. One more New England Republican is necessary. Of all the places the GOP might find it’s path again I hope it’s from where it was born.

At other times I would have been more sympathetic towards this argument. I would certainly like to see moderate New England Republicans change the direction of the GOP. I also fear that once Brown is operating on a  national stage he will find it to his advantage to pander to the far right as Mitt Romney has. He may have voted for “a health care plan with a public option” in Massachusetts but is now running as the candidate who will block health care reform nationally.

If we could have a responsible Republican Party offering alternative solutions to problems it might be beneficial to have a Democratic Party which lacks the super-majority and force bipartisan cooperation. The problem is that the Republican Party now has no interest in bipartisan cooperation. Their only concern is to deny the Democrats any successes, even to the point of unanimously opposing a relatively conservative health care reform measure.

Andrew Sullivan appears to be thinking along similar lines. In some posts he has demonstrated the problems with Coakley, such as describing the flier which distorts Brown’s record on rape and emergency room treatment as vile. Sullivan also explains why he would hold his nose and vote for Coakley:

…there is the total, rigid opposition to any reform and any cooperation at all from the nihilist Republicans. Obama is president for three more years. He will survive. He may even prosper. But this really would be a massive blow. To get this close and lose health insurance would embolden every enemy Obama has, from Netanyahu to Ailes.

That’s the only reason to vote for Coakley on Tuesday.

She’s a dreadful candidate, but this race is now a critical battle in the war to rescue the possibility of effective governance. If health reform dies, it will show just how broken the system is, just how impossible it is to effect even centrist reform in a Senate this paralyzed, how polarization has made compromise impossible, how the country’s profound problems are simply beyond the system’s reach. If this fails, what chance for any action on climate change? Or the debt? Or some movement toward a settlement in the Middle East?

And if Obama fails, there are no Democrats able to match him. The nihilist Republicans would be resurgent, pledging more tax cuts, more debt, and no entitlement cuts, entrenching torture as the American way, and pouring even more resources into the indefinite occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The lesson will be: permanent political war is the only way. The only way to govern the country is to divide and weaken it.

Just like Rove did. You want that back? Vote Brown. You don’t? Hold your nose and vote for Coakley.

Posted in Barack Obama, Blogs & Social Media, Congress, Democrats, Health Care, Independents, Polls, Republicans. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

My Current Facebook Status

January 13, 2010 — Ron Chusid

I’m getting my quarterly tax estimates ready to mail. I would join the tea parties in protest over sending all this money–except that I’m a rational adult who realizes that if not for the infrastructure provided by government I wouldn’t have the income to pay taxes on.

I wouldn’t mind if I didn’t have to pay for Iraq, Afghanistan, the drug war, or abstinence based educational programs, but these don’t seem to be the things the tea parties are upset about.
Posted in Economy. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

Washington Post Debunks Cheney Attacks On Obama

January 3, 2010 — Ron Chusid

With all the attempts from conservatives like Dick Cheney to politicize the attempted terror attack on Christmas and claim that Obama has been weak on fighting terrorism, it is good to see that at least one conservative newspaper, The Washington Post, is debunking Cheney’s claims. Today they are running an editorial entitled Soft on terror? Not this president:

THERE IS, it seems evident, more than enough blame to go around in the botched handling of the botched Christmas bombing. Not for some Republicans. With former vice president Richard B. Cheney in the lead, they have embarked on an ugly course to use the incident to inflict maximum political damage on President Obama. That’s bad enough, but their scurrilous line of attack is even worse. The claim that the incident shows the president’s fecklessness in the war on terror is unfounded — no matter how often it is repeated…

There are two ways to show how baseless these attacks are: examining Mr. Obama’s words and examining his actions.

Words first. “Evil does exist in the world,” Mr. Obama said in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. “Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.” In his weekly radio speech Saturday, he disposed of the war-vs.-law-enforcement canard, pointing out that in his inaugural address he made it clear that “0ur nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred and that we will do whatever it takes to defeat them and defend our country, even as we uphold the values that have always distinguished America among nations.” ”

But actions speak louder, and Mr. Obama’s actions — often at the cost of enraging his party’s liberal base — have also demonstrated tenacity and pragmatism blended with a necessary reassessment of the flawed policies of his predecessors and a recommitment to the rule of law. He wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, which is all to the good given its stain on the national character, but he has delayed that goal until acceptable alternatives can be found. He has brought criminal charges against some terrorists, but he has also sent others to be tried by military tribunals. He has invoked the authority of the executive to have lawsuits dismissed because they risk exposing state secrets. In addition to the new troop deployments, he has aggressively used predator drones to strike at terrorists, including outside Afghanistan. Even before the failed attack, his administration has been working aggressively with Yemeni authorities to deal with extremists there.

Posted in Barack Obama, Op-eds, Republicans, Terrorism. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

Republican Double Standard In Politicizing Terror Attack

December 30, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Republicans such as Pete Hoekstra have been trying to politicize Barack Obama’s reaction to the attempted bombing over Detroit on Christmas, even resorting to using this in a fund raising letter. One line of attack is that Obama did not respond quickly enough, showing a double standard as Republicans did not complain when George Bush took six days to respond in a comparable situation. Politico reviews the two attempted attacks:

This year’s attack came on Christmas. The attempt eight years ago took place on Dec. 22. Obama was on vacation in Hawaii when the suspect, Omar Abdulmutallab, allegedly used plastic explosives in his try to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight. Bush was at Camp David when Reid used similar plastic explosives to try to blow up his Paris-to-Miami flight, which diverted to Boston after the incident.

Like the Obama White House, the Bush White House told reporters the president had been briefed on the incident and was following it closely. While the Obama White House issued a background statement through a senior administration official calling the incident an “attempted terrorist attack” on the same day it took place, the early official statements from Bush aides did not make the same explicit statement.

Bush did not address reporters about the Reid episode until December 28, after he had traveled from Camp David to his ranch in Texas.

Democrats do not appear to have criticized Bush over the delay. Many were wary of publicly clashing with the commander in chief, who was getting lofty approval ratings after what appeared to be a successful military campaign in Afghanistan. The media also seemed to have little interest in pressing Bush about the bombing, or the fact that the incident had revealed a previously unknown vulnerability in airplane security — that shoes could be used to hide chemicals or explosive devices.

The article reviewed some of the Republican attacks but also notes that some members of the Bush administration have avoided such criticism:

On CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Monday night, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who was a White House adviser at the time of Reid’s attempted bombing, brushed aside a question about whether Obama should have waited three days to speak out. “I’m going to leave that to the White House. I think he had Secretary Napolitano out there speaking,” Ridge said.

And over the weekend, former Bush pollster Matthew Dowd was asked if Obama was correct when, like Bush, he held off speaking at the outset. “Yes,” Dowd told Jake Tapper Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “Part of the problem here is that all the facts that you think are true at the beginning turn out not to be true as the days go on.”

Marc Ambinder has explained the wisdom of Obama’s approach:

Here’s the theory: a two-bit mook is sent by Al Qaeda to do a dastardly deed. He winds up neutering himself. Literally.
Authorities respond appropriately; the president (as this president is wont to to) presides over the federal response. His senior aides speak for him, letting reporters know that he’s videoconferencing regularly, that he’s ordering a review of terrorist watch lists, that he’s discoursing with his secretary of Homeland Security.
But an in-person Obama statement isn’t needed; Indeed, a message expressing command, control, outrage and anger might elevate the importance of the deed, would generate panic (because Obama usually DOESN’T talk about the specifics of cases like this, and so him deciding to do so would cue the American people to respond in a way that exacerbates the situation).
Obama of course will say something at some point. Had the terrorist blown up the plane, it’s safe to assume that Obama would no longer be in Hawaii. In either case, the public will need presidential fortification at some point. But Obama is willing to risk the accusation that he is “soft” on terrorism or is hovering above it all, or is just not to be bothered (his “head’s in the sand,” or “golfing comes first”) in order to advance what he believes is the proper collective response to a failed act of terrorism.
Let the authorities do their work. Don’t presume; don’t panic the country; don’t chest-thump, prejudge, interfere, politicize (in an international sense), don’t give Al Qaeda (or whomever) a symbolic victory; resist the urge to open the old playbook and run a familiar play.
In a sense, he is projecting his calm on the American people, just as his advisers are convinced that the Bush administration projected their panic and anger on the self-same public eight years ago.
It’s a tough and novel approach — and not at all (as they say in Britain) party political — because the standard political script would have the president and his attorney general appearing everywhere as soon as possible.
Steve Benen notes that the Republicans prefer not to respond like grown ups:

Republicans didn’t care for that approach, and preferred a collective display of pants-wetting. GOP voices and the media decided the strategy to deny terrorists a p.r. victory wasn’t good enough. This was a time for partisan grandstanding, not mature leadership.

Again, maybe Americans will find the president’s approach compelling. They should. But at this point, it seems pretty obvious that the president acting like a grown-up is going over the political world’s head.

There’s apparently an expectation that the president can — and probably should — exploit incidents for as much political gain as possible. So, for example, when U.S. forces, acting on the president’s orders, successfully took out Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the ringleader of a Qaeda cell in Kenya and one of the most wanted Islamic militants in Africa, the president should appear before the cameras and explain, “Hey, look at me! I took out one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists!” When U.S. forces, acting on the president’s orders, killed Baitullah Mehsud, the terrorist leader of the Taliban movement Pakistan, Obama should assemble reporters to declare, “Booyah! Who’s da man?”

When the Obama administration took suspected terrorists Najibullah Zazi, Talib Islam, and Hosam Maher Husein Smadi into custody before they could launch their planned attacks, each and every instance requires its own press conference, in which the president can proclaim, “Republicans’ talk is cheap; I’m the one keeping Americans safe.”

The president, by all appearances, finds such shameless politicization of counter-terrorism offensive. And it is. But Republicans are running an aggressive misinformation scheme, and if it’s effective, the White House may need to reconsider whether the public rewards or punishes leaders who act like grown-ups.

Posted in Barack Obama, Blogs & Social Media, George Bush, Republicans, Terrorism. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

The Festivus Airing of Grievances

December 23, 2009 — Ron Chusid

It is an annual tradition to air one’s grievances on Festivus. I began this on a previous Festivus by airing the ways in which George Bush disappointed me and let down his country. In 2007 I aired my grievances against many of the candidates who were seeking to replace him. I had the least complaints about Barack Obama:

I am still waiting for more of the promised specifics of your plans. You do show an excellent ability to at least show consideration of all views, but I’m not yet certain if this is a matter of framing or ideology which will impact the final policy. My suspicion is that in a couple of years I will be writing a number of blog posts disagreeing with some of your actions as president, but things will be far better than if any of your major opponents were to win.

My prediction came true and I will begin this year with my grievances concerning Barack Obama. On health care he abandoned his opposition to mandates. It is hard to see how remaining in Afghanistan will be worth the cost, both in lives and dollars. He has preserved some of the secrecy policies of his predecessor. He opposes marriage equality at a time when I believe we are approaching a tipping point where such discrimination will no longer be acceptable–and leaders such as Obama could make this happen more quickly if he chose to do so.

While I have grievances against Obama, I also have grievances to air against the Obama bashers, both from the left and the right. On the right we have claims that he is a Muslim, a socialist, and not an American citizen. These attacks are ridiculous, but the right wing has deteriorated into an authoritarian cult primarily made up of people who are morally and intellectually bankrupt, lacking understanding of history, politics, economics, science, and, most importantly, of ethics or morality. We can no longer be shocked by their hatred and ignorance as this is what now defines the American right wing.

What is harder to understand is the Obama bashing from the left. I am not referring to those who disagree with Obama on issues but those who act as if they were deceived or betrayed, and claim he is no better than George Bush.

Obama might not be right on all the issues but, with some exceptions (and far less than most politicians) he is governing exactly as he said he would as a candidate. Obama ran as a centrist politician who sought to find common ground with others. He did not run as a Messiah, or as a far left politician. His health care plan remains very close to the plan he ran on. He stated his intention to remain in Afghanistan as a candidate. At least, in contrast to his predecessor, he did give some actual thought to the issue. It should have been obvious to anyone listening to him that he was not likely to prosecute members of the Bush administration for their crimes and he would move gradually to reform the system.

You can disagree with him, but don’t act shocked or betrayed–and certainly do not claim he is anywhere near as bad as George Bush.

And now for some briefer grievances to air:

Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Bart Stupak, plus  the entire Republican Congressional delegation for getting in the way of what could have been a far better health care plan.

The insurance industry for developing a business model based upon increasing profits by denying care and dropping customers when they get sick.

Glenn Beck, who deserves the Misinformer of the Year Award.

Sarah Palin, who personifies everything which is wrong with the know-nothing attitude of the right wing, and who deserves to be honored for telling the Lie of the Year.

The tea-baggers. I respect their right to protest, but wish they at least had some basic understanding of the issues they were protesting about.

Acorn, just because everyone is supposed to hate them, regardless of the facts.

The hackers who stole the East Anglia emails. Once the stole the emails and it didn’t show anything meaningful it was time to shut up as opposed to continuing to make claims about the content of the email which were untrue.

Michigan football which has been so disappointing for the second year in a row. (I could include the Detroit Lions for a much longer time period, but why bother?)

Buy.com–the internet company which makes its money by selling defective merchandise at a discount, and then failing to respond to complaints.

Howie Mandel for being a spokesman for a crooked outfit like Buy.com.

The big box stores who offer discounts on electronics and then rip off the customers with extremely over-priced cables.

Fox for screwing up Dollhouse and not giving what could have been a great science fiction show a real chance.

J.J. Abrams for destroying Vulcan and failing to fix the time line (but at least he did save Star Trek).

Posted in Barack Obama, Health Care, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Science Fiction, Television. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Memories of Festivus Past

December 22, 2009 — Ron Chusid

(It is almost the start of Festivus. Before beginning this year’s celebration I’ll look back at the traditional Festivus Airing of Grievances from 2005. The Grievances were aimed at then-president George Bush.)

Today is Festivus, the nondenominational holiday made famous on Seinfeld. The Festivus celebration includes The Airing of Grievances in which each participate at the Festivus Dinner tells each other all the instances where they disappointed him or her that year. In the spirit of George Lakoff’s “strict father” model for Republican leadership style, for Festivus this year I rant to one and all about all the ways in which George Bush has disappointed me:

George, you twice took an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution and you claim to support judges who look to the intentions of its framers. Yet you take executive powers, and the powers of the commander in chief, far beyond what the framers ever intended. Emergency powers are intended to allow for immediate response to a crisis, not to allow for an indefinite expansion of your powers without legislative approval or judicial review.

You failed in the most important duties of your office, protecting the country when under attack. You ignored the warnings about al Qaeda from your predecessor upon taking office. You ignored warnings in your own intelligence briefings that terrorists planned an attack involving hijacked airplanes, and then on the day of the actual attack you sat down to read a book, possibly for the first time in your life. I hope you enjoyed The Pet Goat. Now if you would only read a few books explaining the background to the problems you have been mishandling.

After failing to take action to protect us from an imminent attack, you totally screw up in retaliating against the wrong country. Your failure to settle matters in Afghanistan before attacking Iraq allowed Bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora when he could have been captured.

Who has your foreign policy helped? You sure helped al Qaeda grow, as Saudi and Israeli studies showed that it was opposition to the war which radicalized those fighting American troops. The other big winner has been Iran as you have spread our military too thin to respond to problems beyond Iraq.

You even considered bombing al-Jazeera. Listen, if you really wanted to get rid of a bunch of religious fanatics and political extremists who were using biased news reports to prop up a corrupt government and reduce freedom you should have gone after Fox News. If Pravda had been as effective in deceiving the public as Fox News and the rest of the right wing noise machine is, the Soviet Union would probably still exist.

Then there’s this Medicare plan of yours. Those in Medicaid programs had their prescriptions paid for at negotiated discount prices, but your plan prevents such discounts in the Medicare programs providing a financial windfall to the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of the taxpayers. What a great deal for the pharmaceutical companies who donated fortunes to you–plus you gave them a great excuse to eliminate their patient assistance programs. Of course don’t forget the insurance industry, which also makes out great thanks to the subsidies you are providing for Medicare managed care plans–plans which have historically been so inefficient that insurance companies will only get involved if they receive such subsidies, again at taxpayer’s expense.

You sure are great for your friends in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Then there’s the oil companies. How much did they stand to gain if you got away with the ANWR drilling? I’m sure they would have gotten a better deal than the consumers who would have save a whole one cent per gallon at the pump.

Besides undermining our national security and harming the environment, you have run up record deficits to undermine our financial futures while giving huge tax cuts which primarily benefit the rich. You have undermined important parts of the Constitution as you have engaged in illegal surveillance of American citizens, worked to destroy the checks and balances which have so far saved us tyranny, and you have harmed the separation of church and state which is so important to guarantee that everyone can practice (or not practice) religion in the manner they desire.

Your disdain for the democratic process was especially seen in your campaign last year. You both avoided contact with all but firm supporters, and avoided discussing any real issues. You were too afraid of a real discussion of the issues, knowing in such a situation you would be rejected, so instead you based your campaign upon distorting the positions and record of your opponent. I don’t think you ever commented on a single position actually held by John Kerry.

You were even so far off the wall as to suggest that intelligent design be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution. At least you aren’t flip flopping this time (which is something you and not John Kerry has been guilty of). Supporting such superstition over science is consistent with your overall disregard for science. Calling intelligent design a valid alternative to evolution to explain the development of life is as nonsensical as promoting the belief that earth quakes occur because the gods are angry as a valid alternative to geology.

Traditionally, at the Festivus dinner we have the The Feats of Strength. This year I propose that we show our strength by working to remove from Congress those who have collaborated with you and replace them with new members who are willing to vote for your censure or impeachment and restore Constitutional rule as intended by the Founding Fathers. You already have the distinction of being the first President to admit to an impeachable offense in your illegal surveillance, and your lying us into war was an even worse crime. Both are certainly more deserving of impeachment than a private sexual affair and creative uses of cigars.

Next year, when we have a Congress willing to take action against you and to reestablish the form of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers, we can call it a Festivus Miracle.

Now, in the spirit of Festivus, I invite you all gather around an aluminum pole to air your grievances or perform a feat of strength.

Update: Thanks to The Atlantic and others for linking to this airing of old grievances. This year’s airing of grievances, ranging from Barack Obama to the Obama bashers (left and right) to J. J. Abrams (for destroying Vulcan) are posted here.

Posted in George Bush, Health Care, Iraq. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

Obama and The Health Care Legislation

December 21, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Until Barack Obama’s election I do not recall a president who received so much criticism for doing what he said he would do during the campaign. It is one thing, and perfectly legitimate, to criticize Obama when one disagrees with him. Having said he would do something as a candidate does not make him immune to criticism for his policies once elected. It is a different thing, as some on the left are doing, to claim that Obama sold them out or act shocked by his current policies.

Barack Obama campaigned as a centrist, pragmatic politician who planned to try to consider the views of the opposing party. While campaigning he said he would remain in Afghanistan, and it was clear he would not concentrate on prosecuting Bush administration officials for their acts in office. As Ezra Klein points out, he also campaigned on a health care plan (pdf here)  similar to the one being considered in Congress:

…the basic structure of the proposal is remarkably similar. Here’s how it was described in the campaign’s white paper:

“The Obama-Biden plan provides new affordable health insurance options by: (1) guaranteeing eligibility for all health insurance plans; (2) creating a National Health Insurance Exchange to help Americans and businesses purchase private health insurance; (3) providing new tax credits to families who can’t afford health insurance and to small businesses with a new Small Business Health Tax Credit; (4) requiring all large employers to contribute towards health coverage for their employees or towards the cost of the public plan; (5) requiring all children have health care coverage; (5) expanding eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs; and (6) allowing flexibility for state health reform plans.”

We don’t know what the employer mandate will look like once the House and the Senate merge their bills, and the exchanges look likelier to be run by states or regions than by the government (though there will also be a national exchange overseen by the Office of Personnel Management), but those are really the only differences. And it’s not even clear they’re differences.

Going through the legislative process has led to some changes. A key difference is the individual mandate. While I wish Obama had stuck with his opposition, the change is understandable. Ezra Klein, whose understanding of  the realities of health care in the real world is far weaker than his study of legislation, believes this is because his plan would not work without mandates. The real reason Obama gave in is more likely that this was a compromise which was necessary to get a bill passed. He first tried to make a deal with the insurance industry by agreeing to their demands for a mandate in return for ending the restrictions based upon pre-existing conditions. Once this issue was taken up in Congress, leaders from both parties supported the individual mandate, making it futile for Obama to fight it.

The other big change, and the one which has disappointed the left the most, is the elimination of the public plan in the Senate bill. Obama’s strategy has certainly been one of getting a bill passed even if compromise is necessary, but he does not deserve the amount of blame he has been receiving for the elimination of the mandate. It was Joe Lieberman who killed the mandate, yet surprisingly many on the left are accepting the word of Lieberman (as well as Howard Dean, who has his own axe to grind with the Obama administration) on this.  Joe Lieberman’s argument comes down to telling the left not to blame him for opposing the public option because Obama didn’t try hard enough to twist his arm.

Tom Harkin has a different take on the public option, disagreeing with the claims that this failed because of Obama. Harkin also says that the public option will be revisited. Even if it doesn’t make it into the final bill during reconciliation with the House bill, it is possible to bring up the public option again as a separate bill in the future. Considering the degree of public support for the public option, it might even make more sense to have a separate battle over this during an election year, or even in 2011.

I will not attempt to say whether the bill should be passed until the final legislation is available. The Senate bill has many faults, but passage is the only way to go to conference with the House and attempt to improve it. The bill must be judged not against our ideas of a perfect plan, but against the status quo, where the individual market might not survive much longer unless one is young and health or has lots of money to burn. Any final bill must be considered on its merits and not be judged based upon litmus tests such as whether there is a public option. Even Jacob S. Hacker, who devised the idea of a public plan, is arguing in favor of passage of the current Senate plan. Whatever the details are in the final plan, it does not appear that it will be radically different from the plan discussed when Obama was campaigning.

Posted in Barack Obama, Blogs & Social Media, Congress, Health Care. Tags: , , , , , , . No Comments »

The Excessive Concern Regarding Cost And Health Care Reform

December 14, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Kirsten Powers has an op-ed in The New York Post making the same argument I’ve made here several times with regards to cost and health care.

What will health-care reform cost?

This question has become the obsession distracting us from the moral imperative to provide health care to all Americans.

The richest, most powerful, most amazing nation in the world should treat its citizens who fall ill better than some broken Third World country. If we can afford to try to rebuild Afghanistan with little hope of success, then arguing about paying for Americans to have health coverage seems petty.

Yet no topic has gotten more ink during the health-care debate than cost.

Just like the Iraq war debate where everyone was up in arms about how it was going to cost us billions of dollars a year. . . . Oh, wait — that never happened.

Obviously we must consider the cost, but whether a bill is deficit neutral should not be the sole question. We do not make being deficit neutral a requirement with most government spending. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not deficit-neutral. Conservatives ignored Congressional Budget Office estimates when they backed the Iraq war. We should not be emphasizing their reports so much with regards to health care reform.

If we justified the wars because of the belief that American lives were at stake, an even stronger argument can be made that lives are at stake if we continue to have large numbers of Americans who are uninsured or underinsured:

The nonpartisan Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, estimated in 2002 — when fewer Americans were uninsured than are today — that 18,000 adults age 25-64 died in 2000 because they were uninsured. Based on the IOM’s methodology and later Census Bureau estimates of insurance coverage, the Urban Institute finds that from 2000 to 2006, 137,000 people died due to lack of health insurance — 22,000 in 2006 alone.

A Harvard study published in the November issue of Archives of Surgery found that uninsured patients with traumatic injuries (like car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds) were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance.

Elmer Huerta, oncologist and the president of the American Cancer Society, says the uninsured are twice as likely as the insured to have advanced cancer when they first see a doctor. And if you don’t catch cancer early, things rarely turn out well.

Sometimes government spending is a waste of money. Other times the money spent might be better spent in other ways. Expanding health care coverage, and guaranteeing that those who are insured will not lose their coverage, is a positive benefit, and it even saves lives. Rather than looking at how cheaply we can provide health care reform, this is one area where it actually makes sense to spend a little money.

Posted in Health Care, Op-eds. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

Most Liberals Back Obama Despite Disagreements

December 10, 2009 — Ron Chusid

While there has been some noticeable criticism of Obama from the left, with some even resorting to ridiculous hyperbole claiming Obama is no different from George Bush, Public Policy Polling puts this in perspective:

Our new poll suggests that liberal unhappiness with Barack Obama is still largely anecdotal and not very widespread. His approval rating with liberal Democrats is 95%, with only 3% disapproving of him.

On health care 88% of voters in that group say they’re with Obama and only 7% are opposed. We simply are not seeing any broad evidence of push back toward him from the left for not advocating for single payer.

There is a little more unrest with him on Afghanistan. 68% of liberal Democrats support his approach there with 22% opposed. Even with those who disagree with him on the issue 81% express approval of his overall job performance so it doesn’t seem to be a deal breaker by any means.

Despite the occasional attacks on Obama from the liberal blogosphere, it looks like most liberals are capable of differentiating disagreements on specific issues with overall approval. Besides, most of us never expected to agree with Obama on everything, and realized that the chances that someone who wanted to get out of Afghanistan immediately becoming president, regardless of the merits, was pretty close to zero.

Posted in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Health Care, Polls. Tags: , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Obama Accepts Nobel Peace Prize

December 10, 2009 — Ron Chusid

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Barack Obama has accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.

The full text of his acceptance speech is under the fold.

(more…)

Posted in Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

Cut the Messiah Crap

December 5, 2009 — Ron Chusid

During the campaign opponents of Barack Obama tried to dismiss the support for him as a cult following a Messiah figure. After Obama won the nomination and then the election I had hoped this nonsense had come to an end but Dana Milbank revives it in an op-ed in The Washington Post.

Obama received millions of votes. Undoubtedly different people had different reasons for voting for him and saw him differently. To dismiss his support as a cult was absurd back then, and it is equally ridiculous to repeat the claims that his supporters saw him as some sort of Messiah.

During the primary campaign it became clear that Barack Obama was the only candidate I found acceptable who I thought had a reasonable chance to both beat Hillary Clinton and beat whoever would win the Republican nomination. Milbank believes Obama supporters did not see him as another politician. I never had any illusion that someone who could get to that stage was not a politician. The point is not that he was not a politician but that his type of politics was preferable to that practiced by both Hillary Clinton and the current Republican Party.

Milbank misunderstands the response to Obama’s decision to remain in Afghanistan. Yes, of the millions who voted for him I am sure that some were surprised and felt betrayed. Many more of us were fully aware that the current plan is totally consistent with the plans Obama discussed as a candidate. The fact that Obama had said he planned to remain in Afghanistan as a candidate does not mean we cannot criticize the policy. Campaigning on a policy does not give a candidate some sort of immunity to being criticized for the policy–even by those who supported the candidate. We knew that he was not a Messiah who would always be right.

I bet that many Obama supporters predicted, as I had, that Obama would do many things we would disagree with. Back in December 2007 I wrote my annual list of Festivus grievances, that year airing my grievances with the major presidential candidates. On Obama I wrote:

My suspicion is that in a couple of years I will be writing a number of blog posts disagreeing with some of your actions as president, but things will be far better than if any of your major opponents were to win.

Milbank concluded with reaction to Obama’s decision on Afghanistan, describing some of the opposition and writing:

His Afghanistan policy, likewise, is above all a pragmatic, nonideological strategy. He stayed true to his campaign promise to take the fight to the Taliban, but he also tried to build a consensus. You’d think his supporters might applaud this sort of thoughtful, methodical leadership as a repudiation of the Bush style of government by political theory.

Yes, it is true as Milbank also wrote, that some on the left have gone overboard in attacking Obama over this and other areas where they disagreed with him. Some have even unfairly compared Obama to George Bush. Just earlier today I wrote that “I Might Not Agree With Obama On Afghanistan But At Least He Seriously Considered The Issues.” The post praises Obama for at least seriously considering the ramifications of his policy and attempting to avoid past mistakes, along with contrasting Obama’s decision making style to that of George Bush.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I listened to a large portion of the audio book of David Plouffe’s book on the Obama campaign, The Audacity to Win, while driving or while following around family members as they went shopping. Obviously David Plouffe’s portrayal of Obama must be taken with a grain of salt but while listening I was thinking about why the Messiah line never really hurt Obama. Even while Plouffe was obviously building up Obama, it wasn’t as any sort of Messiah but as an intelligent man (repeat: man) who seriously considered the issues and who did represent a change from the politics of the Clintons and the Republicans (which over time had become virtually identical).

Obama will continue to make mistakes, or at least make decisions I do not agree with. What is important is that we have a president who seriously looks at the facts and asks questions before making deciding. That is not being a Messiah, but it is being vastly superior to his predecessor. I might disagree with some of Obama’s decisions, and certainly never saw him as any type of Messiah, but I still believe, as I did back in 2007, that we are better off than we would be if any of the other candidates had won.

Update: Public Policy Polling puts liberal dissatisfaction with Obama in perspective. While many do disagree with him on specific issues such as Afghanistan, overall only three percent of liberal Democrats disapprove of him.

Posted in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Op-eds, Politics. Tags: , , , , , . 6 Comments »

I Might Not Agree With Obama On Afghanistan But At Least He Seriously Considered The Issues

December 5, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Obama Arlington

I might have my doubts about the strategy in Afghanistan, but I do appreciate the fact that Obama actually did think about the decision, in contrast to how decisions were made during the previous administration. The New York Times has an article on how the decision was reached:

The three-month review that led to the escalate-then-exit strategy is a case study in decision making in the Obama White House — intense, methodical, rigorous, earnest and at times deeply frustrating for nearly all involved. It was a virtual seminar in Afghanistan and Pakistan, led by a president described by one participant as something “between a college professor and a gentle cross-examiner.”

Mr. Obama peppered advisers with questions and showed an insatiable demand for information, taxing analysts who prepared three dozen intelligence reports for him and Pentagon staff members who churned out thousands of pages of documents.

This account of how the president reached his decision is based on dozens of interviews with participants as well as a review of notes some of them took during Mr. Obama’s 10 meetings with his national security team. Most of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, but their accounts have been matched against those of other participants wherever possible.

Mr. Obama devoted so much time to the Afghan issue — nearly 11 hours on the day after Thanksgiving alone — that he joked, “I’ve got more deeply in the weeds than a president should, and now you guys need to solve this.” He invited competing voices to debate in front of him, while guarding his own thoughts. Even David Axelrod, arguably his closest adviser, did not know where Mr. Obama would come out until just before Thanksgiving.

Obama “peppered advisers with questions and showed an insatiable demand for information.” In contrast, George Bush was known for rarely asking questions and having no intellectual curiosity. The article further shows how Obama’s approach differed from Bush’s:

The episode underscored the uneasy relationship between the military and a new president who, aides said, was determined not to be as deferential as he believed his predecessor, George W. Bush, was for years in Iraq. And the military needed to adjust to a less experienced but more skeptical commander in chief. “We’d been chugging along for eight years under an administration that had become very adept at managing war in a certain way,” said another military official.

Besides trying to avoid the mistakes that George Bush made, Obama considered previous U.S.  mistakes:

Moreover, Mr. Obama had read “Lessons in Disaster,” Gordon M. Goldstein’s book on the Vietnam War. The book had become a must read in the West Wing after Mr. Emanuel had dinner over the summer at the house of another deputy national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and wandered into his library to ask what he should be reading.

Among the conclusions that Mr. Donilon and the White House team drew from the book was that both President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson failed to question the underlying assumption about monolithic Communism and the domino theory — clearly driving the Obama advisers to rethink the nature of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Posted in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, George Bush, Terrorism. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

Fighting The Terrorists in Afghanistan

December 4, 2009 — Ron Chusid

Listening to Obama’s reasons for staying in Afghanistan I remained skeptical as to whether it was worthwhile. I have very little confidence that we can achieve a stable and clean democratic government there in this time frame. If there is any reason to stay it would be to actually do what we set out to do in the first place–fight al Qaeda.While George Bush’s argument to fight the terrorists in Iraq so we didn’t have to fight them here made no sense, there would be some logic to fighting them in Afghanistan if al Qaeda was still based there.

Trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, I found it difficult to judge if this is really worthwhile. After all, we do not have the same intelligence regarding al Qaeda in the region, and we did not spend the amount of time Obama did considering the Afghanistan strategy. Another question I had was how much of al Qaeda has remained in Afghanistan as opposed to slipping across into Pakistan, or perhaps moving elsewhere.

ABC News has reviewed some of the intelligence on this matter and it doesn’t resolve my skepticism as to current policy. From various sources they estimate the number of members of al Qaeda remaining in Afghanistan at around one hundred.

Somehow it sounds like an excessive cost, both in terms of American lives and dollars, to remain in Afghanistan to try to kill one hundred members of al Qaeda.This means using 1,000 troops and $300 million a year for every member of al Qaeda left there.

Of course this isn’t the entire story.

“A hundred ‘no foolin’ al Qaeda operatives operating in a safe haven can do a hell of a lot of damage,” said one former intelligence official with significant past experience in the region.

Maybe, but I remain skeptical as to whether this is worthwhile.

Posted in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Terrorism. Tags: , . 4 Comments »

Obama’s Inner Spock

December 2, 2009 — Ron Chusid

obama-spock-2

Is there anywhere else in the world where people worry about whether their president is too intelligent and logical? After eight years of George Bush, and the threat of Sarah Palin being the next Republican candidate, we should not underestimate the importance of intelligence. Instead Obama has been compared possibly negatively to Spock–twice this week alone.

On  November 30, John Harris of Politco had a silly column on 7 stories Obama doesn’t want told. This included:

Too much Leonard Nimoy

People used to make fun of Bill Clinton’s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that, “I feel your pain.”

The reality, however, is that Clinton’s dozen years as governor before becoming president really did leave him with a vivid sense of the concrete human dimensions of policy. He did not view programs as abstractions — he viewed them in terms of actual people he knew by name.

Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.

Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened him to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.

The Spock imagery has been especially strong during the extended review Obama has undertaken of Afghanistan policy. He’ll announce the results on Tuesday. The speech’s success will be judged not only on the logic of the presentation but on whether Obama communicates in a more visceral way what progress looks like and why it is worth achieving. No soldier wants to take a bullet in the name of nuance.

The article is a prefect example of how non-serious the work by Harris and many others at Politico often is. Obama staffers responded with a leaked email which sums up many of the problems with Politico. Marc Ambinder posted the list:

7 narratives politico is fighting in their efforts to get an interview with the President

1.       They are more interested in readers than accuracy

2.       Its okay to be wrong everyonce in a while, if your are the first to break the news

3.       More interested in gossip than news

4.       A spouter of the worst sort of insider conventional wisdom

5.       Their analysis about obama has been wrong more than any one

6.       Click … period

7.       More obsessed with personality than policy

This should not be seen as the more outright type of battle going on between the White House and Fox. Ambinder puts this in perspective:

It’s fairly caustic — and, truth be told, the White House maintains good relationships with Politico reporters and has been known to try to agenda-set by dishing out a few tips to the publication. But make no mistake: many on the White House senior staff dislike Politico’s brand of journalism, and they do not like the effect that Politico’s metabolism has on the rest of the press corps, including this (i.e., my own) corner of it. Still, don’t read too much into this. There’s been plenty of back-and-forth between the White and the Politico, and the White House accepts the role — which is often substantial — that Politico plays in the newsgathering process.

Perhaps Politco was leading the news here as yesterday AP again raised the comparison between Obama and Spock:

He shows a fascination with science, an all-too deliberate decision-making demeanor, an adherence to logic and some pretty, ahem, prominent ears.

They all add up to a quite logical conclusion, at least for “Star Trek” fans: Barack Obama is Washington’s Mr. Spock, the chief science officer for the ship of state.

“I guess it’s somewhat unusual for a politician to be so precise, logical, in his thought process,” actor Leonard Nimoy, who has portrayed Spock for more than 40 years, told The Associated Press in an e-mail interview. “The comparison to Spock is, in my opinion, a compliment to him and to the character.”

Until now.

From there the article questioned if this is a negative. Imagine, a president who actually thought about war plans, upsetting Dick Cheney who took the opposite approach. While I have my doubts about the ultimate policy on Afghanistan, I prefer Obama’s Spock-like thoughtfulness to Cheney’s act as a Klingon who lacks honor.

Even the writer and producer of the last Star Trek movie sees Spock in Obama:

Roberto Orci, the screenwriter and producer behind the latest “Star Trek” movie, said Obama “has a Spock-like aura about him: calm in the face of great adversity and looking for a logical middle ground.” Obama, himself a big “Star Trek” fan, screened the movie at the White House during its opening weekend.

“We knew he was a Trekkie,” Orci said in a telephone interview. He said he watches the White House regularly for insight on the Spock character.

“To have a case study like that on the news every night makes my job a lot easier,” he said.

Orci said James T. Kirk, the “Star Trek” captain, was “based on a young new president,, John F. Kennedy, and that the Obama administration is part of a 1960s-type revival. Except this time, Kirk isn’t in charge. Spock is.

Posted in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, News Media, Science, Science Fiction. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Report Released on Bush’s Failure To Capture Bin Laden At Tora Bora

November 29, 2009 — Ron Chusid

I’ve mentioned the failure of the Bush administration to capture bin Laden when they had an excellent chance  at Tora Bora multiple times in the past.  The New York Daily News reports on a Senate report on this failure. John Kerry, who criticized Bush for his mistakes at Tora Bora when running against him in 2004, requested this report:

Osama Bin Laden was within military reach when the Bush administration allowed him to disappear into the mountains of Afghanistan rather than pursue him with a massive military force, a new Senate report says.

The report asserts that the failure to get the terrorist leader when he was at his most vulnerable in December 2001 – three months after the 9/11 attacks – led to today’s reinvigorated insurgency in Afghanistan.

Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, requested the report, which came as President Obama prepares to send as many as 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Kerry has long argued the Bush administration botched an opportunity to capture the Al Qaeda leader and his top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of Tora Bora.

The report calls then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks, the top military commander at the time, to the carpet and asserts the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault on Bin Laden with several thousand troops.

Instead, fewer than 100 commandoes, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalize on air strikes and track down the ragged band of terrorists.

That “Kerry was Right” file sure is getting big.

Posted in Afghanistan, George Bush, John Kerry, Terrorism. Tags: , , , , . 7 Comments »
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