Biggest BullShit of the Year Award.

I was expecting that my choice would be Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann --- or any one of the major clowns in congress or on the airwaves.

But I have settled for Cheney's former communications director, Mary Matalin.

Here's the beaut: Yesterday, on CNN's State of the Union, she told host John King that

"We inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history."

What she's saying is: Obama should stop claiming about things he "inherited" from the Bush administration -- after all, Bush inherited the problem with al Qaeda from Clinton.

At the most superficial level, that is of course true. History has continuity; one administration does pass along unsolved problems to the next. Al Qaeda was already in existence and a recognized threat.

So, yes, Bush inherited the problem.

The real story, and that which makes MM's spin such bullshit is that Bush and Condi Rice were informed that al Qaeda was a threat -- both by outgoing counterparts in the transition and by the counter-terrorism officer (Richard Clarke) who stayed on in the Bush administration.

And Bush and Rice did not pay attention -- as late as 08-06-01.

Bullshit.

Ralph

Bury the good (?) news

We all know the way to release information that has to come out, but that you'd rather people didn't notice: you release it late on a Friday afternoon, preferably on a holiday weekend.

So what's this terrible news that the New York Times put on page 15 on Christmas Eve?

Remember the faux scandal the Republicans tried to tarnish ACORN with, claiming voter fraud when some low-level employees, who were paid a fee for each voter they registered at shopping malls, tried to boost their pay checks by "registering" fake names, like Mickey Mouse?

Well, today on page 15 we learn: "Report Uncovers No Voting Fraud by Acorn." Yes, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service studied the problem and "found no evidence of fraudulent voting or of violations of federal financing rules by the group in the past five years."

Sure, there were a few instances of fraudulent registration, but that was due to personal greed, not political chicanery. And no serious person thought some unqualified voter named Mickey Mouse was actually going to show up at the polls and try to cast a vote.

Nevertheless, the politics of the situation were such that, rather than wait for such an investigation, Congress stripped ACORN of all its existing government contracts (all of which go to benefit poor people) when a a sting, staged by conservative activists, caught on video some low-level workers giving bad advice to actor-imposters. The same Congress, who ignored the scandalous illegalities (like murder and rape) carried out by Blackwater employees, was horrified, horrified at ACORN's perfidy -- and moved with unheard-of swiftness to nullify ACORN's contracts.

Now a federal judge has issued an order ruling that cutting the group's financing was an "illegal bill of attainder" (i.e. "punishments ordered by Congress against specific individuals or entities.") The CRS report also suggests that the sting secret-video-taping was probably illegal in the two states where it was carried out.

So -- it seems that all this essentially exonerates ACORN. Given the massive, gloating media play the supposed crimes were given, shouldn't the exoneration get more than page 15 on Christmas eve?

Or perhaps the question is: For whom is it bad news?

Ralph

60-39

It's either a good thing and an historical occasion, or it's a travesty of broken promises and missed opportunity. Time will tell.

Of course, it isn't done until a reconciliation bill is passed, and we'll see how that turns out.

I take no joy in this, but I also don't agree with those who think the senate health care reform bill should have been killed.

In this dysfunctional congress, I challenge anyone to name just one senator who voted against this bill but would have voted for a more progressive bill. Because you would need a bunch of those to make up for those who voted for it that you would lose on a more progressive bill.

I can't think of a single one -- because they're all Republicans who have vowed to kill anything the Democrats come up with. So it's either this one or no bill at all in this congress. And if that happens, any hope of a more liberal congress after the 2010 elections is dead. In fact, it would be quite the opposite; and health care reform will be dead for another decade.

That's what I think.

The end game on this is not about what's best for the people; it's about politics, power, and money. It's ugly, but it's the reality we have to deal with. And Obama knows that.

Ralph

A modest proposal

Disappointment and outrage at Obama from progressives is understandable. But giving up on him and talking about whom to support in 2012 is misplaced, I believe.

They are convinced that a better health care reform bill could have been passed if he had really pushed for it. I would like to have a better health care reform bill. But I think it is debatable whether Obama could have made it happen in the current dysfunction that is the senate. And it's past the time for that now, other than perhaps some tweaking in the reconciliation process. Don't expect major changes. Everyone's too locked in to their positions.

Here's my modest proposal. Instead of turning against Obama, go after the real culprit in this situation: the dysfunctional senate rule that gives a single narcissist with a hissy fit the power to kill major legislation -- in spite of an electoral mandate to pass it.

It's time to change the filibuster rule. It's not in the constitution. Defeatists say: how can you change it when it would take 60 votes to do so? It wouldn't. According to Paul Krugman, the senate adopts its rules on the first day of a new session by simple majority vote. Democrats could change the rule with 51 votes.

Let's concentrate our outrage where it belongs and push them to do that.

Ralph

The "ominously dysfunctional" senate

Paul Krugman hit it square on yesterday, referring to health care reform:

. . . the fact that it was such a close thing shows that the Senate — and, therefore, the U.S. government as a whole — has become ominously dysfunctional.

After all, Democrats won big last year, running on a platform that put health reform front and center. In any other advanced democracy this would have given them the mandate and the ability to make major changes. But the need for 60 votes to cut off Senate debate and end a filibuster — a requirement that appears nowhere in the Constitution, but is simply a self-imposed rule — turned what should have been a straightforward piece of legislating into a nail-biter. And it gave a handful of wavering senators extraordinary power to shape the bill. . . .

But it wasn’t always like this. Yes, there were filibusters in the past — most notably by segregationists trying to block civil rights legislation. But the modern system, in which the minority party uses the threat of a filibuster to block every bill it doesn’t like, is a recent creation.

The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.

In the mid-1990's Senators Tom Harkin and -- guess who? -- Joe Lieberman introduced a plan to change the filibuster to a less obstructive plan. At the beginning of a debate it would still require 60 votes to end debate and vote on the bill. After five days, another vote could be taken and it would take 57 votes; then progressively down until it would only require a simple majority.

Seems like a very good plan to me, and Harkin is talking about reintroducing it. But don't count on HolyJoe to sponsor it this time. He's still taking his victory lap, grinning like an ugly kewpie doll.

Ralph

Reich: "It's 'just' worth it"

Robert Reich, another progressive voice that I respect, seems to take a similar position to Paul Krugman. He concludes his article on the health care reform bill on HuffingtonPost:

Is the effort worth still worth it? Yes, but just. Private insurers will have to take anyone, regardless of preconditions. And some 30 million people who don't now have health insurance will get it. But because Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and the AMA will come out way ahead, the legislation will cost taxpayers and premium-payers far more than it would otherwise. Cost controls are inadequate; in fact, they barely exist. . . .

We are slouching toward health-care reform that's better than nothing but far worse than we had imagined it would be. Even those of us who have seen legislative sausage-making up close, even those of us who never make the perfect the enemy of the better, are concerned. That two or three senators are able to extort as much as they have is appalling. Why hasn't Reid forced much of the bill into reconciliation, requiring only 51 votes? Why has the President been so cowed? In all likelihood, the White House and the Dems eventually will get a bill they can call "reform," but they will not be able to say with straight faces that the reform is a significant improvement over the terrible system we already have.

Still, he says, it's worth it . . . but just barely.

Many progressives fault Obama for not fighting harder for the better bill. Perhaps he could have gotten more; I doubt it, given the state of senate politics and the influence of money. When it takes only one -- ONE -- senator who favors reform but decides he can hold it hostage to his individual desires, it's a minor miracle that Harry Reid was able to cobble this together. Whether it's better than no bill is debatable; whether Reid could have gotten more through reconciliation is debatable. But getting 60 votes is quite remarkable in this senate.

I forget who wrote this recently, but I agree. There are some moderate senators who have held out on principle; but HolyJoe Lieberman seems motivated by "pure spite" -- and I would add: "simply because he can command attention and obesience." Why else would he threaten to kill it over a measure (Medicare buy-in) he publicly support 3 months ago and never gave any coherent reason for turning against it?

I think Obama is a lot smarter than we're giving him credit for on this. One of his goals was to avoid the fate of the Clinton health care bill and the devastating effect of its failure. By his calculations, this determined that he should not get too far out in front of what could be passed.

No, he's not going to go down in history as the great progressive activist president; but he may go down as a president who accomplished more in the long run by his willingness to compromise and get the best he can in the circumstances. Look at all those who are regretting that Dems did not compromise with Nixon's health care initiative or that moderate Repubs did not compromise with Clinton's plan.

Ralph

The pundits speak

In yesterday's New York Times, both David Brooks and Paul Krugman weighed in on the fraught decision on the senate health care bill.

Brooks presented four reasons to support the bill and then six reasons to oppose it. Then he "confessed" that:

I flip-flop week to week and day to day. It's a guess. Does this put us on a path toward the real reform, or does it head us down a valley in which real reform will be less likely?

If I were a senator forced to vote today, I'd vote no. If you pass a health care bill without systemic incentives reform, you set up a political vortex in which the few good parts of the bill will get stripped out and the expensive and wasteful parts will be entrenched.

Defenders say we can't do real reform because the politics won't allow it. The truth is the reverse. Unless you get the fundamental incentives right, the politics will be terrible forever and ever.

On the same page, Paul Krugman acknowledges the anger of progressives and says: by all means, hang Lieberman in effigy, declare your disappointment in Obama, demand a change in senate rules.

But then meanwhile, pass the health care bill.

He says the good outweighs the bad; and he also claims that

. . . history suggests the answer. Whereas flawed social insurance programs have tended to get better over time, the story of health reform suggests that rejecting an imperfect deal in the hope of eventually getting something better is a recipe for getting nothing at all. . . . America would be in much better shape today if Democrats had cut a deal on health care with Richard Nixon, or if Bill Clinton had cut a deal with moderate Republicans back when they still existed.

And, he says, then we need to change the senate rules on the filibuster. . . . but

But that's for later. Right now, let's pass the bill that's on the table.

So there you have it. Perhaps the best conservative mind and the best liberal mind writing for the NYT both see both sides of the argument and come to different conclusions.

Now I don't feel so bad about flip-flopping from day to day myself.

Ralph

The public speaks

Rachel Weiner reports a poll on HuffingtonPost:

Conducted by Research 2000 for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and Democracy for America (DFA), the survey finds only 33 percent of likely voters favor a health care bill that does not include a public health insurance option and does not expand Medicare, but does require all Americans to get health insurance. . . .

Meanwhile, if the public option and Medicare buy-in are added, 58 percent of people support the idea. The number of Republican supporters drops to 22 percent, but independent support rises to 57 percent and Democratic support to a whopping 88 percent.

Listen up, Democratic senators ! What happened to the idea that politicians are poll-driven? It's been clear for a long time that the public supports a robust plan that includes some sort of government-sponsored alternative to private health insurance. But has that made a scintilla of difference in the senate?

I guess the checks from the insurance giants and BigPharma count more than the people's desire.

The dilemma now is whether a big grassroots push would make a difference at this stage (Richard would say yes) or whether in the current climate they simply are not going to listen.

How can you get anything passed when Repubs say no because it's too much, and progressive Dems say no because it's not enough? The combination, I fear, is unbeatable in the current dysfunctional system. Certainly without a push from the White House, I don't see how it can happen.

The choice seems to be between a bad bill (with some good features) and no bill at all.

Ralph

Send in the clowns

As readers know, I have often pointed out that comedians (most notably Stewart and Colbert) are more likely to confront politicians with the facts than the designated pundits and celebrity newspeople.

So maybe it's a good idea to "send in the clowns" as elected senators. At least Al Franken is making waves there -- as a serious lawmaker. He has shed his clown persona but seems to have retained the clown's penchant for speaking truth to power.

He introduced an amendment to the appropriations bill to prevent the government from working with contractors who deny victims of sexual assault the right to bring suit, and it looks like it may pass. This is a response to a terrible situation of contractors in Iraq who prevented women employees from suing for rape by other contract workers.

Now in a testy exchange with John Thune (R-SD) on the senate floor, Franken has called him out for a grossly distorted chart about when benefits of health care reform would take effect. Franken's effective line, which he came back to repeatedly, each time pointing out where Thune had his facts wrong:

"We have the right to our opinions. But we don't have the right to our own facts."

Pretty effective -- at least it seemed so from the video clip.

Ralph

Is it enough?

Richard says in his comment to my previous post:

The one sign of hope I see is that liberal opposition to the healthcare debacle has now coalesced. Virtually everyone on all the leftist blogs are now in agreement that it's a mess. Those who used to argue that a bad bill is better than none have disappeared. Maybe there's enough outrage that we can get the bill changed.

So what does the liberal opposition expect to accomplish that can attract 60 votes? Sure, you can stop this bill from passing by a couple of liberal senators voting against it, or threatening to. And then what?

I'm full of vehement defiance too -- HolyJoe does that to me -- but I'm trying to decide whether what we can actually get passed is better than nothing. And I believe that what we progressives want will get us nothing in this congress at this time. That has to wait for another day, another election, and changing the senate rules to get rid of minority rule.

Here's what President Obama had to say, and I'm trying to decide if it is better than no bill (via HuffingtonPost):

At the White House, the president said his congressional allies were "on the precipice" of a historic accomplishment that has eluded presidents and lawmakers for generations, adding the emerging bill includes "all the criteria that I laid out" in a speech to a joint session of Congress earlier in the year.

"It is deficit-neutral. It bends the cost curve. It covers 30 million Americans who don't have health insurance, and it has extraordinary insurance reforms in there to make sure that we're preventing abuse," he said.

It is a very bitter pill to swallow, made all the worse by the fact that HolyJoe Lieberman is having so much fun parading his vindictive narcissistic victory.

The bottom line: if this is the best we can get in this congress at this time, does the benefit to those who will now have health insurance coverage, who can keep it if they lose their jobs or get sick, and yes those who will live rather than die -- is it worth swallowing the bitter pill?

Ralph

If this is reform, let's kill it

I have again and again stretched to support Obama's positions as accepting the reality of what is possible, even while becoming more and more disappointed with the meager results.

I still had hope that the medical care reform would be better than what we have now.

Now I'm not sure it is. If, in fact, the news leaking out last night turns out to be true -- that on Obama's orders conveyed by Rahm Emmanuel to Harry Reid they were to cut a deal with Joe Lieberman in order to secure his vote -- and that HolyJoe won -- then I say "kill it." It will be worse than nothing.

We wanted single payer; they gave us public option; we lost public option and got a trigger; we lost even the trigger -- but, wait. It seemed like a good compromise: we got buy-in to Medicare for those over 55 and some other possibile non-profit plans for others too. So maybe it would be ok.

Now we've lost even that -- all to placate HolyJoe, Kewpie cheeks, Lieberman for his lousy vote.

As Greg Levine at FireDogLake, a progressive blog, wrote:

I say: Kill the bill.

I say this with a heavy heart. Failure to pass health care legislation, even terrible legislation, will be a great loss for the Obama administration and for Democrats in Congress. But passing a bill as bad as the Senate's eventual endpoint could be a bigger defeat for the Democratic majority we really want--one that takes progressive action on behalf of the voters.

Because, as I see it, a bill without the competitive force of a public option, or the opportunity for millions to buy into Medicare, without cheaper pharmaceuticals or meaningful controls on premiums, without bans on benefit caps or loophole-free safeguards against rescission, but with an individual mandate, will do nothing for the 30 million uninsured that advocates of the bill like to talk about helping--but it will do plenty for the private insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

In other words, everybody has to buy insurance, which is a huge boon for the insurance industry; but there are no controls, which is a huge boon for the insurance industry. Measures to control drug costs have been largely eliminated, but many more people will be going to the doctor, which means many more prescriptions, which is a huge boon for BigPharma.

Insurance and pharmaceutical companies are the beneficiaries of this bill, not the people.

There's still a glimmer of hope. Maybe they'll come up with some last minute thing; maybe Reid will decide to go the budget reconciliation route with a good plan and bypass the filibuster-60.

It's only a very slender thread of hope, and it's on life support, at best.

Ralph

Bush giveth and Bush taketh away

The one program that I had thought George W. Bush deserved some praise for -- his Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in Africa -- now appears to have been a case of giving with one hand and taking away with another. The program put billions of dollars into treatment for AIDS patients but prohibited the use of any of the money for family planning.

Thus, on a continent where less than one in five married women use birth control, there has been an explosion of births -- and of course many of the babies are born HIV positive, thus undermining the very program to combat AIDS.

According to McClatchy news service:

Under President George W. Bush, the United States withdrew from its decades-long role as a global leader in supporting family planning, driven by a conservative ideology that favored abstinence and shied away from providing contraceptive devices in developing countries, even to married women.

Bush's mammoth global anti-AIDS initiative, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, poured billions of dollars into Africa but prohibited groups from spending any of it on family planning services or counseling programs, whose budgets flat-lined.

The restrictions flew in the face of research by international aid agencies, the U.N. World Health Organization and the U.S. government's own experts, all of whom touted contraception as a crucial method of preventing births of babies being infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The Bush program is widely hailed as a success, having supplied lifesaving anti-retroviral drugs to more than 2 million HIV patients worldwide.

However, researchers, Africa experts and veteran U.S. health officials now think that PEPFAR also contributed to Africa's epidemic population growth by undermining efforts to help women in some of the world's poorest countries exercise greater control over their fertility. . . .

Several decades ago, "the population explosion" was considered a time bomb. Then, important international programs to promote family planning in poor countries made significant strides in actually reducing birth rates -- until this was again reversed by conservative control of our government, whose anti-abortion fervor extended even to opposition to condoms -- aided and abetted by the Pope, who preached to the Ugandans that condoms actually increase the spread of AIDS.

So, in the interest of preventing abortions, no family planning = no condoms, which would have prevented much spread of HIV in addition to pregnancies.

Once again, the world can go to hell because of ignorance and prejudice. It is very sad and an abominable shame that the lives saved by AIDS drugs are off set by the increased number of babies born HIV positive because of the hand that took away what the other hand gave.

There seems no end to the harm that George W. Bush & Co. did to the world -- and all the result of a one-vote margin in the U. S. Supreme Court. For shame !!! Everlasting shame !!!!

Ralph

Arguing with myself

Last night, I wrote that we shouldn't lump all those who oppose same-sex marriage under the umbrella "homophobia." And, while that is valid when your concept of homophobia carries the implication of hostile and demeaning attitudes, it is a limited analysis.

From a deeper psychological perspective, "homophobia" is thought to arise from a fear about one's own identity. We denounce in others that which we cannot tolerate within ourselves -- a way of reassuring oneself that "I'm not like that." Our macho culture has one purpose: proving that men are not feminine and weak -- and it stems not from strength but from fear and insecurity about masculinity.

So, perhaps, those who accept gay people in every other way but marriage are doing something similar -- reassuring themselves about the insecurity we as a culture have about marriage. Missing is a focus on what marriage really is, what it means to two people and to a culture. Is it about the man-woman thing? Or is it about two people building a life together and taking care of each other?

If it's the former, then allowing same-sex couples to "be married" does indeed threaten the institution, because it's reason for being is challenged. But if it is about the latter, then there is no threat at all. And that latter is what is proving to be the case.

So they are right. It is a threat -- not to the institution of marriage but to the shallow definition. It will change that definition but not the institution. And that would be a good change -- to a more meaningful concept of two people building a life together and promising to take care of each other.

Ralph

Lose some, win some

Voters in California and Maine, and the legislature in New York, have voted down same-sex marriage.

Yet Houston, the 5th largest U.S. city, has just elected a lesbian as its mayor. And, I would add, Atlanta had a lesbian City Council president more than 10 years ago in Kathy Woollard, who then went on to come in second in her race for mayor. She probably would have been elected if she had been African-American, because the dirt thrown at her was that she was not black enough in this black-majority city, not that she was lesbian.

Meanwhile, the Victory Fund which promotes the election of LGBT candidates, saw the election of 54 of the 79 openly gay candidates it supported in 2009. And the Episcopal Church has just elected its second gay bishop, a lesbian.

What do I conclude from this? Homophobia is not dead, but it's growing weaker at the ballot box and in the pulpit; but it's still quite strong at the marriage altar.

The trouble is that we're not asking that religious marriage be mandated, only civil marriage with all the rights and responsibilities of legal contract that heterosexuals have.

In the wonderful anecdote told in the debate in the New York senate by a legislator who supported the same-sex marriage bill, she was stopped at a traffic light that morning, when a bicyclist stopped next to her and put his head in her car window. Seeing her NY State Senate decal, he wanted to know if she was going to vote for the bill. When she said she was, he asked why on earth she would do that. To which she replied: "Because you and I, who have just met and exchanged only a few words, could go down to City Hall right now and get a marriage license. Do you really think that you and I are ready to get married? And yet my friends who have been together in a committed relationship for 16 years cannot." He said, "I see your point." That is a very good, rational argument; but it didn't sway her colleagues.

I'm not sure it's accurate to call the opposition to same-sex marriage 'homophobia.' Some of it undoubtedly is, but I'm willing to acknowledge that many people oppose it who are 100% supportive of gays and lesbians in every other way, including as teachers of young children -- perhaps the other most sensitive area.

Is that homophobia? Or is it really a fear that a cherished institution is being changed -- as they say it is? Not that Adam and Steve getting married will actually change John and Mary's marriage (we trivialize the argument when we reduce it to that); but that somehow the meaning of "marriage" will change. We can argue the facts that, in states and other countries that have adopted gay marriage, there are no measurable changes in other people's marriages or in the institution itself. But this opposition is not measurable by statistics but rather by feelings.

Of course opposition based on feelings is not an argument that should stand up in a court challenge. But I think we make a mistake when we lump everyone who opposes gay marriage in the same category of homophobia and try to argue facts with them. This opposition isn't rational. We win a rational debate; we lose when people vote with their emotions. Perhaps that's why we're making more progress in courts than in legislatures, and more progress in legislatures than at the ballot box.

Ralph

Odds and ends (with emphasis on "odd")

Some news of the day:

1. Sarah Palin, when asked by Laura Ingraham whether she would debate Al Gore on climate change, replied: "Oh my goodness. You know, it depends on what the venue would be, what the forum. Because Laura, as you know, if it would be some kind of conventional, traditional debate with his friends setting it up or being the commentators I'll get clobbered because, you know, they don't want to listen to the facts. They don't want to listen to some reasonable voices in this."

So, Sarah, how would YOU structure a debate with Al Gore on climate change, if not the "conventional, traditional" format? Moose guns at 20 paces? Jason Linkins suggests: "maybe a dogsled race that you quit halfway through."

2. Cecil Bothwell was elected to the Asheville, NC city council; but opponents are challenging his right to be seated, because he is an atheist. In fact, article 6, section 8 of the North Carolina Constitution says: “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”

This violates the U. S. Constitution, but it remains in the N. C. Constitution.

3. One of the battle cries of the Tea Party movement is defiance against government taking over control of their lives. So guess what a group of them in California is pushing: an initiative that would force public schools to sing Christmas carols, under penalty of law if they don't.

4. Tarek Salahi (the W. H. party crasher) handed over his luxury designer wristwatch to pay off a debt to his landscaper, claiming it would more than cover the $2,000 balance. A jeweler immediately spotted it as a fake, worth less than $100. Fake guests; fake watch.

5. In a poll by Public Policy Polling, 35% of Republicans want Obama impeached. The crimes were not specified -- just because Glenn Beck says so, perhaps.

Ralph

Obama in Oslo

Barack Obama did what Obama does: he waded into a controversy and faced it squarely, at the same time using it as a teaching moment of reason and moral argument. His Nobel Prize acceptance speech this morning dove right into the questions of war and peace in today's world. Not flinching from the irony of his accepting the Nobel Peace Prize just days after committing to an increase in troops in the Afghanistan war, he explained that war is sometime necessary but it is never the answer.

Here are some quotes. The entire text can be read at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/10/obama-nobel-peace-prize-a_n_386837.html

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago - "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life's work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing weak -nothing passive - nothing naïve - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

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So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another - that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. . . .

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I have spoken to the questions that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me turn now to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace. [He then spoke of (1) "alternative to violence that are tough enough to change behavior; (2) " Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting;" and (3) "a just peace includes not only civil and political rights - it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want."

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And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, or the staying power, to complete this work without something more - and that is the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there is something irreducible that we all share.

. . . [T]he one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. We are fallible. We make mistakes . . . But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached - their faith in human progress - must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

For if we lose that faith - if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace - then we lose what is best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.

Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."

So let us reach for the world that ought to be - that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he's outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams.

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that - for that is the story of human progress; that is the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

This is Obama at his best -- wading forthrightly into a controversy and using it to teach us the complexities and the truths that he sees and must consider in making his decisions. This is a man I am proud to call my president.

Ralph

Hooray for Rachel

Rapidly rising, liberal, lesbian, former Rhodes Scholar, MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow took on one of the "homosexual-healing" gurus over the role that his book and his organization are playing in the horrific bill before the Ugandan parliament that would impose the death penalty on homosexuals and mandate jail time for their friends and relatives who do not turn them in.

Richard Cohen is creator and head of The International Healing Foundation and the author of Coming Out Straight. He promotes the idea that homosexuality is a choice and that it can be changed -- and he has a method that he claims has helped "thousands" come out of the homosexual life style.

He has a master's degree in counseling, although he has been kicked out of the American Counseling Association, and he is not licensed to practice in any state. This is strange, since he supposedly has a degree that would ordinarily allow one to be licensed as a counselor. He claims to have overcome his own homosexual life and has now been happily married for 27 years with 3 children. He presents this personal story as his credential for helping others like himself.

In Cohen's defense, he has distanced himself from this proposed law in Uganda, although a member of his group did go there and spoke to parliament about how homosexuals could change and distributed copies of his book -- which, while not actually supporting the criminalization, gives them the supposedly authoritative rationale for holding people criminally liable for continuing to be homosexual.

In contrast to Cohen's claims, all of the major mental health organizations in the U.S. have warned against this approach of attempting to change people's sexual orientation -- and all of the scientific evidence suggests that their methods do more harm than good.

Rachel strongly challenged him on certain statements in his book, specifically his citing the thoroughly discredited Paul Cameron's pseudo-science claims that portray gay men as predatory child abusers. The methodology of that junk science is so flawed as to be laughable and has been dismissed by any serious psychologist. Paul Cameron is a psychologist who has been kicked out of both the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association for his unethical behavior; and his "studies" have appeared only in a journal that publishes for pay and without peer review.

Rachel also challenged Cohen on including "race" as one of the factors that can contribute to being homosexual. He had no answer when she asked him how race could make you gay, at first denying that he had written that until she read it to him from his book.

I know Richard Cohen. He and I were "expert witnesses" on opposite sides of the case in a Louisiana District Court in 1998. At that time, he made the same claims without any substantiation. When asked by the opposing lawyer about his results, he claimed to have helped "hundreds and hundreds" of homosexual men to change. When asked about follow up studies to determine whether those changes were lasting, he dismissively scoffed that he didn't have time for that. His whole demeanor was that of a showman and a huckster, not a professional clinician; he even brought along a clack of supporters who clapped loudly when he finished testifying -- an outburst that brought a stern rebuke from the judge.

The reparative therapy group at NARTH has distanced itself from Cohen; he's a little too flip and extreme, even for those proponents of "healing homosexuality."

Unfortunately, there is still this level of virulent homophobia in the world that makes this capital punishment bill in Uganda a serious possibility of becoming law. In a number of Muslim theocracies, gays can be, and are, executed -- although I believe this proposed bill, that would criminalize failure to inform on family members, is the most extreme.

We have come a long way in the U.S. in overcoming homophobia. There is still a long way to go worldwide. The Richard Cohens say they are only offering a service for people who don't want to be gay; but they should figure out some way to "first do no harm." Claiming that it's a choice and that people can change (refuted by all the major mental health organizations) gives ammunition for those whose hate-filled vehemence leads them to kill, or to pass laws to make it legal to kill, gay people.

Thank you, Rachel, for exposing this on national TV.

To watch the interview go to: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/maddow-debunks-cure-for-homosexuality.php?ref=mp

Ralph

Afghanistan and Palin

If anyone is still interested in the debate between Richard and me on Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan, Richard has reopened it in response to Frank Rich's column today, and then I answered. This can be found in the "comments" section under the previous post.

For anyone who may feel that I've neglected Sarah Palin lately, here's something.

Jay Leno lampooned her this way:

"And new reports on Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" bus tour. They say she's been traveling on private planes to various stops and then just hops in the bus at the local town. So, let's see what you got. You have Sarah Palin, who's no longer governor, who's promoting a book she didn't actually write by going on a bus tour which is not really a bus. Her big complaint? Politicians who aren't real."

To quote Liberace's reply when ridiculed, she's "crying all the way to the bank."

We should laugh while we can. Already, I see "Palin 2012" bumper stickers cropping up. This has nothing to do with presidential qualifications and everything to do with connecting with, and exploiting, a populist unrest among a certain group who suddenly feel that one of them has gained the spotlight, a position of power, and has a sharp tongue for those once referred to as "pointy headed intellectuals."

The New Yorker says "she represents the erasure of any distinction between the governing and the governed." And for many people, that is mighty appealing. Someone just like them could, they think, become president.

Last year, after Palin's sudden elevation, Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip ran a series featuring a little girl playing with her Sarah Palin Action Doll. Her liberal mother, aghast at her daughter's pretending, asked why she wanted her Sarah-doll to be president. Her answer: "Because she's like me; I don't know very much either."

This is her appeal. She's like those who feel disdained by the liberal elite, who they see as changing the American way of life -- only she is too feisty to be intimidated, and she gives it right back. Don't mess with a hocky-mom, moose-huntng, beauty queen, mother of five, Christian woman who is too busy to be governor. And she, or her handlers, have enough sense to protect this image as long as they can by keeping the press away from her speeches and by giving interviews only to friendly gal-pals or FoxNews.

She could be dangerous.

Ralph

Debate about Obama (cont'd.)

This is a continuation of the discussion mainly between Richard and me from Dec. 1 in response to Obama's speech, his new strategy in Afghanistan, and his overall governing position.

Richard, the main difference I see between us is that you are certain of your position, while I am ambivalent and, within limits, can often take either side in an argument because a part of me leans toward each. Therefore, I'm more willing to make compromises, more likely to see the glass half-full. You emphasize sticking to the goal and the ideal; I emphasize the necessity for compromise to get some progress. I am more likely to say "something is better than nothing;" you are more likely to say, "let's stick to our demands for what we believe in." I am so close to your position that at times it is difficult for me to sustain the other argument in the face of your pursuasiveness. Nevertheless, I continue to trust Obama to make the decisions more than I would either you or me. That is not blind allegiance to authority; I would not have said the same thing about George Bush as president.

The difference in this case is my admiration for Barack Obama and my willingness to concede to him superior knowledge and judgment, and to trust his process of deliberation and therefore his decisions. But that doesn't change the fact that I really want the same results that you want, Richard. I just don't think we're going to get them in this go-round.

Should we stand pat and try to elect a more progressive congress in 2012 and another president in 2014? Or, as you suggest, pass fewer but more progressive bills now? What's the guarantee that Congress would pass even one progressive bill, if we conceded the others?

And, by the way, you trivialize the assessment of the man and my support of him when you refer to the pro-Obama group as a "cult of personality." That implies being dazzled by superficial appeal and hero-worship, when in fact my support of Obama is based on a deep understanding of the way he thinks, his values, the kind of process he goes through in making decisions, and the people he has chosen (with some notable exceptions) to advise him. It's also based on reading his books and especially David Plouffe's book about the campaign -- which tells you a lot about Obama, the man, as well.

That's far different from the pejorative connotation of "personality cult."

Ralph

The essential difference

William Shatner had Rush Limbaugh on "Raw Nerve" for an interview, and Rush put his finger on the basic difference in them and us about health care reform, as reported on HuffingtonPost:

"Here's my premise and you agree with it or not," Shatner posited. "If you have money, you are going to get health care. If you don't have money, it's more difficult."

Rush skirted the issue and chose to talk about real estate instead. "If you have money you're gonna get a house on the beach. If you don't have money you're gonna live in a bungalow somewhere."

"Right," Shatner responded, "but we're talking about health care."

"What's the difference?"

Shatner pressed on. "The difference is we're talking about health care, not a house or a bungalow."

Rush then accuses Shatner of assuming "there's some morally superior aspect to health care."

Exactly !!! Thanks, Rush, for your moral clarity. I disagree, but at least you are honest in your greed and "I've-got-mine-so-screw-you" mentality.

I do think there is a moral question here. Do we in the most developed country in the world have a moral obligation to see that all of us get basic health care, just as we get public schools and police protection?

Some, like Rush and many Republicans in Congress, would not include health care. That's an honest answer.

But it's not the one I want to live with.

Ralph

Obama's Commander in Chief speech

I want the war to be over.

I want the war to have been over.

AND:

I am willing to let Barack Obama make the decision.

I believe he is better informed than I am, has spent more time getting a wide range of skilled knowledge, careful assessments, and opposing points of view.

Which I have not.

And he has considered the options, not just narrowly about Afghanistan, or even Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in view of all the other economic and domestic problems we face.

I am willing to give him this 18 months.

Not everyone will agree. Not even all of my friends will agree.

I said something similar in the late 1960s when LBJ and McNamara were sinking us deeper in Viet Nam. I naively trusted that they knew more and had our best interests at heart. So I feel at some risk saying the same thing now.

But I have greater faith in Obama's intelligence, his moral compass, his ability to think strategically and long range -- and to not be swayed by politics or emotions -- which, I readily admit, I am.

Ralph

Hope springs . . .

We have to remember that Michele Bachmann's constituents elected her in the first place, so reason and good sense may not prevail. But we can always hope that they will realize that her nutty antics and her right-wing extreme politics do not represent their best interests.

The Minnesota Independent reports that her district has the highest rate, as well as the highest total number, of home foreclosures in the state of Minnesota.

Yet Michele has stuck to her guns and voted against all five key foreclosure relief bills in the House.

Better homeless and on the streets than in your own home, if that would be made possible by some pinko socialist government program, I suppose. Ask the people next November which they prefer, Michele.

Ralph

The melting pot vs xenophobia

The United States used to pride itself on being the melting pot, a nation of immigrants (who treated the true native people and one large segment of involuntary "immigrants" abominably).

Now we've moved into an era of anti-immigrant feeling -- especially from our neighbors to the south -- as well as the fear and mistrust of Muslims. Still, we're relatively serene about it compared to some of the European countries. In Switzerland, for example, 57.5% voted for a constitutional ban on the construction of minarets on Muslim places of worship.

It's not about architectural purity in the picture postcard country, but about the latent fear of Islamic influence in Switzerland. Two right-wing groups joined forces to sponsor the referendum that reflects political concern that, rather than assimilating into Swiss life, they will change the traditions and even the laws of Switzerland.

Gabriel Piemonte, writing on The Back Fence blog, put it in perspective:

I think the minaret episode speaks to the growing sense, in Europe and the US, among groups in these countries who (almost indefensible in the U.S.) see themselves as the "native" population that "owns" the country in which they live. This is leading to dangerous levels of volatility. Sadly it does not seem to be leading to conversation about how nations grow and change. For example, should the anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe develop into a rejection of all non-Christians? If you don't go to church and believe the Bible, should you leave Europe? It would be a pretty roomy place.

On the other hand, there are extremely conservative beliefs among Muslims that fly in the face of the important humanistic traditions of Europe, and there has been some fear of Muslims (and other cultural factors) preventing European countries from integrating these new European citizens into that tradition. We are similarly challenged, but I think the problem in the U.S. is that a coarse materialism has replaced serious ethical and moral concerns so completely that it is hard to say what the tradition we embrace that would integrate immigrants more effectively is. Consumerism just won't do the trick.

Actions like prohibiting the construction of minarets will only draw the Muslims more completely into their own insular worlds and reinforce any sense they have of being a repressed minority.

We in the U.S. have a little breathing time before immigration gets the spotlight again -- after we fix health care, jobs, Afghanistan, and the economy -- and until Lou Dobbs finds a new pulpit.

But sooner or later we will have to face these questions too.

Ralph

Obama's war

Afghanistan has already been called "Obama's war." Early on, he declared it the "war of necessity," to differentiate it from Iraq as the "war of choice." But once he has announced his decision to send another large chunk of troops, there will be no doubt.

There probably is no chance of an ideological, or even strategic, opposition derailing the the escalation. The only good things we know so far are that Obama has gotten maximum input and taken his time deliberating the options and that he has insisted on an exit strategy.

Opposition is being expressed primarily in the form of proposals to impose a "war surtax."

Yesterday, on George Stephanopolis' This Week, two Republicans had an exchange about it. Dan Senor, a neocon war hawk, called it a backdoor effort to derail the troop increase. Matthew Dowd, Bush's director of communications, said it was unfair to increase troops without any sort of shared sacrifice.

On the Sunday morning show, George Will had just declared that there will be no surtax. Dowd's response hit the right notes that should have been front and center in our deliberations all along:

I agree with you. There is not going to be a tax. But I think this goes to a fundamental value that I think we lost, which is that we can get things for nothing. That we can go to war and not have to pay for it either by cutting the budget or doing something else. We have a war; we don't have a draft. All of these sorts of things, that we think, 'Oh, by way, we can go fight the most important war in the history of our country, but we're not going to have a draft, we're not going to pay for it, we're not going to do anything that causes anybody to sacrifice.

This began with Bush's not only not asking for a draft or budget cuts, he even refused to put the costs of war in the budget and instead always had it in a supplemental bill to avoid thinking of it in terms of what needed to be cut.

The biggest deterrent to war would be a draft. Next would be a surtax or major budget cuts. We did neither under Bush. Is Obama going to continue that? Watch his address tomorrow night with that in mind.

Ralph

Serious security breach

The Virginia socialite couple, cum reality TV wannabes, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, should not reap any rewards for their brazen stunt of crashing the White House state dinner last week.

There have to be serious consequences for the Secret Service agents who are responsible for letting in this couple that were not on the guest list and had not been cleared. Yes, of course, they went through metal detectors and carried no weapons. That's good -- but it should not be treated as a joke or a publicity coup by anyone.

What better disguise for would-be assassins than to pick a couple who actually looked and dressed like the other guests? Who looked the part enough to slip in and mingle with the VIP crowd, and even get close enough to have pictures taken with Obama and Biden IN THE SAME ROOM IN THE WHITE HOUSE? What if they had been actual assassins -- who then did their job?

You know who would be president then? Nanci Pelosi. But she was also there and could have been on the list too. Next in line is 92 year old Robert Byrd.

It's true, they carried no weapons, and presumably they did clear through metal detectors. But death comes in other ways besides metal weapons. Injectible poison, for one.

I agree that criminal charges should be filed -- against the Salahis -- along with appropriate disciplinary measures for the secret service agents. That may happen.

But the current buzz about it all is that Michaele and Tareq have canceled their appearance on Larry King's show and instead are shopping around for another venue that pay them the half-million they're asking for an exclusive interview.

Things are out of whack when we turn the White House and the safety of our President and Vice President into a reality tv show -- and then crow about the feat.

This is serious and it must be treated as such.

Ralph

Homophobia:Heterosexism::Racism: ?

We need a word to use for those insensitivities to racial differences that are based on habit and lack of awareness rather than demeaning hostility.

In the world of changing attitudes toward gay men and women, we call the comparable insensitivites "heterosexism," rather than "homophobia," to indicate that it results from simply having grown up in a society that was designed for opposite-sex attractions. Even people who are quite gay-friendly may slip into commonplace phrases that are so habitual that they don't think of the implications.

I was struck by a comparable thing having to do with race, or more specifically, skin color.

In an article about the recent White House state dinner for the Indian prime minister, Michelle Obama's gown -- with all its silver sequins -- was referred to as "flesh-colored." And there beside the article was a picture of Michelle looking lovely in this special dress created for the occasion. But it was anything but a match for the color of Michelle's skin.

Does this bear a hint of demeaning hostility? I don't think so. "Flesh-colored" is a staple in writing about clothes. But, like heterosexism, it became a color at a time when skin, in the world of fashion, was uniformly pink-and-yellow-tinged white.

Even after hatred and fear of difference have been expunged, we still have our habits of speech to change. It helps to realize that these unintended slurs are hurtful, even when no hurt is intended.

Ralph

Thanksgiving

While the pumpkin pie finishes up in the oven, and I'm waiting to join the rest of our family at my daughter's home, I'm thinking about being thankful.

Today, for one day at least, I want to focus on the positive. Friend Mickey Nardo wrote his thanksgiving message about the success that's beginning to accrue in the AIDS epidemic in Africa. And I had to admit that this is one place George Bush deserves some credit for a positive contribution -- pushing for funds for treating AIDS in Africa.

Then I even had to admit that there is one thing I can find to thank Dick Cheney for: his support of his lesbian daughter's relationship, her pregnancies, and her right to marry.

On our side of the aisle on this Thanksgiving Day, I'd like to acknowledge the American People. True, there are the many groups and fringes whose positions and actions I deplore. But the American People, by a clear majority vote, rose up and elected Barack Obama president at a time when an inspirational, intelligent, balanced, thoughtful, and caring leader was most needed.

He wanted to change the way governing is done in Washington, and right now that's what he's having most trouble with. But give him credit for trying -- even though many of us are wishing that he could/would follow through on what we, and he, had hoped for.

And this seems a simple thing to recognize that I'm grateful for, but it has vast importance throughout the world: I am thankful to have a president who can open his mouth without making me cringe and whose beautiful mind, so well expressed, often makes me very proud.

May he keep safe and govern wisely within the constraints our dysfunctional system allows, and may we reap the benefits of the leadership he is capable of.

Ralph

A whopper ! ! !

Forget Sarah Palin's distortions and lies. She's small potatoes compared to Dana Perino's claim to Sean Hannity on Fox News:

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term."

Er, Dana. Nine-eleven? As in 9/11? As in September 11, 2001 when terrorists highjacked airplanes and flew them into the twin towers and the Pentagon?

Well, of course, what Dana meant, I'm sure, was that we didn't have a terrorist attack on our country after that day. She made the comment in the context of trying to smear Obama for refusing to call the Ft. Hood shooting a terrorist attack. And she went further in saying that it was politics that kept him from being honest about it. This after he has just appointed her to the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Thanks, Dana. That shows you're not letting politics influence your good sense.

But, at the least, that proves the attitude that pervaded the Bush team: that, even though 9/11 happened on their watch, it wasn't their fault. It was completely unpredictable. As Condi Rice famously said, "No one could have anticipated that would happen." No one except Richard Clarke, Bush's own counterterrorism expert, and the CIA's presidential memo in August, which Bush was too busy cutting brush in Texas to bother with, etc. etc. etc.

Oh, well . . .

Ralph

Divided Democrats

Richard makes persuasive points (in comments on yesterdays blog) about progressives failing to provide the push to make Obama live up to his campaign promises. But I still think the argument comes down to this not very good choice: do you stick to progressive causes that you lack the clout to get through not only a divided Congress but also a divided Democratic party -- and wind up with nothing? Or do you compromise and get the best legislation that can make it through such a dysfunctional system? Obama chose the latter. Richard would have us chose the former, with the hope for better things to come.

Or perhaps he would argue that we did have the clout if only Obama had exerted leadership to get his agenda fulfilled and had not chosen the people he did (at treasury, in the Pentagon, and maybe even his chief of staff).

Here's another factor to consider that I picked up while waiting for my car to be serviced this morning, catching up on my reading of The Nation and the New York Review of Books. (No, I took them with me; Toyota hasn't added those choices to Motor Trend, People, and House Beautiful in their waiting lounge).

One reason we're having trouble getting more progressive legislation passed is that Democrats have become more divided, while Republicans have become more united as their moderates have been forced out or silenced. So it's hard to get Democrats to wield the power that we gave them (albeit razor thin in the Senate), while all it takes for Republicans to obstruct is just to say no. And compromises have to be made even to get all Democrats to agree.

Why? In part because Rahm Emanuel, in his capacity as head of the House Democratic Congressional Committee, recruited conservative Democrats to run in Republican strongholds, in order to convert seats from R to D; but then we wound up with more conservative D's who don't support progressive legislation.

I'm all for progressive legislation. I would have liked an even more progressive agenda than Obama's campaign promises. If I were going to choose another country to live in, it would definitely be one with social welfare type government. But I keep wavering about whether, in the reality of the U.S. today, it's better to hold out for the something more or take the incremental approach.

Ralph

Shrinking the public option

More of why I am discouraged. This article from TPM online is by Robert Reich, Clinton's first Secretary of Labor. It's worth copying here in full.

First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a non-starter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada -- which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 percent of their GDP and covers every Canadian. (Our current system of private for-profit insurers costs 16 percent of GDP and leaves out 45 million people.)

So the compromise was to give all Americans the option of buying into a "Medicare-like plan" that competed with private insurers. Who could be against freedom of choice? Fully 70 percent of Americans polled supported the idea. Open to all Americans, such a plan would have the scale and authority to negotiate low prices with drug companies and other providers, and force private insurers to provide better service at lower costs. But private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it would end up too much like what they have up in Canada.

So the compromise was to give the public option only to Americans who wouldn't be covered either by their employers or by Medicaid. And give them coverage pegged to Medicare rates. But private insurers and ... you know the rest.

So the compromise that ended up in the House bill is to have a mere public option, open only to the 6 million Americans not otherwise covered. The Congressional Budget Office warns this shrunken public option will have no real bargaining leverage and would attract mainly people who need lots of medical care to begin with. So it will actually cost more than it saves.

But even the House's shrunken and costly little public option is too much for private insurers, Big Pharma, Republicans, and "centrists" in the Senate. So Harry Reid has proposed an even tinier public option, which states can decide not to offer their citizens. According to the CBO, it would attract no more than 4 million Americans.

It's a token public option, an ersatz public option, a fleeting gesture toward the idea of a public option, so small and desiccated as to be barely worth mentioning except for the fact that it still (gasp) contains the word "public."

And yet Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson mumble darkly that they may not even vote to allow debate on the floor of the Senate about the bill if it contains this paltry public option. And Republicans predict a "holy war."

But what more can possibly be compromised? Take away the word "public?" Make it available to only twelve people?

Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to ... our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us.

Upbeat policy wonks and political spinners who tend to see only portions of cups that are full will point out some good things: no pre-existing conditions, insurance exchanges, 30 million more Americans covered. But in reality, the cup is 90 percent empty. Most of us will remain stuck with little or no choice -- dependent on private insurers who care only about the bottom line, who deny our claims, who charge us more and more for co-payments and deductibles, who bury us in forms, who don't take our calls.

I'm still not giving up. I want every Senator who's not in the pocket of the private insurers or Big Pharma to introduce and vote for a "Ted Kennedy Medicare for All" amendment to whatever bill Reid takes to the floor. And if this fails, a "Ted Kennedy Real Public Option for All" amendment. Let every Senate Democratic who doesn't have the guts to vote for either of them be known and counted.

There you have it. That portion I've highlighted in blue is addressed directly to me.

I'm rethinking my "better than nothing" stance, especially as we learn how long it will take for even these meager changes to be put in place. Would we be better to wait for a more liberal Congress after 2012 and start over? Most political analysts are saying that, without passing health care reform, Democrats are doomed to lose big time. So that doesn't seem an option.

Gloom.

Ralph

Discouraged again

I seem to go through cycles of optimistic belief in Obama's greater wisdom, which then turns to pessimism and utter dismay at the tangled political/governing system that is paralyzing his ambitious plans.

My relief that the senate had finally advanced a better-than-nothing health care reform bill soon faded as I realized that that only got it to floor debate; it was still hostage to the single vote that would deny cloture to move to a vote on the bill.

E. J. Dionne, respected columnist and tv commentator, wrote about this in today's AJC. And he went after both Democrats and Republicans. Here's his main point:

What has evolved into the modern filibuster system -- where they don't actually talk all night to prevent a vote, but go through the ritual of scraping together 60 votes to avoid making the other side actually do that -- is crippling our legislative process. And it was not what the Founding Fathers intended in designing our system. They wanted the Senate to be a more deliberative body and to calm the passions of the House; but they did not mean it to be obstructionist.

Dionne asks: why, with the mandate that Obama received and the majority in both houses of congress, should so little be accomplished of Obama's agenda and so much has to be watered down even to get all Democrats on board?

He points to Republican's effective use of this process to stall and defeat Obama. One example: a simple measure to extend unemployment benefits was stalled by them repeatedly until finally enough Republicans were embarrassed and voted with Democrats for cloture. Then the bill passed by 98-0. That's right. Every one of them voted for the bill they had sought to obstruct.

What madness !!! And he also goes after conservative Democrats who threaten to derail health care reform (and other bills) because they don't want this or that provision. In effect, we're moving toward minority rule.

So, I add to my list of major changes we need to make:

1. Get rid of the influence of money in our governing system.

2. Change the senate rules that de facto require 60 votes to pass any bill the opponents might want to obstruct.

Ralph

Ted Kennedy would be smiling

Some politicians love it: the rough and tumble of making legislation, the months or years of struggle, behind the scenes negotiations, arm-twisting, cajoling, lobbying. Ted Kennedy reportedly loved it, and none was better at it than he.

Like Moses, he was not to have the satisfaction of leading the final march into the promised land. The bill would have been better if he had, and many progressives are disappointed in the bill as it is. Nor is it a done deal yet. It still has to pass the senate, then the conference committee.

But Harry Reid got a bill to the floor for debate that is far better than nothing, in my opinion. With not a vote to spare, and with the uncertainty at any time whether the 92 year old Robert Byrd's fragile health will allow him to be present, Reid cobbled together the necessary 60 votes to stop the determined Republican efforts to derail, delay, or do anything to stop the process.

Now we have a week to chill out, eat turkey, and then return to what promises to be more negotiating. But this was the crucial make-or-break moment. There's no doubt now that we will have a health care reform bill.

It's unlikely to be as progressive as it would have been with Ted Kennedy at the helm. Still, Kennedy prided himself in being a legislator -- skilled at the art of achieving what is possible, making compromises, based on the reality of the moment, for the greater good. I have no doubt that he would have tried to make it better -- and maybe succeeded. I also have no doubt that he would be smiling that we got this much.

Ralph

Freshman Dem Jackie Speier

Freshman Democratic member of the House Financial Services Committee, Jackie Speier, understands the financial mess we got into, and she has just done something amazing about it -- although we shouldn't have to be amazed because it is the logical, reasonable thing to do.

She introduced an amendment to the regulatory bill under committee consideration that would require that banks not lend out or invest more than 12 dollars for every dollar they keep in reserve. The big guys that failed so miserably, like Bear Sterns, Merrill, and Lehman, were all leveraged at 30-1. And that's why they failed so dramatically. They didn't have the reserve when it all collapsed.

As reported by Ryan Grim on Huffington Post, Speier's amendment was considered a long shot that at best would get a roll call vote, requiring Republicans and bank-friendly Democrats to go on record with their opposition. Then it would be soundly defeated. But Grim writes:

It wouldn't be a novel idea. Until 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission limited leverage ratios to 12 to one. Speier's cap would only re-apply a cap to financial institutions deemed to be a risk to the overall financial system.

But in 2004, the SEC caved in to pressure from banks to let them use much more of their reserves, and exemptions to the limits were granted to the larger banks, justified by the fact that they were large and had huge reserves. One lone, dissenting commissioner, Harvey J. Goldschmid, presciently warned that because they are the big guys, "that means if anything goes wrong, it's going to be an awfully big mess." It did go wrong, and it was an awfully big mess.

Here's what happened in the committee Thursday. During the all-day hearings, Speier's amendment came up when only a few members were in the room. One Republican asked for a roll call vote, and then quickly withdrew the request, and the amendment passed on a unanimous voice vote. Of course the amended bill still has to be passed by the full committee. Will bank-friendly congressmen go on record in opposition to changing something that so obviously contributed to the huge banking failures of 2008-09?

Speier hits the nail on the head.

There's a pattern here. We put these good laws in place, whether it's Glass-Steagall or, in that case the SEC cap. But then the industry comes to us and says, 'Oh, this is cramping our style. We could make' -- of course they don't say it this way -- 'we could make so much more money if you just lifted this cap.' And they were right. They made a lot of money and they also brought the entire country to its knees.

It was written two thousands years ago: "The love of money is the root of all evil."

Ralph

Obama's Afghan dilemma

Dan Froomkin has a very well thought out piece on Huffington Post about why Obama's decision about a new strategy in Afghanistan is taking so long.

All along, Obama has insisted that any plan he accepts has to have an exit strategy. But here's the dilemma . . .

The only real exit strategy -- unilateral disengagement -- is political suicide. According to Froomkin,

Up until a few months ago, Obama evidently thought he had one. Presumably, it involved handing the country back to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's stable, united government in fairly short order.

But then Karzai's re-election turned into a fiasco, exposing Afghanistan's still-deep divisions and still-profound corruption -- and making it abundantly clear to everyone that there will be no exit under those conditions, certainly not anytime soon.

This is complicated by the fact that Obama has called Afghanistan "the war of necessity," as opposed to Iraq, which he called "the war of choice." So he has sort of painted himself into a corner. If he pulls us out unilaterally, without some way of declaring it a win, he will be portrayed widely and derisively as just giving up and "not having the courage to stand up for America."

And here is where our current poisoned political atmosphere makes this an anathema. The public by a large margin opposes continuing the war, by 57% to 39%. In a recent CNN poll, 49% favor reducing the number of troops, while 28% want to pull them out immediately.

But that doesn't seem to carry much weight with Republicans and conservative Democrats, to say nothing of HolyJoe Lieberman. They seem more interested in exploiting this dilemma for political gain, never mind public opinion, the good of the country, or what the American people want.

And the public opposition to continuing the war does not have the fervor of the anti-Viet Nam movement. There are too many other pressing needs: jobs, finance system regulation, health care reform, climate legislation right now.

As much as I would like to see Obama stand up on principle and not worry about the political fallout, that would probably mean losing the political capital to get his ambitious domestic programs -- which are just as vital -- through an obstructionistic congress.

This must be an enormous weight Obama is carrying. But I don't know anyone more capable of making the right choice.

Ralph

Jon Stewart nails it, again

In the modern day version of "the fool is the one in a Shakespeare play who can speak truth to the king," comedian Jon Stewart is the most effective truth-sayer on tv, in my opinion. And now he's done it again, in his pitch-perfect explanation of why he doesn't like Sarah Palin:

"When you peel back the pretty, shooty layers of the Palin onion, there's no onion. It's just a conservative boiler plate mad lib: 'Freedom is good and taxes are--ooh I need an adjective--how about, I don't know, silly?' And the worst part - it's a mad lib delivered as though it were the hard-earned wisdom of a life well lived."

I especially like the last line. It's what bothered me in all her interviews. She delivers cliches and inanities as though she has just conveyed to you "the wisdom of a life well lived."

Ralph

Well, all right, now !!

The Senate health care reform bill that Harry Ried has unveiled sounds promising. It is the result of merging to two senate bills and includes the following:

1. 94% of Americans would have health care insurance.

2. As vetted by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, it would cost $849 billion, while lowering the deficit by $127 billion, over the next decade.

3. It would have a public option plan with an opt-out provision for the states.

4. It would prohibit federal funds being used for abortion (as is the law now); but, unlike the Senate Finance Committee bill, the insurance exchange from which one could choose a private insurance plan would have to offer at least one plan that offered abortion coverage and one that did not.

5. It is also expected to result in at least $1 trillion in cost savings within the health care system.

6. It has a tax on the expensive, "Cadillac" insurance plans.

7. And of course. like all the bills, it eliminates preexisting conditions and the possibility of losing your insurance due to illness or changing jobs.

This sounds to me like a winnable bill. It includes the essentials, it saves money, it comes in at a lower cost that some, and is more "universal" than some.

I'd vote for it in a minute.

Ralph

The coded message in the "Pray for Obama" bumper stickers

I have only had time to read the introduction to David Plouffe's book about the Obama campaign, but his description of the election night brought back the euphoria, and I felt my discouragement and cynicism begin to melt.

Then . . . I logged on to Huffington Post for my news fix and found this: the latest fad promoted by the right-wing religious movement is bumper stickers and T-shirts, extolling people to

"Pray for Obama, Psalm 109.8."

Now that sounds nice, doesn't it? Pray for our president. Until you read Psalm 109.8.

Psalm 109 begins as King David's hymn of praise to God. But then he turns peevish and exorts God to do bad things to his enemies, the "unjust rulers." And verse 8?

"May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership."

And what comes next, verse 9?

"May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

This is serious, folks. Christians issuing a veiled call for the assassination of our president !!!

Frank Shaeffer, who has written a book about the evangelical movement, has this to say about this:

The situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of Biblical language, [reminding people that Obama is foreign, not like us, not a real American]. . . .But now, it turns out, he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers to which all these Biblical allusions are directed who should be slaughtered, if not by God, then by just men. . . . .

Most of them are not crazy, they're just deluded. But there is a crazy fringe to whom all these little messages that have been pouring out of Fox News, now on a bumper sticker, talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him.

Really, this is trolling for assassins. This is serious business. . . These are no jokes.

Rachel Madow had a discussion of this on her program.

And I am very very scared.

Ralph

Winning and governing

I've slid into one of my slumps. A loss, not of hope, but of confidence that good things are going to get done.

If Barack Obama could have simply taken Washington by the storm he stirred up on the campaign trail, we would already have most of the progressive reforms we had hoped for. But then he met the brick wall of Congress, the influence and power of money and incumbency, the huge problems of war, and the end stage of our unregulated financial system -- and things screeched to a halt, or at best a creep.

There I was in the book store this morning, faced with promotional tables full of Sarah Palin. I've read enough excerpts online to know I did not want to read any more.

But there, on the other side of the table in a more modest stack, was David Plouffe's The Audacity to Win.

Now it's on my desk, and I'm ready to begin reading how Obama's campaign manager managed this amazing feat of winning the presidency for "the tall skinny guy with the funny name."

It seemed like just what I needed to restore my hope and rebuild my confidence. Stay tuned.

Ralph

It's called "The Truth," Sarah

OK, OK. So I'm obsessed with putting down Sarah. It's not just her, per se. It's that she so epitomizes those who disdain "the reality-based world." It wouldn't even be quite so bad if she just wanted to live in "the faith-based world." But that's not where she is either. She lives in a world of know-nothing arrogance, masquerading as "family values," and she wants to force her way onto the rest of us.

The Hill reports that Palin has blasted the AP for fact-checking her book, calling it "opposition research." She said: "They're now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards."

Yes, Sarah. It's called Truth. You know, as in a reality-based universe.

Ralph

Palin 2012

Columnist Walter Shapiro says that the Republican party rules allow winner-take-all primaries, and that could make it possible for Sarah Palin to win the nomination in 2012.

He points out that, in a multi-candidate field (say, Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee, Gingrich, plus a couple of minor candidates), a well-financed and well-known person with a passionate following could easily lead in the early primaries. A 28% vote, say, and she could walk away with each state's full delegation. And before they knew how to stop her, before any major debates, she could have the necessary votes. She's already got Bill Kristol shilling for her (of course, there's comfort in the fact that Kristol is always wrong about everything he supports or predicts.)

Shapiro also points out: winner-take-all is permitted, not required; and states could change their way of allocating delegates before then.

OK. This makes it possible she could win the nomination. But could she win running against Obama? Imagine them in a one-to-one debate. We shouldn't be too complacent. Remember that we felt the same way about George W. and Al Gore? Folksy and fear-mongering sometimes trump articulate intelligence and knowledge of details. But (I hastened to reassure myself) Obama has articulate intelligence, knowledge of details, AND the best way with a speech in memory, whereas both Gore and Kerry were wooden, prolix, and boring.

Of course, a lot hinges on the economy, jobs, and the war in the coming year. But I'm a little less sanguine about the GOP nominating her -- the prospect of her actually winning is just too scary.

Ralph

"Much Ado About . . . (a bow?). . . Nothing"

Now I'm going to echo Richard's comments from a few days ago. Aren't there more important things to talk about than President Obama's bow to the Emperor of Japan? The buzz of criticism was as predictable as it is ridiculous.

In Japan, everybody bows to everybody. Meet your neighbor on the street: you both bow. It's their custom -- and a rather nice one, I think, having lived there for 3 years. Of course, there are intricate hierarchical rules about who bows first and deepest, and how many times. But it's also simply a gesture of respect for the other person.

But FOXNews this morning tried to make news -- playing a clip of the bow and then a clip of the XVP from some years ago, standing tall and straight as he shook hands with the same emperor. No kowtowing for the XVP, no sir. Gotta show 'em who's the alpha dog.

Chris Wallace asked the panel what they made of "Bow-gate." To be sure, they were laughing to indicate that this wasn't serious news. But, YUK. Who needs it? (OK, so why am I amplifying such a waste of time?)

Bill Crystal, never one to miss promoting his gal-pal Sarah Palin, chirped, "Sarah Palin wouldn't have bowed. She wouldn't even have curtsied."

And then fellow commentator and XVP daughter, Liz Cheney, piped up: "You could also look at the comparison and think 'Cheney 2012.'" Everyone took her to mean Dick Cheney and went off in gales of ooohs and aahhs. I'm not so sure. Maybe she meant Liz Cheney.

I seriously expect her to run for office at some point. And I think she may be more dangerous to our country than Sarah Palin, a caricature who fires up their right wing base and attracts attention but who demonstrably does not have the knowledge or the interest to become informed. Is their party suicial enough to nominate her? Maybe. Let's hope so. I do not believe that 51% of voters would risk giving her the red phone at 3 am.

On the other hand, Liz is smart and mean, and she has the connections.

Ralph

Health care vs abortion

For the next couple of months, we're going to hear a lot of debate about the anti-abortion amendment attached to the House bill. Letters in yesterday's NYT were mostly about this.

Feminists and reproductive health activists are decrying the amended bill as though it had suddenly outlawed abortions. Now, I know the practical argument that lack of funding will mean lack of access for many women. But this bill does not in fact outlaw abortion any more than it outlaws any other elective procedure that it does not fund, like cosmetic surgery or psychoanalysis.

And wait -- I am not equating them, except in the sense of their being procedures that are permissible under the law but not funded by the government. In my opinion, there are very good reasons for covering one and not the other. But that is not the argument right now: it's the false claim that lack of funding makes it illegal.

It does not. And when you make a bad argument, it hurts your good argument. Remember Obama's line: "This is a health care bill, not an abortion bill."

On the verge of finally achieving universal health care coverage, lack of "pre-existing conditions," and no cancellation of policies, we should not confuse the two. What we want is health care reform. Changing the status quo regarding abortion must not be allowed to derail this vital legislation.

Some will argue that it does not maintain the status quo. That's true in some details, and some or all of those details could be changed in conference committee. But the federal government does not currently pay for abortions except in some indirect ways. So it is not "the biggest setback to women's reproductive rights in decades," as some critics claim.

Let's just keep our heads clear about this so we can get health care reform -- with coverage for abortions, if possible; but, if not, let's save the abortion fight for another day. Just remember, if you insist on abortion coverage, and the bill fails, all those who are currently uninsured still won't be covered for abortion.

Ralph

Even the Fox questions Palin

I'm trying to avoid thinking about the depressing HuffingtonPost headline that a secret deal between the White House and BigPharma will lead to a $137 billion increase in market sales for them.

I'd rather gloat over this little item they also reported. It seems that Sarah Palin's latest conspiracy theory tries to implicate the Obama administration in demoting God on U.S. coins. A new design moves "In God We Trust" from its prominent place on the face of some coins to the rim. Palin insinuated that this is another "change" that shows the Obama administration is pushing us toward socialism (hint, hint: "godless socialism," you know?).

Whether it's a result of White House criticism or whether they're finally taking seriously their motto of "fair and balanced," FOXNews actually did some fact-checking on dear Sarah.

It seems that the new design was authorized in 2005 when Republicans controlled Congress, and then it was approved by President Bush. Obama had nothing to do with it.

Now it will be interesting to see whether weepy Gleen Beck jumps on Sarah's conspiracy bandwagon or tries to cover up the embarrassment.

Either way, I found in this a moment of "gotcha" that felt sooo good.

Ralph

C'mon, Dems; all together now

The House did it. The Senate can too -- if the Democracts can get it all together.

Progressives and feminists, please go ahead and scream that the House bill is "the biggest setback to women's reproductive rights in decades" and threaten not to vote for the bill if that stays in. Scream and get it over with.

And then let's compromise, starting with Obama's wise perspective:

"This is a health care bill; not an abortion bill."

He says we should not use health care reform to change the status quo of abortion laws. It should not be used either to provide funds for abortions that do not currently exist; nor should it remove coverage in private plans that people already have. And it does not. It does not forbid one single abortion or restrict abortions more than already on the books. It simply says the federal government cannot pay for them.

If you have private insurance that currently covers abortion, that will not change. Any public option could not include it, nor could federal subsidies be used for private plans that do so.

But this is only the House bill. The Senate bill is less restrictive. And there's always the conference committee to reconcile the bills.

I would prefer to have abortion covered, at least for those deemed medically appropriate. But, please, let's don't get bent out of shape about this and ruin the best chances to enact reform since Harry Truman first tried to get single-payer health coverage in the 1940's. Here are some of the benefits we can expect:

Another 36 million more people will be insured or become eligible for Medicaid.

There will be multiple ways to help control the costs of Medicare -- not by "taking away my Medicare" but by eliminating waste, excessive charges, subsidies to insurance companies, negotiating drug prices, etc.

It will eliminate Bush's subsidizing private insurers to prop up his Medicare Advantage boondoggle.

It eliminates the donut hole on Medicare prescription drug coverage, Bush's boondoggle for drug companies.

It finally allows Medicare to negotiate drugs prices, reversing another Bush boondoggle.

It introduces a public option that is inadequate but at least a start.

It stops insurance companies from denying coverage because of preexisting conditions and ends the loss of coverage for any reason except for fraud.

It provides funding to educate more doctors and nurses.

It introduces health prevention programs, pilot studies to improve care, etc.

Now think long and hard if you want to give up all that in order to have abortions paid for by insurance, which may not be enacted at all if you insist on it. Think creatively. Take all your lobbying money and create a national fund to pay for safe abortions for women whose health insurance won't cover it. Let's don't let this chance be lost.

Ralph