Mr. Canard, of the AEI

Earlier today on the radio, I heard the host pose a question to "Mr. Canard" of the American Enterprise Institute. I thought she was referring to Edward Conard, but... the reference suddenly seems ambiguous.

Joe Lieberman, Offender of the First Amendment

Another wonderful idea from Joe Lieberman.

Now if only we can get the Senate to add buttons to members' pages so users can flag them for "pandering", "obfuscation", "mendacity", "bought and paid for", and "just plain idiotic".

The Failure Wasn't Obama's

You can't miss the hand-wringing: Obama once again gave away too much, Obama could have cut a better deal, Obama governs as a moderate conservative.... And there's truth to all of that. But still, we're speaking of legislation. Remind me again, how many votes does the President get when a bill is being considered by the House or Senate? If a better bill was out there, where is it? I don't even recall one being advanced by a majority of the Senate - sure, such a bill would have been subject to a filibuster, but wouldn't it have been helpful had the Democrats put together a sane, solid proposal and announced to the world, "Here's the wonderful bill you could have if only John Boehner could get his Tea Partiers under control." Even after the deal was struck Boehner had to scramble to keep them in line. Two meetings to convince the inmates that even if they run the asylum, it's best not to make that fact too obvious.

Where does the Democratic Party stand? That has been a fair question throughout Obama's Presidency and the answer has too often been, "In the path of the President's agenda." Obama has been politically cautious from the start, seeming hesitant to even speak publicly on an issue that is before Congress unless he is apt to receive a favorable vote. That is not something that particularly distinguishes himself from his predecessors, and you can see from Bill Clinton's experience with healthcare reform or G.W.'s experience attempting to partially privatize Social Security how much damage a President can do to himself if he takes a strong position and can't obtain support for his agenda even from his own party. Obama thought he had his party's support for healthcare reform, something that has been on the Democratic agenda for decades, something that Republicans feared could devastate their future at the polls, something that had been discussed and debated to death. He made some ugly up-front deals to get the major special interest groups out of the way, turned to his party and said, in effect, "Now produce a bill," and... Congress, in particular the Senate, bungled it.

Thanks to delays resulting in no small part from ineffective Senate leadership, the bill almost died in the face of an onslaught of Republican misinformation and demagoguery, and even after that it almost died due to the huge giveaways demanded by a handful of self-serving Senators. Had Senators Nelson, Lieberman, Landrieu and their ilk been willing to set aside their self-interest, can anybody dispute that we would have had a better bill? By a similar measure, had the Blue Dogs been willing to act responsibly as legislators, rather than echoing Republican talking points, voting against the bill and even running against the bill, could they not have supported the legislation while explaining to their constituents how they made it a better bill through their demands and contributions? After all, fat lot of good it did them to brag about voting against their party and President.

The same is true for the stimulus bill. For energy policy and climate change legislation. For immigration. The Democratic Congress had ample opportunity to put together and pass meaningful reform bills, but instead watered down the stimulus, sold out on healthcare reform, and got all wobbly in the knees about passing any other significant legislation. Their well-known reward was the loss of control of the House and coming close to losing control of the Senate. Good job.

So imagine you're the President and assume that, like most politicians, you wake up in the morning and ask yourself, "What do I have to do to get reelected?" Do you say, "I'll do the same thing I did with stimulus and healthcare reform legislation, back when my party controlled both chambers of Congress, and help my party put together a bill that my own party will insist be watered down, and even assuming I can get a bill with majority support in the Senate ignore the fact that any bill with the Democratic imprimatur will be rejected out-of-hand by the Republican-controlled House and filibustered by Senate Republicans?" Or do you take a look at the political environment, the near-useless media coverage, and your own party's internal divisions and say, "The people say they want a balanced budget, the people say they want government cuts, opinion polls show that a ridiculous number of people believe that government spending causes unemployment to rise. My party can't put together a progressive bill, or even a mediocre bill that would pass in the House. I can work with the Republicans, get a bill that will pass, prevent the economic catastrophe of default, legitimately claim to have engineered a bipartisan compromise, and get a deal that I can point to in the next election to say, 'I'm the adult in the room who's working to balance the budget.'" (Now imagine on top of that, that you personally believe in the virtues of leaner government and a balanced budget.)

Listen to the leaders for the Republican nomination yammer about this vote and you get a good sense of the pathetic state of political media coverage in this country. The Republicans most likely to win the nomination assume that the voters are politically ignorant, speak to them in a manner that an informed voter should find offensive, and expect their demagoguery to carry them into the White House. Yes, the argument can be made that the President could do more to educate the public and attempt to lead opinion, but the reality is a bit different. The President has no chance of winning over the Tea Partiers or making a significant dent in Republican opinions, and the media already knows the true story. The President might try to convince those within his party to support more progressive legislation but that's apt to earn him the same type of criticism from the left that he's received on pretty much every piece of legislation he's signed, not actually get him any more votes for his legislation within his party, and will do nothing to change the fact that the Republicans control the House and can filibuster in the Senate.

The roots of this bill lie in the Democratic Party's perception that their 2008 victory was their opportunity to cash in, as opposed to an opportunity to govern responsibly and pass important legislation. Speaking cynically, that's about what you would expect from politicians. But you might have thought that the Democratic Party would have some memory of how it behaved during the first two years of Clinton's Presidency and how Clinton, having barely survived, became a cautious poll-watcher and triangulator who fastidiously avoided thorny issues for the remainder of his Presidency. They say that those who don't know history are destined to repeat it, but what does it say about you when you do know the history and choose to repeat it?

Joe Lieberman, Independent Representative for Health Insurance Companies

In case you've forgotten who Joe Lieberman works for.

The Liberal War on... Comic Books?

George Will is in a bit of a tizzy because "progressives" do crazy things like talking to scientists when they form opinions. He insists that this transforms progressivism into a "faith-based program" premised upon a "cult of expertise - an unflagging faith in the application of science to social reform." To a degree he's describing a subset of liberalism from some decades ago, but not a type that actually worked from social science. He's describing the reactionary counterpart to, say, himself - who operates from the belief that social science is unnecessary, or should only be examined to the degree that it supports his own pre-existing beliefs, as he forges ahead with his own personal agenda.

Take for example the "welfare state" George Will despises. If you look at the facts, it is largely a success story. Many millions of people have received assistance when they were at the poverty line and subsequently were able to both rise out of poverty and reach self-sufficiency. There are a lot of people who are now successful, even wealthy, who were on food stamps as children. The typical recipient of welfare has historically been a single parent who, following a crisis such as divorce, needed a bit of financial help for a period of up to three years to get back on her feet. (Yes, it's usually but not always the mother). The downside, of course, is that a system that wasn't really designed but instead came together in an ad hoc manner also served to create cultures of dependency and poverty among long-term welfare recipients. It's not immediately clear what the alternatives are - after all, even with welfare reform we still provide support for families with minor children - but it is clear that you can't win the 'war on poverty' simply by giving people money (or benefits that can be used in a restricted manner, such as food stamps or a rent subsidy). Heck - we know that from what often follows a middle class windfall, such as an inheritance or lottery win.

Of course, this isn't a one-sided picture. As Will himself exemplifies, conservatives are sometimes proud in their contempt of science. Will's current column addresses social science, but he's previously embarrassed himself with his attacks on the hard sciences. Don't bore him with anything that may get in the way of his jerking knee. So we get "conservative" solutions to crime and poverty such as "three strikes" laws, "compassionate conservatism", "faith-based initiatives" where government money is passed through religious organizations rather than being used for the direct support of people in need, etc., and... they prove ineffective or even counter-productive. But, you know, whatever, right?

Recently, John Casey at The Nonsequitur compared the logical fallacies of Michael Gerson to those of George Will, touching on this column:

Our point here is that Gerson attempts to make the Willian hollow man move–"liberalism" is the key word usually, or "progressivism" (hey look it up in today's Post!). It basically goes like this. Mention the word "liberalism," and do not mention the words of any particular liberal–you're not dialoguing with them (that's critical)–and set up a hollow man. Then engage hollow man, showing hollow man argument to be foolish, liberals as a consequence to be lazy, dishonest thinkers, etc.

What does Will offer up as "evidence" that progressives are puritanical and censorious? Nothing, really - after providing a largely irrelevant and partial history of censorship of comic books, he quotes somebody who makes that bare claim.

The lawyer for the video-game industry warned the Supreme Court that "the land is awash" with contemporary versions of Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), the crusader for censorship of indecency, as he spaciously defined it. "Today's crusaders," the lawyer said, "come less from the pulpit than from university social science departments, but their goals and tactics remain the same."

Will is apparently alluding to Schwarzenegger v Entertainment Merchants Ass'n, but I'm not sure where he found that quote - it doesn't appear to come from either the brief or oral argument. To the extent that he's alluding to the respondent's brief, although the brief does (as you might expect) cherry-pick past overstatements of the potential harm of new media to argue that we should assume that current criticism of videogames are overstated, which I admit to be an appealing argument despite (or perhaps because of) it's obviously fallacious nature (a mix of ad hominem tu quoque, guilt by association and appeal to ridicule), but how convenient for Mr. Will. "Somebody else says something I agree with so I can simply quote that person instead of providing actual evidence for my thesis or substantiating my hollow man argument."

The primary target of George Will's essay is the late Fredric Wertham. (Note to John Casey: George Will is apparently not afraid to "name names" when the targets of his criticisms are... dead, partially undermining the parenthetical portion of your suggestion that he only "nam[es] opponents who can respond (or whose words can be checked).") A big problem here is that Will doesn't actually present any evidence that this solitary, deceased figure upon which his argument is premised was in fact a "progressive". He appears to have been a Marxist. He does appear to have been concerned with the impact of modern culture on children. Or perhaps he doesn't believe that Wertham was a progressive, but it's enough that a book he wrote on the subject "was praised by the the progressive sociologist C. Wright Mills", also long deceased, with Will attaching the label "progressive" to his name apparently out of convenience - at some point he had to at least try to make his case, so why not find a guy who has been dead for almost fifty years, call him a progressive, say that he praised the book of another dead guy who doesn't appear to have been a progressive in any meaningful sense, and call it a day?

I did enjoy this part of Will's criticism of Wertham:

Wertham was especially alarmed about the one-third of comic books that were horror comics, but his disapproval was capacious: Superman, who gave short shrift to due process in his crime-fighting, was a crypto-fascist. As for Batman and Robin, the "homoerotic tendencies" were patent.

If Will were a thoughtful person, or even bothered to do slight research on his subject, he would likely have quickly discovered that over the past several decades comic books have devoted considerable amount of space to the tension between superhero action and vigilantism, a considerable evolution from the J. Jonah Jameson attacks on Spiderman. We're well past the early conceit of Superman being deputized so as to make him an all-powerful partner of law enforcement, and well into the era of the "Dark Knight", the brooding Batman with his acceptance that he's a vigilante and his oddly set internal compass defining the lines he's not willing to cross. As for the notion that Batman and Robin could be construed as in a homosexual relationship, some fifty-six years ago Wertham may have been among the first to say it out loud, but he was far from the last. The oft-referenced panel of that era:

Moving to modern times, it's hard to miss the Dynamic Duo as the inspiration for this parody:

But let's give Will his due.... Let's say that fifty-six years ago one "progressive" wrote a book critical of popular culture, suggesting that comic books have a negative influence on young people, and that another "progressive" stated that he liked the book. So what? My guess is that a lot of conservatives and religious leaders also endorsed Wertham's book. Certainly if you look to the subsequent history of censorship, book banning, and odd theories about which cartoon figures might be gay, you'll find far more examples coming from the political right than the political left. Even Will's penultimate reference to Anthony Comstock is to a man whose censoriousness appears to have been driven by his religious beliefs, and not even will purports him to have been a "progressive". Yes, if you limit your search to social science you'll find that it is largely produced by... social scientists. But is that really a surprise?

And you know what else? Sure, by today's standards the "disturbing" images from comic books of the early 1950's seem pretty tame, but that doesn't of itself mean that the images at issue from the current generation of video games are as tame, or will be viewed as innocuous in a half-century. Nor would it necessarily be good for society if the graphic, photo-realistic nature of future video game violence were so overwhelming that today's near photo-realistic images of death and mayhem seem innocuous. I am not presenting a slippery slope argument - I'm not favoring the banning of video games or arguing that if we don't take action now we'll see much worse stuff in the future - but I am observing the general trend and, yes, that trend suggests that video games will continue to become more photorealistic in their violence, and that the comparison to sixty-year-old comic books will be even less apt than Will's current effort.

In what should be a surprise to no one, in fact you can find examples of people who want to "protect the children" from the insidious effects of popular culture on all points of the political spectrum. Contrary to Will's argument that on the political left this is driven by social science research, in fact it's largely driven by a personal sense that certain aspects of popular culture cannot possibly be good for kids. If social science, in whole or in part, seems to back that up, obviously you will see advocates of child protection embrace those elements when they make their case for censorship. For goodness sake, the name at the top of the case to which Will alludes is that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, a man whose personal fortune was built on action movies, and who is presently the Republican Governor of California (although I'll duly note that the A.G. is a Democrat). Couldn't Will have at least dragged Tipper Gore or Joe Lieberman into his editorial, rather than carrying on about events from a half-century or more ago? Has he turned into Grandpa Simpson?

The Climate Change Bill that Wasn't to Be

The New Yorker recently published an article, "As the World Burns", about the failure of climate change legislation. The article finds plenty of blame to go around, including the actions of the Senators who drafted the legislation, the White House (particularly the person(s) responsible for suggesting that Lindsey Graham supported an increased gas tax), Republican obstructionism, and reactionary idiocy from members of the public at Republican "Town Hall" meetings. And let's not forget Harry Reid's self-serving gambit to prioritize a non-existant "Immigration reform bill" over the climate change bill. Harry Reid's statement seems to have ended the possibility of proceeding with the bill.

But what is truly striking is how much Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Lindsey Graham were willing to give away in order to simply get the energy industry to agree not to oppose the legislation. If you thought the deals the Obama Administration cut to limit industry opposition to healthcare reform were offensive... this, to me, seems like at least another order of magnitude. The final bill was better than nothing, I suppose, but I have a real problem with buying off special interests with huge subsidies and promises that preferential treatment will continue far into the future, perhaps indefinitely.

Beyond that, I can understand why the White House at a certain point seemed to stop caring about this legislation and acting like the bill wasn't even under discussion, making concessions that the authors of the bill hoped to use as carrots to lure Republican moderates to support the legislation. After reaching out, time and time again, on other issues, President Obama seems to have learned that "Republican bipartisanship" inevitably involves Lucy yanking away the football.

I'll give Lindsey Graham credit for joining the team that drafted the bill, but I'm not convinced that he would have ultimately voted for cloture in the face of a filibuster by his party, or in favor of the final legislation. Graham noted that as soon as Fox News figured out that they had a serious bill, "it’s gonna be all cap-and-tax all the time, and it’s gonna become just a disaster for me on the airwaves" - it's not simply a matter of duplicity that leads Republicans to yank away the football, it's a realization that powerful, monied interests will turn against them. Fox isn't a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party - it advances the policy goals of right-wing billionaires who, through Fox, campaign contributions, and other similar steps, hope to obtain and maintain the Republican Party as another of their holdings.

It's not so much that they can't by Democrats - there's a reason this bill needed Republican support to pass. It's more that, when it comes to their interests, the wholesale price on Republicans is lower. This will only get worse, thanks to the Supreme Court's wrong-headed Citizens United decision.

The article also points out that the public at large puts a very low priority on climate change.

Are the Democrats Trying to Lose?

From what they're doing, it would certainly appear so. Michael Tomasky comments on the party's idiotic decision not to vote on a middle class tax cut in advance of the election. He quotes a "senior Senate Democratic Aide" as arguing that it's a winning argument for the Democrats, "why muddy it up with a failed vote" based upon an expected Republican filibuster?

I suppose that aide could be right. But what he or she doesn't understand is that not having a vote just looks like surrender. It's not fighting for anything. Because everyone watching this debate understands that a vote after the elections is guaranteed to extend all the cuts and really embarrass Obama, because he's going to be put in a position of vetoing cuts for the middle class or signing a bill including all cuts, and he's obviously going to have to do the latter. It's short-sighted. It's selfish. It's weak. It's pathetic. And it's all too typical. Shall I go on?

All of that applies - selfish, weak, pathetic, typical. But I'm more cynical about this than Mr. Tomasky. I suspect that the real reason the Senate doesn't want the vote is because they fear that they actually might get one or two Republicans to vote for tax relief - and that they will be countered by having Senators like Joe Lieberman join the remaining Republicans in a filibuster. Yes, I know that when put on the spot Joe backed off of his prior suggestion that he would join a filibuster, but I can see him helping Republicans block or delay the vote, and I can see him breaking his word. And he's not the only unfaithful member of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

It sounds a lot better to offer excuses that make you seem selfish, weak, and pathetic, than to have to explain on the eve of an election why members of your own caucus blocked a tax bill that would otherwise have passed.

Seriously, Bill Clinton had to remind the Democratic Party that it should offer some ideas - a plan for what it might do in the upcoming term that will benefit the voting public. What are the party's ideas for improving the economy? Generating jobs? Anything? It's not enough to respond, "But the Republicans have no ideas". When people aren't happy with the status quo you don't need ideas as the opposition, because you'll naturally get the protest vote.

But there's not one single idea the Democrats can advance in anything but the cloudiest of terms without at least one of its Senators declaring, "No, I can't support that." This is more than a "big tent" problem - it's a problem of being beholden to special interests. The same thing is true in the House, but there it matters less because bills pass on a majority vote. In the Senate, a promised agenda can by stymied by a single Senator. Maybe the dissenters can be convinced to keep their mouths shut until after the election, although I doubt it. But what happens in the next election if every single item on the offered plan has been stymied with the active complicity of Democrats?

Tomasky appropriately comments,

It's just so incredibly lame. I'm close to thinking let 'em lose, serves 'em right. Then I see the Bedlam inmates running on the other side and I remember the stakes. But honestly.

Frankly, for the past two years we've seen the Democrats act like a party that wants to lose. (The problem extends beyond two years, but it's been manifest since President Obama took office and various Democrats have engaged in the systematic undermining of his agenda.) They're not acting like a party that's fit to govern. Tomasky motivates himself by contemplating what the Republicans might do with a legislative majority, but the enthusiasm gap can be explained in no small part by the fact that most voters are neither as attuned to the issues or as partisan as Tomasky. They see an ineffective Congress that is not willing to commit to anything, and... who wants to vote for that?

Update: Can I find a voice anywhere, excluding Democratic politicians and their employees, who believes this is a good idea for the Democratic Party? The operative word among the party's supporters seems to be "idiocy".

Update II: All this and the continued taxpayer financing of worthless degrees from crappy for-profit colleges?

Lieberman Has Never Cared About the Constitution

But he never shies away from the opportunity to be an opportunist. In that sense, I guess it makes sense that he's teaming up with Scott Brown who, more by accident than design, was handed the opportunity of a lifetime through the series of events leading up to his election, and whose sole present goal in life appears to be achieving reelection.

Just remember, when you hear Lieberman spouting populist nonsense about how we must shred one aspect of the constitution or another, he has a long history of contempt toward the Bill of Rights.

How to explain Lieberman? I'll refer you back to "Another Round of 'Stupid vs. Mendacious'".

The Age-Old Question

Does Congress act the way it does because its members are stupid, venal, or selfish?

As I see it, the problem is more institutional than individual. First, the manner in which we select and elect politicians in this country scares off many people (arguably most to nearly all) that we would most benefit from having as representatives. People who are drawn to political campaigning on a national scale - people who like the constant media attention and celebrity treatment, the parties and glad-handing, the power - are much more likely to be self-important, even narcissistic. Matt Bai writes,

Unlike our parents, who may have worked at the same firm or factory for 30 years, most of us these days fully expect to cycle through a succession of jobs during our professional lives. But a lot of lawmakers still cling to their seats at any cost to conscience or to constituency, as if it were the only job they could ever see themselves holding — even though, once they leave Congress, they can expect to field more offers and make more money than the average voter will see in a lifetime. It’s this outmoded sense of entitlement that lobbyists skillfully exploit.

I don't believe it's that most Members of Congress can't see themselves in other jobs. If they want another job they'll resign. I believe it's that they can't bear the thought of the rejection?

Consider the behavior of Joe Lieberman - who kept his job - or more topically, Eric Massa. Lashing out and snarling at the world over their psychic injuries, eager to inflict harm on anybody they perceive as having caused harm to them. Blind to the fact that responsibility for the harm they suffered lies with themselves, their own choices and their own actions.

Lobbyists not only offer resources that can help with reelection. They help politicians feel important - "Look at all these special interests who want to talk to me, who want my vote" - and as Nancy Scola observed, as part of their relationship, lobbyists can help a politician appear considerably smarter than he actually is. That doesn't mean that most politicians are stupid; in Congress, most have above average intelligence and some are way above average. But institutionally, being smarter than the next guy isn't much of a benefit. Trying to change the institution from inside? As the holder one vote? That's a recipe for frustration - and to ultimately being labeled as "ineffective". If you can rationalize accepting the status quo, perhaps even convincing yourself that it's for "the greater good", you'll likely be a lot happier and "more successful" as a member of either the House or Senate.

If They Cared....

And, as they don't, it's purely hypothetical.

If the Senate cared about passing relatively progressive bills, or advancing President Obama's agenda, there's a pretty obvious way to break through the Republican Party's childish obstructionism. Give them a choice of two bills:

1. A reasonable bill addressing the issue; and

2. A compromise bill that, should the other bill not pass, will be passed into law through reconciliation.

For example, in the context of healthcare reform, they could propose a reconciliation bill that simply expands Medicaid coverage for lower wage earners, and provides for a Medicare buy-in for anybody over 50 who wants or needs to do so. They won't even have to pander to Joe Lieberman or bribe Ben Nelson to get 51 votes for the reconciliation bill. If the Republicans don't play ball, the Dems can pass what will be a very understandable and ultimately popular reform - and it's really hard to imagine either party letting a Medicare buy-in expire given the demographic involved.

The problem is, that won't get them the pork they want. And how do you get fifty-one votes for a progressive bill if the trough is empty?

Similarly, the Dems could pull the same sort of ploy the Republicans used in relation to the filibuster - "Join us in doing X or we'll exercise 'the nuclear option'" - Doing X in this case could be as simple as "join us in a debate over filibuster reform that will end gridlock - or, via the (your) nuclear option, we'll just do away with the entire thing."

That's an even bigger problem. The powers that be - the Senate leaders - are able to insert huge amounts of pork into bills in the name of 'getting sixty votes', and with that supermajority requirement a Senator like Lieberman can assure himself of millions of dollars by insisting that progressive elements (supported by 59 of his colleages) be stripped, and a senator like Ben Nelson can similarly block a bill unless he is granted a windfall for his state.

Doing away with the filibuster would mean that much less pork, and so many fewer special interest dollars flowing directly and indirectly into their pockets. Unthinkable!

Um... Dana?

Dana Milbank warns that imposing any consequence on Joe Lieberman for what Dana describes as a career-long pattern of backstabbing his former party would put the Democrats on the same path as the Republicans have taken:

Republicans, who recently floated a purity test for GOP candidates, know where this road leads: to a 40-member minority in the Senate. If Democrats wish to remain the majority party, they should avoid the loyalty trap. Lieberman may be a monster, but he's their monster.

Um... Dana? Lieberman's not a member of the Democratic Party. He deliberately chose not to change his party affiliation after his reelection. He is talking about running in the next election as a Republican.

And you're way too smart to be making this argument - Lieberman has already been shown exceptional largesse. In history, how many politicians have been allowed to actively campaign for the opposition in a national election, giving a full-throated endorsement of the opposition party's leader, then face no meaningful consequence when their preferred candidate lost?

Also, it's not an ideological litmus test to insist that members of your party, or those who caucus with you, actually support your party and not threaten to filibuster its most important legislative initiatives. That's basic "party discipline". Why do you think we have political parties if you think that everything that comes after election is legitimately an every man for himself free-for-all?

You know, Dana, I agree with you on this: Lieberman has always been a self-serving, narcissistic wretch. But I think it's well past the time where it makes sense for the Democratic Party to stick with the devil they know. He certainly hasn't stuck with them.

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

I appreciate the push-back coming from the left on the gutting of the healthcare reform bill. It's a shame that the bill has been gradually stripped of elements that could constrain costs and increase competition due to the disgraceful conduct of certain members of both political parties. I don't have a great deal of sympathy for the idea that we should accept a bill full of table scraps as reform. But if the good outweighs the bad, passage of a seriously flawed bill is better than doing nothing. Howard Dean, the new public face of "the present bill is crap" movement, has made that point.

Michael Tomasky lists provisions that he believes will be in the final bill and asks why anybody on the left would oppose a bill that includes those provisions. If those provisions are all that are in the bill, he's right - the political left should embrace it as a starting point for reform. But add in poison pills, such as a mandate to buy overpriced, inferior insurance,¹ or various elements that can be exploited by employers to increase the cost of insurance beyond what their "less fit" employees are able to pay, and the calculus shifts. It's unreasonable to attack people for not seeing the benefits of a bill that has not been finalized, and with each passing day is stripped of provisions that would benefit significant numbers of Americans.

A word for those on the left who supported Hillary Clinton in the presidential campaign and have stated or implied since that time that she would be a better President, and use healthcare reform as an example, remind me again... which of the remaining reforms were passed into law during President Clinton's push for reform? That's right - none of them. Really, get off the idea that the President has magic powers that can make Senators with secure seats (that is, virtually all of them) fall in line.

For those who howl, "You should have used reconciliation" every time something negative happens in the legislative process, think about it. There are provisions in the current proposed legislation that could not be passed through reconciliation, even assuming the Senate had been willing to pursue that path - and it wasn't. So again, if there's enough good in this bill that it's worth passing, stop whining about how reconciliation would have been better, and start pressing for a follow-up bill that fixes this legislation's most serious problems (to the extent possible) by reconciliation. It's not as if we pass a bill and then the Earth stands still.

I'm with Paul Krugman in relation to the attacks on those who would favor passage of a flawed but helpful bill as being "just like the 'liberal hawks' who supported the Iraq war". Even if we assume that there were no good reasons to support a war in Iraq (and I for one thought the probable downside outweighed the possible upside), there's no meaningful parallel. It's a dubious tactic - poisoning the well. If you want to argue that people are wrong, fine, but if you can't do better than that - if you can't logically substantiate your analogy - what do you think you're accomplishing?

On the other hand, I disagree with Krugman that just because the passage of any healthcare reform seemed like an impossible dream after Bush's reelection, we should just the current bill by comparison to nothing. It's a profound disappointment that the Democratic Party, particularly a handful of shameless self-aggrandizers and opportunists in the Senate, have not worked hard to make this the best possible bill instead of being so self-absorbed, so dim-witted, and/or so in the pockets of industry that serious concessions had to be made from the outset and we continue to shed helpful provisions from an what has gradually become at best a mediocre bill. Robert Reich has a more accurate assessment, that "We are slouching toward health-care reform that's better than nothing but far worse than we had imagined it would be".

Frankly, the behavior of the Republican Party, from top to bottom, has been disgraceful. The party of "no" - no ideas, no cooperation, no cost savings... A handful of Republican Senators could, right now, come across the aisle with a set of serious cost-savings measures and, as long as they were willing to accept the majority of the terms of the present bill, could squeeze the obstructionists like Lieberman and Nelson out of the picture. Instead they obstruct and obfuscate, and openly hope that the bill fails because they anticipate that its failure will bring them political advantage. Screw the people. "The uninsured don't vote for us anyway".

To get a sense of the significance of even what's left of the reform bill, take a look at some Republican commentary on the subject. First, after pretending to be thoughtful, David Brooks gives his inevitable "thumbs down" - like the liberal critics of the bill, he doesn't need to see a final version of the legislation to know that he opposes it.

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.

So what do you think he and his party offer up as an alternative? One joke after another? The Republican Party presently offers little more than a head count: forty Senators, at least thirty-seven of whom (and arguably all of whom) are stuck in their "terrible twos".

But at least Brooks has enough self-respect not to pull this trick, Matthew Dowd begging us not to throw the Republican Party into the briar patch. Aw, shucks, it's always wonderful to have a Republican operative tell the Democratic Party, "Don't let your lying eyes or Michael Steele's lying words deceive you - if you pass healthcare reform, you'll only hurt yourselves." Wow. The only way that sort of caution might be more credible is if it were penned by Karl Rove or Bill Kristol. I mean, that would be convincing.

Come up with a health-care bill that draws real bipartisan support.

Remind me again, Dowd, what brilliant initiatives the Republican enfants terribles in the Senate have brought to negotiations for bipartisan reform? I mean, even if they didn't recognize the joke earlier, that zinger would push it over the top for pretty much everyone, no?
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1. I recognize the importance of a mandate to reform, but the quality of insurance available to the public must be at least adequate for that to be a fair requirement - there's potential that people will be forced to choose between paying a penalty or overpaying for garbage.

Speaking Truth When You Have Power

Recently, Senator Al Franken was given a rather blunt message that his actions in advocating for his anti-rape bill, he had crossed a line with Republican opponents of the bill.

In a chamber where relationship-building is seen as critical, some GOP senators question whether Franken’s handling of the amendment could damage his ability to work across the aisle.

You see, instead of smiling and saying, "They're representing their constituents," or at worst, "They're doing what they need to do to get reelected," Franken challenged the PR spin of opponents to the amendment on their merits. That simply isn't done.

Seriously, when a scandal breaks about a Senator or Member of Congress, how often do you think that the underlying material isn't common knowledge on Capitol Hill? When a Senator or Member of Congress goes on a TV or radio show and makes claims that are absurdly false or stupid, how often does one of his peers point that out rather than pretending that a serious point had been made? How often have you heard the "strange bedfellows"-type story - Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy were close friends. Bad behavior is kept under wraps because neither side would benefit from full disclosure of the personal foibles of their peers. And when somebody says something absurdly stupid or just plain false, that's supposed to be treated as a necessary act to represent the voters from their district and not as a particular act of venality.

Recall how mild rebukes from President Obama had Republicans seething in their seats, with Rep. Joe Wilson engaging in a childish breach of decorum (that make him the toast of the town with the childish wing of the Republican Party)? By the twisted logic of Wilson and, really, the Senate as a whole, the more serious offense appears to have been by President Obama. The truth? Irrelevant! How dare he come into Congress and suggest that, to oppose his agenda, any number of its elected members were flat-out lying? He should have respected that they were merely representing their constituents. Nancy Pelosi worked hard to prevent a censure. (Hardly atypical of how Congress enforces its ethics rules on its members.)

This type of "collegiality" doesn't just harm the public debate, it also blinds Senators to problems in their midst. Case in point, Joe Lieberman. Any number of his peers seem to be able to convince themselves that his public behavior is somehow divorced from what he will do when it's time to vote, that their past friendship means that he'll work with them. Many who know better refrain from speaking out, or speak only in the mildest of terms, apparently lest they damage their ability to work with their peers. There's no political price to pay within the institution in sitting quietly on your hands - or even for applauding - when a Trent Lott suggests that the nation would have been better off had Strom Thurmond's been elected President on his segregationist State’s Rights ticket in 1948. The damage comes when the public hears about the comment and creates an uproar - that's why the institutional demand on Senator Franken is "sit down and shut up".

When Senator Debbie Stabenow voted in favor of a constitutional amendment against "desecrating the flag", it would have been fair to comment, "She's doing what she needs to do to get elected." It wouldn't quite be the whole truth, mind you, as the Senior Senator from Michigan, Carl Levin, voted against it. The rest of the truth is that he's a lot more popular and effective than Stabenow, and is thus a lot more secure in his seat. But still, it would have been nice to see somebody display the courage of calling her out on the vote, as engaging in the worst form of pandering. I don't believe for a minute that she was "voting her conscience" on that one. In my opinion she knew the vote would fail, so she viewed it as an opportunity to try to build some credibility with those Michigan voters who support an anti-flag burning amendment. It would have been nice if somebody from among her Senate peers had called her out on that. No, it ain't gonna happen. And do I even need to mention the likes of Michelle freakin' Bachman?

The fact is, the brand of "collegiality" that is expected in Congress weakens it as an institution and as a legislative body. We don't need Senator Franken to "learn the rules, lest he be made an outcast" - we need a lot more senators like him, on both sides of the aisle.

"Fault" and the Death of the Public Option

There's no small amount of anger being directed at President Obama over the death of the public option, some form of national health insurance program to compete with private insurers. Take, for example, Glenn Greenwald,

Of all the posts I wrote this year, the one that produced the most vociferous email backlash -- easily -- was this one from August, which examined substantial evidence showing that, contrary to Obama's occasional public statements in support of a public option, the White House clearly intended from the start that the final health care reform bill would contain no such provision and was actively and privately participating in efforts to shape a final bill without it.

Greenwald then contends that Obama gave up the public option early, in order to buy off the insurance industry and perhaps to get it to financially support the Democratic Party.

I think Greenwald is correct in part - that President Obama has never viewed a public option as essential for healthcare reform. But what if he did? Obama could have twisted every arm in the Senate and he would not have come up with sixty votes, so why should he have wasted his energy on a doomed public option (and inevitably being accused of 'failing' by both the left-wing advocates of the public option and the entire Republican establishment when it didn't happen), when he could focus on things that could actually be achieved. Also, this appears to be misplaced anger - the public option died in the Senate some time ago. What Lieberman just killed off was part of a proposed compromise to advocates of a public option - the expansion of Medicare.

Greenwald alleges that the White House pressured freshmen Members of Congress on a war funding bill, linking to an article that notes that the White House denied the charge. But even accepting it as true, which of the Senators who were intent on killing the public option is a freshman? Which would shiver in his boots at the idea that "they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House" if they don't accede to the President? Sorry, but when you're scrambling for sixty votes every time an important issue comes up, and when you're dealing with Senators who don't need your help to get reelected, threats like that are apt to make you look silly and lose credibility.

Moreover, it does appear that President Obama has been doing his best to keep the party on track to pass a bill that he believes may work. He has also clearly embraced the principle of progress, not perfection. Think about it: A perfect healthcare reform bill would include provisions that have never even been on the table.

Joseph freakin' Lieberman - it's hard to think of a politician more deserving of being kicked to the curb by the White House, but reports are quite to the contrary - that up to now Obama has lobbied against any serious consequence to Lieberman because he supposedly can provide that sixtieth vote (that he somehow never seems to deliver when the need is critical). As much as I want to see Lieberman kicked to the curb, by all appearances he's such a petty, vindictive small-minded man that to do so now may well result in there never again being more than 59 Senate votes for healthcare reform - even the hobbled remnants Lieberman has deemed acceptable for debate (but still hasn't promised to support in a final vote).

Whose Victory Is It, Again?

While he's correct that passing a flawed healthcare reform bill is better than failing to act, Michael Tomasky opines,

No matter how frustrated or angry you are about what's not in this bill, is the proper response to that really to strike a posture that amounts to giving Republicans, who will never do anything to promote or even gesture toward universal healthcare when they have power, their biggest political win on Capitol Hill in at least six or seven and arguably in 15 years? That's just silly.

The Republican Party has been actively fighting universal healthcare for... what is it now... fifty years? Under the concept that if it passes it will prove popular, and will result in their becoming more like Britain's Conservative Party - able to attack Social Security and publicly funded healthcare at the margins, but largely stuck with a popular government-run system that they can neither destroy or defund. Hence we had David Frum fretting,

Instead of a healthcare reform to slow cost increases, Democrats in the Senate seem to be converging upon an expansion of Medicare to include age 55-64 year-olds and an expansion in Medicaid up to some higher multiple of the poverty limit. You might wonder why they didn’t do this before: expanding existing programs is always easier than creating new ones. So now instead of a new system that attempts to control costs, we’re just going to have a bigger and more expensive version of the old system, with a few tinkers around the edges. Republicans could have been architects of improvement, instead we made ourselves impotent spectators as things get radically worse. Plus – the bad new Democratic proposal will likely be less unpopular with voters than their more promising earlier proposal. Nice work everybody.

Medicaid is mentioned, but Frum's concern was about a popular, successful expansion of Medicare - something he apparently saw as worse than even a public plan. And while digging that up, what did I find? Frum's celebration of Joe Lieberman as the man who saved the Republican Party:

[The reform bill is] not good, but it’s not what we were threatened with two days ago. Thank you Joe Lieberman.

Whatever good comes to the Democratic Party from healthcare reform, the legislative victory was a Republican victory and, in a single flip-flop, it was delivered by Sen. Joseph Isadore Lieberman.

Another Round of "Stupid vs. Mendacious"

Way back in 2004, speaking of Lieberman's insipid attack on a video game, I commented,

... I've never cared for Lieberman. When he speaks about an issue, his comments usually betray a surprising lack of acumen - he doesn't seem to know the facts, nor does he seem to understand the issues. The alternative explanation is that he does know what he is talking about, but rather than advancing a sensible approach based on fact, logic, and law, he instead panders to the "family values" crowd, railing against immorality in a manner that, for somebody sworn to uphold the Constitution, is reckless and irresponsible.

Today we read,

In an interview with The Connecticut Post, he said he had been refining his views on health care for many years and was “very focused on a group post-50, or maybe more like post-55” whose members should be able to buy Medicare if they lacked insurance.

This week, when there actually seemed to be a compromise on health care that did not focus on Mr. Lieberman, he announced that he would block the package if the Democrats included a terrible idea — allowing people between 55 and 65 to buy Medicare.

He presented this as a principled effort to keep down federal debt, but when a Times reporter asked about his 180-degree turn, he said he had forgotten taking his earlier position until the Democratic leadership reminded him about it over the weekend.

Possible explanations:

1. Lack of acumen: Lieberman isn't capable of understanding the facts or issues, and his flip-flopping betrays a very weak mind.

2. Stupid: Despite truly believing he has spent years studying and learning about healthcare reform, with a particular focus on those who would most benefit from a Medicare buy-in, Lieberman can't keep track of the most basic of his own thoughts on the subject.

3. Mendacious: Lieberman 'forgot' his earlier stance the moment a health industry lobbyist contacted him and said "oppose it".

I recognize that there's a fine line between the first two possible explanations. Sadly, none of the explanations disqualify him from service as a U.S. Senator, and the third would arguably be "business as usual".

Joseph Lieberman, Worth Less than Worthless

Again, Joe Lieberman goes out of his way to impede the Democratic Party.

“You’ve got to take out the Medicare buy-in,” Mr. Lieberman said. “You’ve got to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the Class Act, which was a whole new entitlement program that will, in future years, put us further into deficit.”

Class Act refers to a federal insurance program for long-term care, known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act.

Mr. Lieberman said he would have “a hard time” voting for a bill with the Medicare buy-in.

“It has some of the same infirmities that the public option did,” he said. “It will add taxpayer costs. It will add to the deficit. It’s unnecessary. The basic bill, which has a lot of good things in it, provides a generous new system of subsidies for people between ages 55 and 65, and choice and competition.”

A vote that "gets you to sixty" is no good if he's always voting against you. Lieberman should be made to understand that it's a deciding moment - if he can't vote for healthcare reform he should be kicked to the curb - he wants to be a Republican, fine, he can caucus with them. Who needs the narcissistic psychodrama.

Update: This is about right.

Update II: Via TPM, Lieberman supported Medicare buy-ins before he opposed them, advocating the idea as long ago as 2000 and as recently as three months ago. Presumably, since that time, the insurance industry lobbyists for whom he carries water set him straight.

Update III: I hardly know what to say. Somebody's arguing with a straight face that Lieberman not only deserves the benefit of the doubt, but that it's a "venomous slam" to infer the obvious from his actions - something his defender concedes (with no other explanation offered) may be "a little pay back" against his former party or "shilling for his home state insurance interests"?

Update IV: Did you read the post on zombie arguments? Jonathan Chait argues that the problem is not so much that Lieberman is mendacious, as much as it is that he's not very smart.

If Senator Smith from Idaho was angering Democrats by spewing uninformed platitudes, most liberals would deride him as an idiot. With Lieberman, we all suspect it's part of a plan. I think he just has no idea what he's talking about and doesn't care to learn.

Perhaps, but a lot of the time politicians say stupid things it's because they see a benefit from doing so, not because they're (necessarily) stupid.

Update V: (Am I turning into Glenn Greenwald?) The New York Times shares the brilliant insight,

But Mr. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, is not the least troubled by his status as Capitol Hill’s master infuriator.

In fact, he could not be happier. He is right where he wants to be — at the center of the political aisle, the center of the Democrats’ efforts to win 60 votes for their sweeping health care legislation. In short, he is at the center of everything and he loves it.

You think that might be because he's a narcissist, getting lots of attention for his childish pay-back against his former party from a credulous media that, even by Chait's measure, makes him look smart? Incidentally, I see very few comments indicating anger at Lieberman - I see anger at those who let him play Lucy, time and time again pulling the football away from Charlie Brown without consequence. People, including Dems, want the Dems to grow a backbone. (And please, no protest from his fellows, "I've known him for years. He's my friend!" When was the last time he showed any loyalty to anybody other than John McCain (was it GW?) or gave any indication of interest in the views or concerns of his old friends?)

Update VI: Joe Biden chimes in with a platitude that seemingly builds off of "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity":

But Biden said "honest to god" he doesn't know what is up with Lieberman (I-CT), whose opposition to elements of the health care bill has put Democrats in a major jam. But he added he learned from his own senate service, "never question another man's motive, question his judgment."

Still, when you have somebody do things that appear malicious, time and time again, you do have to remember - some people truly are malicious.

I suspect that part of the problem is that Senators are remembering the Joe Lieberman they (thought they) knew before his narcissistic bubble was pierced - they can't believe he's changed. They're right - he hasn't changed a bit. Back then, Lieberman helped himself by helping them. Now he helps himself by hurting them.

Update VII:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The D.C.
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Liebermans for Lieberman, CT)

I'm still not sure why he hasn't been reminded not to let the door connect with his backside on his way out....¹

Update: "At Least Pretend You Know What You're Talking About, Lieberman."? Um... were that to happen, at least on a policy question, wouldn't it be a first?
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1. It has yet to be seen if Lieberman will fold like a cheap suit if in fact he is instructed that the cost of his joining a filibuster will be that he no longer heads any committees.

The Only Thing That Could Have Made It Better....

A speech by Spiro Agnew?

The New York Times dragged William Safire out of his rocking chair to give us... well, the same thing he's been giving us since the days when he penned those Agnew speeches. In Safire's analysis of the conventions, you'll be shocked to know, Lieberman was stellar and Emperor Obama had no clothes... as it turns out, because McCain stole them.

About the only member of the punditariat who agreed that this season’s emperor of oratory was short on clothes that night was David Broder of The Washington Post, who had the unfair advantage of being objective.

(You're not objective, after all, unless you agree with Safire.)

[I]n choosing an exciting new running mate even as Obama was splashing about in the news media adulation of his smoothly delivered acceptance extravaganza, McCain stiffly stole the clothes of change.

What, you thought I was making that part up? ;-)

What's this about?

Then the St. Paul convention was hit by Hurricane Sarah and her admirable family.

I must have missed something. Either that, or it's admirable for family members to simply show up at a convention?

Safire closes, scarily, with

We can hope that the winners in tomorrow’s alliteration wars will be the pleasant Pollyannas of positivism.

Let's hope that contribution to the "alliteration wars" doesn't stick....

When You're A Maverick, Everything's Mavericky!

The best thing about being a maverick is that everything you do is 100% mavericky. Take, for example, your choice of Vice President. Choose a male Orthodox Jew, pro-choice, supportive of gay civil unions, concerned about global warming, against drilling in ANWR, pro-gun control, tons of Washington experience... Not acceptable to your party? Then choose a female evangelical Christian pro-life extremist, opposed to civil unions and domestic partner benefits, unconcerned about global warming, in favor of drilling everywhere, anti-gun control, no Washington experience and no discernible interest in national or international affairs.... And you're still a maverick. The fact that you can flip-flop like that only goes to prove how exceptionally mavericky you are.

It's good to be a maverick.