Pufferfish

Palin's Payback

There's actually a method to her pathology:

In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign that plucked her out of Alaska, anointed her the Republican vice-presidential nominee and made her one of the most talked about women on the planet — someone who could command a reported $5 million for writing this book. In what reads like payback for McCain aides’ disparaging comments about her in the wake of the ticket’s loss to Barack Obama, Ms. Palin depicts the McCain campaign as overscripted, defeatist, disorganized and dunder-headed — slow to shift focus from the Iraq war to the cratering economy, insufficiently tough on Mr. Obama and contradictory in its media strategy.

Palin is trying to distance herself from a losing campaign and a candidate the base never cared for. But that doesn't explain why she feels the need to rub McCain's nose in it by sending him a personalized Fuck You.

Hannity's Apology

I was initially bothered most by the smugness. But let's not overlook that he felt compelled to lie about a lie:

I have been working in television for the past 15 years [...]

For footage from a different event that took place months earlier to find its way into an entirely new piece, well, someone had to: 1) make the decision to lie in the first place (and lets be clear, it IS a lie), 2) locate the old footage, 3) cut the footage into the new piece, 4) a producer or the like had to approve the clip for air.

Yes, accidents can happen. But I guarantee you someone on his show said, "Man, we need to make those crowds look bigger" (don't get me started on the ethical quagmire of that decision) and a writer, producer or editor said, "I know, we can use some stuff from Glenn's rally. No one will ever notice."

Spinning words and slanting the merits of a policy debate to fit a preconceived narrative are expected with Fox. But the network should at least be willing to stipulate to reality and whatever tiny shred of journalistic integrity the coterie of "journalists" can scrap together when it comes to accurately reporting the videoed evidence of a public event. Unsurprisingly, even that is asking too much.

Great Moments In Punditry

Broder:

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision -- whether or not it is right.

More incredible, that brain-numbing stupidity isn't isolated. It's the entire thrust of the Republican argument. And it boils down to this: What Would George W. Bush Do?

All The Right Moves

After a year of replaying the exchange over and over, Palin decided on what she should have said during the Couric interview:

Palin, who received an advance of at least $1.25 million, saves her strongest words for run-ins with McCain staffers and her widely panned interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric.

She describes Couric as condescending, biased and “badgering.” She contends the anchor chose “gotcha” moments while leaving the candidate’s more substantive remarks on the cutting room floor. [...]

Palin takes another dig at Couric while asserting her expertise on energy matters. She writes that she was shocked Couric had asked her which newspapers and magazines she read; given what she called Couric’s lack of knowledge about energy issues, Palin wondered whether she should have asked the news anchor what she read.

Something tells me Couric would have had a better answer than "Um, all of them."

Cost

For those who like things simple:

Over 10 years, the first bill would spend $1 trillion and recover $1.11 trillion - a fantastic return on taxpayer investment.

It's rather phenomenal that despite all the gum flapping and lobbyist sponsored wingnut group therapy sessions in town halls across the country, that this singular point can't break through. The more progressive the health care bill, the more we save. And yet somehow an ideological grifter like Joe Lieberman is able to say he opposes the public plan because of cost concerns without immediately having a bar of soap shoved in his mouth for lying. Blame Democrats for not making this point more clearly. Blame journalists for being ignorant. Blame Republicans for being profligate assholes. Whatever the reason, the narrative couldn't be more wrong.

Detachment

Politico addresses the bad politics of continuing to let defense contractors shield rapists from criminal prosecution:

Privately, GOP sources acknowledge that they failed to anticipate the political consequences of a “no” vote on the amendment. And several aides said that Republicans are engaged in an internal blame game about why they agreed to a roll-call vote on the measure, rather than a simple voice vote that would have allowed the opposing senators to duck criticism. [...]

“I think the whole purpose of that amendment in my opinion was to create a vote which they could use to attack Republicans,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who was himself confronted by a liberal blogger with a video camera questioning his vote.

Remember, it's the GOP that's the victim here. I wonder if that quote sounded differently inside Thune's tiny brain.

Go Rogue

Sarah Palin fanboy Mathew Continneti sees a path to the White House:

It means addressing voter concern that big government and big business are in cahoots, heaping expensive burdens on small businesses and individual entrepreneurs.

With both parties busily humping the leg of Wall St. I'd enjoy nothing more than to see Palin wage a campaign built on hillbilly populism. Tab Lou Dobbs for VP and Glenn Beck as communications director and look out. For too long social conservatives and economic elites have co-existed within party ranks because a natural order was maintained. Palin, if she continues with her Mayberry Machiavelli shtick, threatens that order. The GOP as we know it would fracture.

Where All News Is Bad News

James Wolcott is watching Fox Business so you don't have to:

Mind you, I'm agnostic on the stock market bounceback. Whether it's a true bull or a bull run within a secular bear is for history to determine. So far it's restored my portfolio nicely after the death spiral of 2008, but I'm not whistling down the street and ignoring the warning signs; I read John P. Hussman every week, and I'm resisting pouring new money into stock funds (and not just because I don't have that much to pour as we enter the holiday season). But I also know that if it were a Republican president in the White House and the Dow was hitting such highs the same week of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the hosts and panelists at Fox would be waving little American flags celebrating the market boom as a fitting toast for the triumph of Western capitalism over communism and a rebuke to naysayers and doubters with souls so gray and faith so brittle.

What's truly bizarre are the political pundits brought on to pose as sage money men. Dick Morris, Jon "fuck diplomacy" Bolton and Ann Coulter can be found regularly telling viewers to ignore their returns and sell, sell, sell. Imagine the E! channel starting a Wall St. network with Miley Cyrus breaking down stock quotes for Disney. It's like they're not even trying.

Thinking Is Good

Sullivan on President Obama rejecting the war options for Afghanistan:

Instead of engaging in adolescent tests of whether a president is "tough" or "weak", we actually have an adult prepared to allow the various choices in front of us be fully explored.

Predictably, the rump of Cheney apologists remaining in the GOP have jumped past the merits of staying or going in Afghanistan and gone into spin mode that any aversion to war, no matter the circumstance, demonstrates a dereliction of duty as commander in chief and leads to the inevitable conclusion that Obama is weak, unpatriotic and sacrificing the sacrifices that have already been made. It shows just how hawkish the expectations game is that the war generals of St. Ronnie of Reagan are advising Obama to slow down. Instead of hyperventilating over how quickly we can up the headcount, I'd like to hear the pro-war crowd explain the mission. 

Don't Act Surprised

Something tells me there are women working at the RNC happy in the knowledge that Michael Steele can't tell them what to do with their uterus:

The Republican National Committee’s health insurance plan covers elective abortion – a procedure the party’s own platform calls “a fundamental assault on innocent human life.”

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.[...]

Cigna spokesman Chris Curran declined to discuss the specifics of the RNC’s plan, saying it’s against company policy to reveal even the identities of its insured. But he said that Cigna’s products “are designed to meet the requirements of our individual employer clients. Employer clients are informed of the services covered and it is their choice to decide which benefits meet their needs.”

Thanks A Lot, Asshole

As only the Onion can report:

FORT HOOD, TX—Following Army psychologist Nidal Malik Hasan's shooting rampage on the Fort Hood military base last week that left 13 people dead and 30 others injured, fellow Muslims across the nation sent him a message today, saying "thanks a fucking bunch, asshole," to the 39-year-old killer. "Hey, great, eight years of progress right down the shitter," St. Cloud, MN resident Zahida Naseem said at one of dozens of impromptu rallies held nationwide. "And you just had to scream 'Allahu Akbar' while you did it, didn't you? May as well have put on a turban and rode a fucking camel right through the army base, you dick. Thanks for making the foreseeable future a living hell for normal, peace-loving Muslims in this country. Really appreciate it!"

Truth, Fiction and Lou Dobbs

I have no doubt Fox News producers will be interested in acquiring this kind of talent:

“The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans,” Mr. Dobbs said on his April 14, 2005, program. From there, he introduced his original report that mentioned leprosy, the flesh-destroying disease — technically known as Hansen’s disease — that has inspired fear for centuries.

According to a woman CNN identified as a medical lawyer named Dr. Madeleine Cosman, leprosy was on the march. As Ms. Romans, the CNN correspondent, relayed: “There were about 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years.”[...]

To sort through all this, I called James L. Krahenbuhl, the director of the National Hansen’s Disease Program, an arm of the federal government. Leprosy in the United States is indeed largely a disease of immigrants who have come from Asia and Latin America. And the official leprosy statistics do show about 7,000 diagnosed cases — but that’s over the last 30 years, not the last three.

The most common complaint about Dobbs is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. And too often that editorializing is ugly and nativist. But this misses the actual problem, which is that Dobbs often mixes opinion and fantasy.

Also, too:

GOP Civil War Update

The guy who rode shotgun on the Straight Talk Express isn't safe. Because Lindsay Graham has the temerity to work with Democrats on a climate change bill, South Carolina Republicans decided to censure him and stated bipartisanship is little more than a subversive plot to "weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom, rule of law, and fiscal conservatism." That's right, GOP branding comes before freedom:

South Carolina Republicans are sui generis: Whether it's Sen. Jim "healthcare will be Obama's Waterloo" DeMint or Rep. Joe "You Lie!" Wilson or Gov. Mark "no stimulus for me" Sanford, they rarely disappoint. One would expect no less from the first state to secede from the United States after Lincoln's election and the first state where shots were fired in the Civil War. Racist tweets and jokes about Michelle Obama and escaped gorillas? Also easily explainable: In 1860, there were three slaves for every free person in South Carolina -- only Mississippi could compare. It's a legacy that's apparently pretty hard to shake.

A Random Number All Over Again

Recall that during the stimulus debate, the Obama administration decided to go with a bill that cost less than $1 trillion to avoid sticker shock, despite the advice from many economists recommending more spending. It would seem the same happened with health care reform when Obama announced during his address to Congress that he wanted reform to cost no more than $900 billion. The problem is that the more you spend the better the product. And it's not only a matter of arbitrarily doing reform on the cheap, but negotiating against yourself:

But once that number entered the process, it began guiding the process. Sources on the Hill aren't really clear how the sum transformed from an estimate of the president's plan to a hard limit for their plan. Few recall that the original language included the qualifier "around." Even so, the number stuck. It strengthened the hand of moderates in both chambers and allowed them to create a ceiling. It also seemed clear that if the White House was comfortable with $900 billion, then it wasn't going to fight to protect the spending in any bill that exceeded that cap, so there was no point in the liberals bothering to push the issue.

The problem is that the number, which was chosen at a point of political weakness for health-care reform and the Obama administration, is too low. Most experts think you need closer to $1.1 trillion for a truly affordable plan.[...]

But to the detriment of the bill, it has become a hard ceiling, reducing both the potential affordability of the legislation and the flexibility of Congress to add delivery system reforms that could save money or improve health in the long run.

God And Country

While Rod Dreher warbles on about Christian devotion to God over country and beats the drum for a holy war, Daniel Larison calmly makes a point that seems to escape conservatives:

Americanists who want to continue bludgeoning and bombing other countries cannot expect the immigrant populations they so happily welcome to remain indifferent to what is being done to their home countries or co-religionists. To the extent that the Americanism to which they expect immigrants to assimilate involves unnecessary and aggressive wars against other nations, it is the hawkish Americanists who are contributing to the erosion of national unity even as they squawk about the need for assimilation and it is they who are putting the loyalties of new Americans to the test.

Of course, it's the hawks who would say the only unity worth preserving is one in their own image.

Reforming The Senate

Because of Senate rules, our democracy is under the tyranny of the minority. Hill types of either party will happily wax on about decorum and democracy in action and quaint traditions, but this is little more than self-serving bullshit meant to reverentially protect a legislative body that has devolved into a hyper-partisan morass of Uber self-importance. The status quo of a 60 vote majority makes taking on big problems unnecessarily difficult while placing power in the hands of people and not popular ideas. Steven Pearlstein has a dream:

So at the risk of sounding naive, I'd like to offer a novel idea for changing the legislative dynamic, restoring majority rule to the legislative process and keeping health reform alive: Debate it on the Senate floor.

That's right, forget about spending another six weeks searching for those elusive 60 votes to break a filibuster, going back and forth with weak-kneed centrists like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu who can't seem to decide what they really want, or self-righteous egotists like Joe Lieberman, who thinks he can call all the shots. If they have suggestions for improving the bill, let them do it the old-fashioned way: propose an amendment on the floor and see if they can get 49 other senators to agree.

This would be representative democracy in its truest form. Which is why it will never happen.

Follow The Bishops

I wasn't aware the United States Council of Catholic Bishops had registered as lobbyists:

The drama had built for months, pitting a group of Democrats against the Catholic Church. Priests and bishops were calling members to lobby for stricter language to limit abortion coverage, members and aides said last week.[...]

Since mid-September, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had been working closely with Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.) to craft language that would thread what proved to be an impossible needle.

Ellsworth, in consultation with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was trying to amend legislation passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee to make sure insurance companies that receive federal funds under the programs created by the bill don’t use any of that money to pay for abortions.

By Thursday, Ellsworth, who was working closely with Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) realized the church wouldn’t accept anything less than a version of Hyde, so he and his staff started working on a version the bishops could accept, aides said.

Ellsworth reached out to Stupak on Thursday, and Friday evening they met with Pelosi, Hoyer and Rep. Henry Waxman, at which point the group agreed to include much stricter language than most thought they would.

Talk about church influencing state. Cardinal Richelieu would be proud. Here we have a tax-exempt organization weighing in on the specific language in legislation so that it can ultimately restrict the use of tax dollars on a procedure it opposes. I don't want to get bogged down in a debate over the need to separate church and state, although clearly this is crossing a bright line. But what I really don't need is the anti-choice crowd preaching that their tax dollars shouldn't go to a program they don't like. Our tax system isn't a la carte. And as best I can tell, abortion is still legal. For now.

Perspective

It's important to remember where you came from:

The funny thing about all of this is that no matter how bad all their ideas are, no matter how disastrous their governance has been, no matter how many horrible things they have done to the economy and this country, what really is killing the Republican party is that deep down, they are just complete assholes. You see it in the way they treat women, you see it in the way they treat minorities, you see it in the way they treat homosexuals, you see it in the way they treat anyone who is not a white Christian, and you see it in the way they treat anyone who disagrees with them slightly about anything. They just have no respect for anyone, and it shows. People don’t like to be treated like crap, and grown-ups don’t want to be associated with people who yell “You lie” or scream “socialism” or “Hitler” or accuse you of being a terrorist whenever they don’t get their way. [...]

You can’t help but notice that they are just loudmouthed jerks, stubborn bully boys, and insensitive and insecure cads. James Wolcott once wrote that Eric Cantor looked like the “pricky proprietor of the Jerk Store,” and that could be applied to the majority of the prominent Republicans out there. I guess that should be suspected from a movement in which the only thoughts are “Fuck you, I got mine.”

Time To Pull A Specter

With a new poll out showing Olympia Snowe would get crushed in a primary by a conservative challenger, it might be time to give an assist on health care reform before switching parties:

I don’t know whether these results are “surprising” or not, but I think they ought to change our understanding of the prospects of bipartisanship in health reform. This means that when you’re thinking about whether Snowe will support a bill or not, the issue ultimately comes down to not triggers versus non-triggers, or employer mandates versus free rider fees, but whether Snowe wants to remain a Republican or not. Based on this polling, a Snowe who votes for a comprehensive health care overhaul is basically not going to be viable as a GOP primary candidate. Conversely, a Snowe who votes for comprehensive health reform and switches parties would remain a very popular general election candidate with a safe seat.

With the Stupak amendment closing a door to reform, it looks like the GOP base in Maine could open a window.

They Don't Just Hate Us For Our Freedom

The New York Times is reporting that in the aftermath of the 2007 Nisour Square massacre by Blackwater operatives, top company officials "authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support." Seventeen people were killed and more than 20 wounded in the shooting. Despite the Iraqi government announcing it would ban the company from Iraq, Blackwater never left. Now we know why the army-for-profit was able to stay:

Blackwater and the US State Department had a mutual interest in keeping the company in Iraq. The company provided the elite bodyguards for occupation officials and when Blackwater stopped work for three days after Nisour Square, those officials could not leave their fortress in the Green Zone. For Blackwater, the contract meant big money--more than $1 billion. In the aftermath of Nisour Square, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other officials basically read the riot act to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Blackwater was back to business in Iraq on the fourth day after the massacre and remains in the country.[...]

While the Bush administration certainly protected Blackwater after Nisour Square, part of the reason for the alleged or attempted bribes may be this: As the US and Iraq negotiated the Status of Forces Agreement and the Iraqi government attempted to impose more authority over private military companies, the stakes got higher for Blackwater. An official license to operate in Iraq, which Blackwater did not have and long believed was an unnecessary formality, became crucial for Blackwater in order to continue on as the State Department's prime contractor.

Was It Terrorism?

Glenn Greenwald questions whether the attack at Ft. Hood was terrorism:

If one accepts that broadened definition of "terrorism" -- that it includes violence that targets not only civilians but also combatants who are unarmed or not engaged in combat at the time of the attack -- it seems impossible to exclude from that term many of the acts in which the U.S. and our allies routinely engage. Indeed, a large part of our "war" strategy is to kill people we deem to be "terrorists" or "combatants" without regard to whether they're armed or engaged in hostilities at the moment we kill them. Isn't that exactly what we do when we use drone attacks in Pakistan? [...]

It's likely that there will always be a lack of clarity about exactly what motivated Hasan -- some combination of mental instability, religious fervor and political conviction -- but, regardless of motive, the only way to define an attack on soldiers as an act of "terrorism" is to indict ourselves in the same way.

The "goodness" of one side against another doesn't matter much in the laws of war. Either way, I suppose I'm less interested in whether Hasan committed "terrorism" than I am in what right-wing ideologues want to do with the label. As Matt Duss put it: "the definition of terrorism is not 'any violence by any Muslim anywhere at any time for any reason'." Unfortunately, that was the working definition used by the Bush administration since 9-11: picture for a moment the breathless press conferences and raised terrorism Amber alerts had the attack happened at this time last year.

Emblematic of neo-conservative attempts to portray Islam as violent, today David Brooks inarticulately stated in his column that the "struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy." This is wrong. The struggle is against Islamofascism. Just as the violence committed by anti-choice activist Scott Roeder when assassinating Dr. George Tiller did not stem from Christianity, but from Christianism. They are both a radical, political perversion of religion. Sadly, a writer of Brooks' caliber knows exactly what he is doing.

Sticking Points

When I said earlier that health care could be undone by the Stupak amendment it was a nod to moderates having found a convenient scapegoat:

I think if the Democrats are scared to pass the health bill they will let an abortion dispute derail the massive health bill. If they aren't too scared, the abortion issue can be finessed with a variety of possible compromises.

Here's how failure could work:

Like say Ben Nelson and Bob Casey say they can’t vote for health care unless it contains Stupak language, and then Joe Lieberman (Freedom of Choice Act cosponsor!) and Olympia Snowe say they can’t vote for health care unless it doesn't contain Stupak language. Well, then health care dies. And yet nobody has to take the blame for having killed it.

Post Of The Day

"What wakes liberal writers up at night -- I mean that eye-snap of soul-gnawing, nauseating dread -- is not social injustice, is not the fear of creeping fascism, is not rage against corporate greed ... It is the haunting certainty that Jonah Goldberg will die happily in his sleep without ever comprehending that he's an idiot." - Kung Fu Monkey.

Stupak Amendment

If liberals in the House are to be taken at their word, then health care reform has never been in greater danger. There is now a clear path to destroying the legislation. The 41 Democrats pledging to vote against reform if Stupak's abortion amendment remains have very little, if any, leverage. They're negotiating against an opposition that would just assume the bill doesn't pass or, at best, is looking to exact a pound of flesh on a high-profile issue. That doesn't make for great odds at success. And those odds are even worse in the Senate should liberals stage an uprising, where due to arcane rules, Harry Reid must convince 60 colleagues to vote for cloture and bring the bill to the floor. Nancy Pelosi succeeded in passing the House's legislation with 50.5 percent of the vote.

There's been debate over just how much of an impact the Stupak amendment will have, with some mealy-mouthed white men pointing to the fact that only 13 percent of women who have an abortion bill their insurance companies directly. But that ignores the far larger, less defined percentage of women who pay for the procedure out of pocket and are later reimbursed. The amendment will also punish women whose unexpected health conditions require hospitalization in order for a safe abortion to be performed. But this isn't merely an abortion issue, it's also a class issue. The Stupak amendment prevents any insurance plan that is purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions. More importantly, it doesn't touch the $250 billion the government spends each year making employer-sponsored health-care insurance tax-free:

That money, however, subsidizes the insurance of 157 million Americans, many of them quite affluent. Imagine if Stupak had attempted to expand his amendment to their coverage. It would, after all, have been the same principle: Federal policy should not subsidize insurance that offers abortion coverage. But it would have failed in an instant. That group is too large, and too affluent, and too politically powerful for Congress to dare to touch their access to reproductive services. But the poorer women who will be using subsidies on the exchange proved a much easier target. In substance, this amendment was as much about class as it was about choice.

The inverse is also true. Pelosi caved and made the deal for the same reason: Poor people are politically expendable. The result is an ugly horse-trade: if liberals want their precious health care reform then moderate Dems are going to try and extract a high-profile concession they can flog on the campaign trail next year. And nothing is of a higher-profile than an abortion defeat.

Hard-Liners Of The World Unite

David Ignatius notes today that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being criticized by his country's "hard-liners" for supporting a deal with the U.S. involving the nuclear issue:

It's a measure of the political turmoil in Tehran that the chief proponent of engagement with the United States over the past month has been the hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has been attacked for his supposed willingness to make concessions to the West, including by some of the "green movement" reformers who defied him in the June presidential election. [...]

Rather than speak up for dialogue with the United States, many of the reformists gathered around former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi decided instead to score political points against Ahmadinejad.

Irony of ironies, it seems that Iranian politicians enjoy "exploiting foreign threats for domestic political gain" just as politicians in this country do. And as the Green movement busily stirs up anti-American sentiment, it's a reminder that foreign policy with Iran is just a bit more complicated than "being on the right side of freedom," as John McCain would say.