Counter-Productive Charges of Racism

Regarding the accusations that the strong opposition to Obama is based in racism, I've got a big question: Whether or not this is true, what's the point?  Where's the strategy here, exactly?  Is it that we're trying to influence people into supporting Obama's agenda by making them think that it'll repudiate the racists?  Is that the plan?  Or do we imagine that these accusations will make Obama's critics stop criticizing him?  Is that it?

I mean, if there's some wise strategy here, I'd like it explained to me, because I'm just not getting it.  And from my viewpoint, this is a BIG LOSER for us.  Because Republicans and the media don't WANT a substantive debate on healthcare reform.  It bores the media and Republicans know they'll lose that debate. So they both want a really personal debate full of insults and smears, and this "Obama's critics are racist" debate is right up their alley.  And rather than discussing the merits of Obama's proposal, the Republicans gleefully attack us for "playing the race card" and insist that we're unfairly smearing all "real" Americans; while the media has fun describing the mud fight that ensues.

And that's exactly what we're getting.  Jimmy Carter could cure cancer and the media couldn't care less, but if he mentions that Republicans are racist, it's frontpage news.  Similarly, as Carpetbagger points out, Obama is making an aggressive push on healthcare reform, yet the media is entirely focused on his statement that he doesn't think these accusations are true.  So instead of pushing his agenda on healthcare reform, he's stuck refuting a dumbass comment that Carter made.

And just as a reminder, Carter said that Joe Wilson's "You Lie" comment was proof that people hate Obama because he's black.  Because yeah, Republicans never accused Clinton of lying or, ya know, impeach him for it.  And is it possible that Carter doesn't realize how widely despised he is among conservatives?  It's not just black presidents from Illinois they hate.  They hate southern white presidents too...if they're Democrats.

Obama Gets It

And why is Obama saying that he doesn't think this is racism?  To hear some liberals tell it, it's because he screwed up and decided to not go there; and this gives conservatives free reign to be as racist as they want to be.  And these libs inexplicably believe that this is a winning hand for Republicans, for reasons I can't possibly fathom.

I mean, if racist attacks on Obama are good enough to sink healthcare reform with people who would otherwise support it, this country is screwed up far more than anything Obama can do.  Sure, racist attacks will work on racists, but uh, we weren't going to get the racists anyway.  And everyone else will be offended by them, whether or not Obama labels them racist.  But all the same, these libs insist that Obama is the only one who can stop these attacks, and is too wimpy to do so.

But that's not it all.  Whether or not Obama thinks his opponents are racist, he won't say it because he gets it.  He understands that if he accuses his opponents of racism, that's all the debate is going to be about.  Once he opens that can of worms, that'll be the only can he's allowed to open.  And even when he refuses to play along, he's still besieged with questions on racist attacks and it's all the media wants to report.

And while they gleefully report that Obama rejected such accusations, they'd be even happier if he supported them.  They don't want to report the news; they want a bloodbath.  They want a knockdown, drag-out, no-holds barred fistfight and nothing does that better than a good old fashioned race war.  That'd really give them something to talk about when they get drunk after work.

Making it Personal

And while Obama is wise enough to avoid that mess, some liberals continue to knock him for that perceived error.  But I'm fairly sure that this is because they're also not particularly interested in policy debates.  They also enjoy a knockdown, drag-out fight; and for as much as they take strong policy positions, it's because it makes their political attacks easier.  They support an immediate switch to a single-payer plan, not because it's the best idea (I don't think it is), but because it's the strongest position which would ensure the biggest fight.  Worst of all, they really don't care about winning policy debates (in fact, they generally dismiss the very idea that such victories are possible); they just want to attack their opponents.

And they'll attack anyone who suggests otherwise as being a weak-kneed sellout who won't take the fight to the Republicans.  Because, deep down, that's all they really want.  And so they'll continue to knock Obama for not joining them in smearing conservatives as racists, not because they have some grand strategy in doing so, but because it makes them feel better to call their opponents racist.  And rather than seeing any strategy in Obama's move not to (because strategy isn't anything they're interested in), they'll see his denials as being more of the same weak-kneed appeasement they see in everything he does.   And if you defend him in this way, then you're a sellout apologist for Obama.

And hey, if I'm wrong, feel free to explain this strategy to me.  I'd love to hear how a race war will improve our chances of getting healthcare reform.  But again, I can't imagine how that could possibly work.  Liberals have the advantage when we can make substantive policy debates, while Republicans have the advantage when we have personal mudfights.  Not that we win every policy debate or lose every mudfight; merely that, in the grand scheme of things, liberalism is about the issues while conservativism is about fighting.  And if we go toe-to-toe with them on every battle, even if we win that fight, we lose the debate.

And so while we shouldn't ignore the attacks on us, we shouldn't make the debate about the attacks; and a debate on race will most assuredly suck all the air out of any other debate.  So far, Obama has been quite deft in remembering this.

Redstate: Obama Lied, No One Died

The dopes at RedState are definitely my favorite conservatives.  While some conservatives are just badly informed because they only have a cursory interest in learning the truth, the RedStaters have it as their mission to really know what they're talking about.  And as such, they're filthy fucking liars who have to engage in copious amounts of self-deception on a daily basis to continue to believe what they believe.

But of course, labeling someone a "liar" is difficult, as it's hard to know what someone truly believes.  But self-deception is still lying, and there are definitely a few tells which give it away.  And one of those tells is when someone repeatedly makes an aggressive claim which they insist is true, but when a better claim arrives, they latch onto the new story and say "See?  I was right after all!"

And so it is with their support of Joe "You Lie" Wilson.  While I'm sure there are lots of folks in Limbaughland who truly believe that Wilson was right, the RedStaters know it's not true.  Deep down, anyway.  And you can see the self-deception in this post defending Wilson, in which they have to confuse the issue by pretending as if allowing illegal immigrants to purchase their own insurance is the same as taxpayers funding it.  From reading that post, you'd think these were the same thing, and all their commenters are on-board with that too.  And instead, they act like it's a no-brainer that doctors should force people to prove citizenship before they can be treated, and use the lack of this provision as proof that Obama lied.

And hell, if illegals using our emergency rooms without paying is a huge problem for us (and conservatives insist that it's one of our biggest problems), then why wouldn't we want them to buy their own insurance?  This makes no sense.  But we're talking RedState here, so it doesn't need to make sense.  It just has to hate liberals.

They Got Proof

But all the same, they firmly wanted to believe that Wilson was right and Obama was lying, so they repeated the claim all the same.  But now (ah ha!) they have proof that he really was lying.  You see, Obama told a story about a guy who had his insurance rescinded because he had an unrelated gallstone that he hadn't known about, and that he died for lack of insurance.  And this is a story that had been reported in the media.

But (ah ha!) the guy hadn't died.  His sister fought the recission and got the Illinois Attorney General involved and the insurer ended up reinstating his insurance three weeks later, after the Attorney General sent them a nasty letter.  And this leads to Erick Erickson's gloating post:
Barack Obama Did Lie in His Speech: He Got the Facts Wrong In His Tear Jerker Story.

See?  Because Obama's speech contained an error that had been reported in the media without correction, he's a "liar."  Erickson's got the proof.  Joe Wilson was right, even if he was wrong about his specific claim.  And yes, a president is now "lying" if he doesn't have his people fact check every anecdote that they read in the media.  I wonder if this is the same standard for lying they use when they declare that Bush didn't lie about WMD's in Iraq.  I'm sure it is.

Erickson Lies!

Oh, and just so you know, nowhere in Erickson's post does he mention that Obama was repeating a story that had been reported in the media, or mention that the insurer had rescinded the guy's policy.  In fact, he lied to his readers by pretending that the entire story was false.  I quote:

There’s just one problem. The story Obama told is not true.

Obama aides say the president got the essence of the story correct. Mr. Raddatz was dropped from his insurance plan weeks before a scheduled stem-cell transplant.

Except not really. Mr. Raddatz’s sister testified before Congress that Mr. Raddatz got a life saving treatment that extended his life for three years. And the insurance company covered it.

Except...not really.  Raddatz really WAS dropped from his insurance plan weeks before his stem-cell transplant, and it was only because his sister got the Attorney General to complain to the insurer that "the insurance company covered it." 

In other words, YOU LIE!, Erick Erickson.  And that's the funniest part: This guy's life was extended for three years due to government intervention, while Erickson misleads his readers into believing that it wasn't necessary because the insurer hadn't tried to screw this guy out of coverage.  Perhaps Erickson thinks it's cool to spend three hectic weeks fighting your insurance company to stay alive, but I doubt he'd feel the same way if it were him.

And just to be clear, all this is in the article he quoted from, so he definitely knew about it.  But he had to leave it out because it ruined his story.  Erickson even mocks the Whitehouse's claim that they "got the essence of the story correct," without noting that they did get it right. The point of the story wasn't the death, but the rescission; whereas the death of the man accentuates the story by making it more powerful.  But Erickson can't mention any of that, as it would ruin his point.  So he's sticking with his new "You Lie" claim; at least until a better lie comes along.

And yes, he derisively referred to this story as a "tear jerker" in the title, as well as in the post.  Lovely people, conservatives.

A Principled Opponent of SAFRA

I mentioned Cato's Neal McCluskey earlier, who thinks the biggest problem with higher education is that too many people are getting one. But I wanted to highlight one big difference between him and other Republicans: He actually understood that the subsidies we were giving to banks for student loans was a bad thing.

And I'll admit, I was disappointed by this, as I went to him hoping he would give me some juicy quotes I could use regarding the inability conservatives have in understanding what "free markets" are.  Apparently, some conservatives do understand.  As he explained in nerdspeak, "guaranteed lending is about as close to a free market as a biplane is to the Starship Enterprise."

But all the same, McCluskey hated SAFRA.  Why?  Because it means more students will receive more money to go to college.  Not just more loan money at better interest rates, but free money, as in the Pell Grant kind.  And that's the worst type of money to a conservative.

As McCluskey explained:

So SAFRA's major problem isn't that it would kill guaranteed lending. It's that it would replace it with federal direct lending--which currently amounts to about a quarter of FFEL's size--and completely cut out private capital markets, making Uncle Sam your sole choice of lender. With the government acting as lender, there is no reason for economic realities to constrain student loans.

You know, economic realities like having a bank gouge you with high interest rates.  That'll keep those a-hole borrowers in line.  But of course, banks aren't actually being cut out of student loans; they just won't have their profits and principal guaranteed anymore.  But they'll still be able to make loans, if they think there's a market for it.

But McCluskey believes that, without the government handouts, these banks will "have to shutter their non-government arms."  That's right.  A conservative just argued that it's ok for us to throw away $8 billion a year in taxpayer dollars so that private companies will keep their tiny non-government loans available, which are so insignificant that the banks wouldn't even bother if they weren't doing the subsidized kind.  Call me crazy, but I think this guy is reaching for straws.

Big Government Sux

But McCluskey's biggest outrage isn't that the government is saving money.  No, his big problem is that they're spending it...on education!  While he'd prefer that we sock all this money away to pay off debt, SAFRA is using the savings to (horror!) help students and schools.  That's right, he's a conservative to the end, so he's naturally outraged that we're spending money on anything.  He's mad that they're giving money to community colleges and fixing buildings.  He's even upset that some of it's going to pay for pre-k classes.  Yeah, he's against pre-k.

And of course, he's upset that half the money will be given to low-income people as Pell Grants.  Not that he's against poor people going to school, but with the extra money they're getting, tuition will keep going up.  So it's just better to keep the poor people out, so the rest of us won't have to pay so much.  Forget about any possible benefits these people might be adding to society by getting an education they couldn't otherwise afford, this will make everyone else pay more; so it's an abomination. 

(Full Disclosure: I received Pell and Direct Loan money to get my accounting degree, and look what that got me: A CPA license and my own accounting business.  Woohoo!)

Small Government Sux

And you know what, that's fine. If he opposes this stuff based upon his small government principles, I'm ok with that.  But he seems to be of the impression that the rest of us share these principles and are being hornswaggled in all this, as if it's a big con for us to spend money on education.  He doesn't even bother explaining why it's wrong for us to fix buildings and fund pre-k; it's just wrong, ok?  Case closed.  Everyone hates pre-k, so his job is merely to alert us to these horrors and we'll all jump on board and oppose the bill.

But of course, that's where all this "small government" ranting falls apart.  For as much as conservatives act as if politicians have hijacked the country and are spending our money like crazy, that's exactly what a large majority of Americans want.  Sure, tax cuts are always popular with voters, but they'll gut you like a fish if you try cutting popular programs; even in the so-called red states.  And there ain't a Republican who turns down Pell money when it comes their way.

So yes, college tuition is absurdly expensive and something needs to be done, but all the same, McCluskey's approach is to burn the students with the buildings.  Remember, the accountant funded by Pell might just be your own.

The Freedom to Gouge

I've written before about how clueless most Republicans are when it comes to their supposed love of "free markets," as they don't seem to have any real understanding of what it means beyond "Government Sux," and even oppose many regulations designed to make the markets work better. And so I couldn't believe it when The Atlantic named Carpetbagger (AkA Steve Benen) as the 44th most influential political commenter in the country and wrote this in his bio (emphasis added):

His blog posts—advocating for universal health care, calling out centrist Democrats, decrying the GOP’s dedication to free markets—frequently drive coverage for left-leaning bloggers, who spread his takes across the Web.

The GOP's dedication to free markets?? What a joke! I'm not sure I agree with the "calling out centrist Dems" line, but to suggest that Benen is upset about free markets is to imply both that Benen is a socialist jerk and that Republicans really care about the free markets.  Hint: They don't.

And sure enough, we get yet another example of the GOP's confusion over the free market, via Benen, no less. He writes about how the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) was likely to pass the House (it passed), which is great because it cuts the moronic middlemen out of the student loan business and instead spends the money to students and schools.

Government Takeover of Middlemen

And the whole issue highlights the GOP's idea of what "free markets" are. They insist that it makes more sense for the government to pay banks to process the paperwork while guaranteeing their loans, rather than just directly making the loans ourselves. And in their eyes, this is capitalism. This is the free market. They might not be able to explain exactly what "market" is at play here, but by god, they're going to protect it.

As Rep. John Kline (R-Minn) said,

First, we saw a drive toward complete government takeover of our nation's health care system.  Now, we see government seizing control of student lending, forcing the private sector out and welcoming in a mountain of public debt.

And mind you, this guy is the highest ranking Republican on the Education and Labor Committee, so he's supposed to know what he's talking about.  But no.  He's actually arguing that removing the middlemen from the student loan industry is an infringement of freedom.  He ended with "I’m almost afraid to ask: What part of our lives will be handed over to government next?"  With any luck, it'll be Kline's maudlin rhetoric.

Too Many Bachelors

I'm writing a seperate piece on student loans and happened to catch an article in Forbes by Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey, who argues that the main problem with higher education is that too many people are getting it. And here's his proof for that:

This is especially troubling because too many people are pursuing degrees. About a third of college students take at least one remedial course, only 56% graduate within six years and 29% of Americans have bachelor's degrees even though only a quarter of American jobs require them.

First off, are we agreed that the reason he didn't write the number 25% was because he was hoping people wouldn't notice that 29% is close to 25%? "Only a quarter" makes it sound much more dire.

And secondly, huh? Assuming these numbers are correct (and who knows, as McCluskey avoids any links or sources), I fail to see the problem. Specifically, how is it a problem for 29% of people to have bachelor's degrees when 25% require them? Even if all 29% received the degree in order to get a job that required them, that'd still be a good statistic.

Hell, I'd be a bit concerned if we were using every damn bachelor's degree in the country. After all, some of these degreed people are retired, while others are stay-at-home moms or others who no longer need their degree. And I'd rather have 4% too many college grads than 4% too few. After all, we're not at 100% employment, either.

Overall, this strikes me as the typical conservative view of all our problems: Life's too good. Thanks to the stupid government, we've got too much healthcare, too much job safety, too much retirement protection, and now too much education. Damn, why does my government have to keep taking care of me like this? Why can't they just leave me hurt, dumb, and poor; like all the other second-world countries do? It's as if having a well-rounded population is the biggest mistake we can make.

And the irony: Neal McCluskey works for the Cato Institute, which means his degree most definitely went to waste.

They Impeached President Clinton

As a follow-up to my last post, I'd like to reiterate something in regards to comparing Obama hatred with Clinton hatred: They fricking impeached President Clinton. They impeached him. They spent almost his entire presidency investigating everything he did, starting with the firing of seven travel office employees (which Congress had the GAO investigate in July 1993), then impeached the guy. That can't be emphasized enough. And as a reminder, the last time a dude faced impeachment, he resigned.

And it's not that Clinton was wildly unpopular and Republicans had some great political gain to make by hitting him. On the contrary, the impeachment was fueled almost entirely by the wingnuts and the media. Clinton, on the other hand, was extremely popular throughout the entire ordeal. I looked up the numbers and here's how things looked, according to Gallup.

He starts the year at 59% approval. It jumps to 67% approval after his famous "with that woman" denial-lie in late January, a week after Drudge broke the Lewinsky scandal. It was back at 61% in August after he admitted in court to having lied to everyone. In November's mid-term election, Republicans were expected to win seats, but instead, they lose five seats; and this is after they lost eight seats in the previous election.

After the election, Clinton's approval was 66%. Immediately after he got impeached in December, his approval jumped to 73%. That's right, 73%! And finally, after he got acquitted by the Senate in January, a full year after the scandal broke, his approval rating was 68%. Clinton finished his term with a 66% approval rating. By contrast, Bush never had numbers that high after May 2003, and Clinton had been impeached.

And so they impeached an extremely popular president who only gained in popularity after the impeachment. For a second-term president to be routinely in the mid-to-high 60's is incredible, and it was the first time since 1822 for the opposition party to not gain seats in a mid-term of a second term president. Yet even after they lost seats, the lame duck Congress went after him all the same. Not because they needed to, but because the crazies were insisting upon it.

And mind you, Newt Gingrich lost the Speakership after those mid-term losses, meaning that he got booted from his leadership position before they could even impeach Clinton.

Republican Crazies, Then and Now

And you can see who drove this: Republican crazies. As these poll numbers show, this was a Republican thing. For example, in a Newsweek poll the day before the impeachment was announced, 66% of Republicans thought he should be impeached, while only 30% disagreed. Meanwhile, 45% of Independents thought he should be impeached compared to 52% who disagreed.

And while that doesn't sound like only Republican support, that corresponds fairly closely with Obama's current approval numbers. Per CBS's latest polls, 69% of Republicans disapprove of Obama, while only 19% approve. Meanwhile, 39% of Independents disapprove of Obama, while 50% approve. Uncanny, eh?

And for as much as these numbers look slightly better for Clinton, remember, these were people who hated Clinton so much they wanted him impeached. I don't think 66% of Republicans would currently want him impeached. And another thing, Republicans are more concentrated with conservatives now than they were then. So Clinton's Republicans included Republicans who have since abandoned the party because they thought it was too unprincipled and crazy.

They Were Always Crazy

And sure, there is nothing conclusive here. I just wanted to add some historical perspective on why I don't think this is a racial thing. They HATED Clinton. They didn't just think he was a socialist or commie, they actually believed he was a real Soviet spy, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union a few years earlier. And they insisted he was a murderer who killed anyone who got in his way; they even sold a video about it.

And perhaps his biggest offenses were dodging the draft and lying about smoking pot. Even in the heady days of impeachment, conservatives were adamant that the "I didn't inhale" line was of immense importance. And that's not to mention that two crazies blew up a fucking federal building, killing 168 people, in order to give the Clinton government a black eye.

So before we jump the gun and label all these people racist, perhaps we should hold off until they start blowing up buildings and impeaching Obama. They've got a WAAAAY to go before they catch up with Clinton derangement. And again, Clinton only made it to July before Congress was having him investigated; while Obama has made it all the way to mid-September (knock on wood). It's not a black thing. They're just crazy assholes. Some things never change.

History's Greatest Monster is Wrong

Ok, I don't actually have a problem with Jimmy Carter, but I definitely think he was wrong to suggest that Joe Wilson's "You Lie" comment was at all rooted in racism. In fact, I don't think the opposition to Obama is race-based. Because I remember the 90's and these people were just as crazy about Clinton. He was a mass murdering Soviet spy, they told us. They investigated every damn thing he did, including his Christmas card list. They f-ing impeached him, for christ's sake!

And let's not forget that they still hate Carter, and Mondale, and Dukakis, and Kerry. Please, show me the prominent Democrat they don't hate. One of the oddest bits of modern politics is how Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are demonized by both the right and left. The right says they're leftwing extremists while the left insists that they're weak-kneed conservative sell-outs; and both sides say this because Pelosi and Reid are obstructing their agenda.

And who amongst us can forget how much they hated Ted Kennedy? It's not even just that they disagreed with Kennedy; the very mention of his name drove conservatives bonkers. Back when Yahoo had messageboards, any story which remotely involved Kennedy would be avalanched with attacks on him as a slobbering drunk and remorseless murderer. It was absolutely impossible to discuss the actual news story because any defense of Kennedy would bring multiple accusations of defending drunken murderers; and I'm not exaggerating in the least.

Hating All Liberals

As the great Michael Bérubé once snarked:

“Everything changed for me on September 11. I used to consider myself a Democrat, but thanks to 9/11, I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick."

It's funny, because it's true. Being conservative isn't really about believing in fiscal restraint or small government; it's about hating liberals, including any Democrat who doesn't worship conservatives. And so I fail to see how this is any different when it comes to Obama. And if there is anything different, it's not his race that outrages them, but that he just keeps on kicking their butts in a cold-assed fashion.

As a reminder, the "small government" meme was originally a codeword for opposing liberal policies that helped minorities. But soon enough, it simply became a slogan to attack liberals and that's what it remains to this day. That's why conservatives found it so easy to pivot towards big intrusive government during the Bush years; because that government was being used to help their team. And all the purist Ron Paul conservatives who denounced that were just naive simpletons who bought into rhetoric that had no basis in reality.

Keyes for President

And on the other hand, I have no doubt that Republicans would elect Alan Keyes as president, if they could. Or Michael Steele. Hell, I bet they'd elect an Islamic lesbian from Kenya as president, if they felt assured the person would rain hellfire on liberals. Remember, they were all outraged by Clinton the Draft Dodger, until they elected a draft dodger of their own. After that, it became a non-issue.

Because when you get down to it, racism is just part of their team warfare. It's about exclusionism and exceptionalism and everything else that assures conservatives that they're number one and everyone else sucks eggs. They've all got giant inferiority complexes because the world isn't begging them to be Number One Commander Extreme. It's not enough for them to win elections, they've got to have complete subservience or they just can't be happy.

And overall, I think the whole "Obama haters are racist" thing is simply a distraction. It's the sort of attack that conservatives relish, as they view it as a typical unfair attack and helps distract from the fact that they're wrong about everything and live in a fact-free bubble. They'd much rather play Who's the Bigot than to discuss any policy issues.

Team-Based Racism

Besides, not only are not all Obama haters racist, but even the racists aren't really racists anymore. They don't hate blacks. They just hate blacks that are on the wrong team. But they hate everyone who's on the wrong team, regardless of race, creed, or color. Seriously, where is the racist who hates Michael Steele more than they hate Nancy Pelosi? I doubt you'll find one.

That's not to suggest that racism isn't real, as I know it is. But it's merely to say that, at it's core, racism isn't really about race. It's about hating someone for being on the wrong team. And even your hardcore blatant racists all know some "clean" negro who they respect, and wish the rest of them could be like that one. And sure, they say racist things when their target is a minority, but they say sexist things when their target is a woman, and again, there isn't a prominent Democratic white male who gets a free pass from offensive attacks. They hate us all! Racism is a by-product of their attacks; not the source of it.

Dave Chappelle had a skit about a blind black white supremacist (Warning: Not work friendly) who didn't realize he was black, and it implied that such a person wouldn't be accepted in racist culture. But I honestly don't think he'd have a problem, as many racists would find such a person to be the best spokesman for racism; for the same reason that some conservatives think it helps to cite black conservatives as their source for anti-Obama attacks. These people will accept anyone, just as long as they're on the team and tell them that they're the best.

And if Obama came out and announced that he had a change of heart, was switching to Republican, and was locking all the liberals up in Gitmo, you can rest assured that all this Obama derangement would end just as soon as the waterboarding of Pelosi began.

Coolest President Ever

Kanye West is a jackass and to hear Obama say it, priceless. Honestly, for as much as I like Obama when he's giving speeches and answering questions, I like him all the more when he's got his guard down and is just chatting. Because he's not just some scripted machine who's brilliant when he stays on-message; he's a real dude who really thinks about what he's saying.

And that's the thing: Whenever I seem him described as some fascist monster by conservatives, I honestly have no clue what person they think they're describing, as he always comes across like a genuinely nice guy with good intentions. And they still crack jokes about how he stutters and fumbles every time he doesn't have a telepromter, all evidence to the contrary. And what the hell are they talking about? Compared to Bush, Obama's fricking Cicero from the moment he wakes up in the morning. Bush can't even order coffee without committing major grammatical errors and sounded like a moron even with the teleprompters.

And even the far-left progressives have him wrong. They think he's some schemer who needs to be boxed into a liberal position, but I see none of that. The few times I've seen him in off-mode, he comes across like a real person who's trying to make the best of a bad situation, and I genuinely believe that's the case. And why wouldn't he be? The schemers have it wrong. Obama isn't in need of campaign cash and he's bright enough to know that all he's got is his legacy. He's going to give us the best policies he can, not because he's pressured to, but because he takes pride in what he does and wants to be remembered as a great man. And the only way to do that is to give us the best policies he can.

And that's the right way to be. There aren't a lot of people in this world that I think of as being honest, open, real people, and Obama is most definitely one of them. And seeing as how I've always thought Kanye West was a punkass bitch phony, I definitely got a big kick out of hearing Obama express a similar sentiment.

Presidential Profanity

Oh, and as far as it not being "presidential" for him to use the word "jackass," come fucking on, that's not even a dirty word. There was a fricking TV show and two movies with that word as the title, for christ's sake. And we KNOW that Nixon, LBJ and many other presidents said much worse things. And that's not to mention Bush's "major league asshole" or Cheney's "Go fuck yourself," which they used because they were personally upset that the target of their insult wasn't an adoring sycophant.

Had he referred to Kanye has a "punkass bitch," there might be some issues there (though I think those words are now TV-friendly), and I certainly don't want to hear Obama calling Kanye a jackass in a presidential address (no matter how satisfying that would be to me). But in a casual conversation? That just shows how fucking awesome our president is.

Frankly, I would have been a tad disappointed had he not used such language. For example, had he simply referred to Kanye as a "jerk," I would have been mildly let down. Jackass was exactly the right call and I'm proud to have a president who knows his insults.

The Bush Doctrine: Weakness Through Strength

Over at American Nihilist, I wrote a great post explaining what really happened regarding the commando strike of Al Qaeda operative Saleh Ali Nabhan. I suggest you read it. But at Carpetbagger's I saw a comment regarding this and other anti-terror incidents, in which Carpetbagger was being taken to task for not writing a post complaining about this "continuation of Bush foreign policy under Obama."

And this is just insane. Bush didn't invent anti-terror operations, nor was he the originator of our pro-active international strength. After all, Clinton sent missiles after Osama a few times, regularly shot missiles at Iraq, and even bombed the hell out of a certain balkanized portion of Europe. In fact, I seriously doubt there's a president in modern history who hadn't taken a strong hand in other countries.

Even the great JFK took us deeper into "Indochina" for a craptacular quagmire that hurt us for decades, and that's not to mention all the screwing around we did by installing America-friendly dictators who eventually dragged our name through the mud with brutality. No, by historical standards, a few commando raids and drone assassinations are pansy-assed child's play.

The Bitch Doctrine

And of course, the real Bush legacy wasn't strong military actions against individual bad guys. That's to be expected, and as long as we have the permission of the country these guys happen to be in, there's not a problem. And that's the real issue: The Bush Doctrine involved us screwing around with other countries, and that's the problem. It was about acting like a big bully and bluffing everyone into obeying us.

But of course, that was the biggest bluff of them all, as we only bullied a small handful of countries while bribing everyone else. The empty posturing was just done for domestic purposes, while the rest of the world laughed at us. Republicans could pretend to be STRONG for American audiences, but we were never able to export the rhetoric.

And because we totally telegraphed our intentions to everyone, we were stuck in the horrible position of having to cajole everyone else to join in. And so the so-called Coalition of the Willing was a horrid joke, as we gave up the store in exchange for a minimal force and a name to add to the list. As far as negotiations go, we got reamed. The neo-cons believed that everyone else would want to join in for the plunder, and ended up paying premium for every little bit we could get. It was a disaster.

And that was what the Bush Doctrine was all about. Pretending to act like a bully while getting horrible results. We invade Afghanistan to get Al Qaeda from the Taliban, then act like Pakistan's bitch while they protect the very people we were trying to get. We invade Iraq based upon intel provided by Iran, and topple our enemy's arch-enemy. And so we ended up doing everything backwards. By acting like bullying badasses, we lost power.

Why Neo-Cons Suck

The Neo-Conservative theory of power was completely repudiated, not because they underestimated the needs of fighting Iraq, but because the theory was moronic and antiquated. That's the ultimate irony of WWI and WWII: The modern global culture that allows world wars completely negates military power. National boundaries are now little more than out-dated fantasies, which only apply to those without enough power to overcome them. A Mexican corporation has a much better chance of making money here than a Mexican citizen does.

And getting back to the point: It's obvious that while Obama is engaging in some of the same activities Bush did, he's doing the right ones. There's nothing wrong with targeting individual bad guys and if a drone plane can kill a murderer who can't easily be stopped otherwise, great. I support that. And in no case are we limited to only killing terrorists if they happen to be in our country. That's stupid.

Overall, as long as we're not adopting phony bully postures which end up weakening us, then we're not following the Bush plan. Because that was the main problem with the so-called Bush Doctrine. If it worked, I would have supported it, as I'm a pragmatist who believes that you go with what works. But it didn't work. It was dumb. It lost us power, so I was against it. And I'm confident that Obama feels the same way.

The Bullying Underdogs

As a follow-up to my last post, I'd just like to mention that I think one of the things driving conservative insanity is the cognitive dissonance between their fantasy of being the underdog and their desire for being in the majority. So, while they like to see themselves as a growing movement that's slowly educating America about what Obama is up to, they also like to imagine they're already in the majority. And you can pick up on both of these narrative threads within the same post, even if they're entirely contradictory.

And they're absolutely thrilled to see 70,000 like-minded people while pretending it's two million people, and will insist that this is a mass uprising which bodes ill for Obama and his evil minions. Yet, McCain won over 58 million votes last year, which wasn't enough to defeat Obama. And Kerry won over 59 million votes in 2004, yet they considered him to be a major loser who flamed out in defeat.

So, while two million people is a large protest, it's fairly meaningless in terms of a political movement which requires more than thirty times more people; particularly if all two million were part of the 58 million which suffered a major defeat. For as much as they're imagining this to be some massive uprising against Obama, this is nothing more but a continuation of an election that is long over.

And so they're powerful underdogs who insist that some game-changing event has happened in D.C., even though they're just a small fraction of a much larger group which still isn't big enough to win. And all the same, no matter which fragment of their grand narrative you're listening to, and whether they're the rebels fighting the emperor or the victors reaping the spoils, one thing is clear: It's all an epic struggle with them as the good guys and us as the bad guys. Rest assured, they will prevail; even if they can't figure out the plot.

Best Wingnut Advice: Get Involved Politically

One encouraging development stemming from the so-called 9/12 Tea Party yesterday is a sense of empowerment that it's giving conservatives. I read a whole lot of conservative comments about the event and one general theme among them is that the people at these protests were happy to be there and happy to see each other. And more importantly, even the people who weren't there feel empowered and as if they're part of something big. And that's a nice shift after all the angry shouting they were known for throughout August.

I think this comment from Tom the Redhunter at American Power gives a good sign of where I'm hoping things go:

Fantastic post and great photos, Donanld. Just as in WDC it seems like all of you had a great time.
[....]
The question is where does this energy go from here? If all people do is go home and holler at their TVs then it will have made little difference. So please get involved politically. Find a candidate or cause and get involved. This is the only way you can effect change.

And good for them, I hope they do it. Because my biggest fear in all this is that Limbaugh, Beck and the others don't want these people to find a good outlet for their concerns. They want these people to feel trapped and powerless, as that puts them in the pocket of the demagogues. But having an outlet to their frustrations is the exact sort of thing they need.

And the last thing we need is for them to take all their pent-up energy and go back to hollering at their televisions, or their Congressmen, or worse. Desperate people do desperate things. We need these people to feel enfranchised again, and getting involved politically is the exact way to go.

"We Can't Stop Them"

Here's an example I quoted from James Dobson back in May:

"I want to tell you up front that we're not going to ask you to do anything, to make a phone call or to write a letter or anything. There is nothing you can do at this time about what is taking place because there is simply no limit to what the left can do at this time. Anything they want, they get and so we can't stop them."

Hear that? There's nothing you can do, as there is no limit to what the left can do, and we can't stop them. It was all about disenfranchising conservatives. About making them feel powerless and as if the system just couldn't work for them. And that worried me greatly. Rather than seeing last November as a short-term defeat, they were interpreting current events as some sort of apocalyptic doom, requiring drastic measures, which the normal letter writing simply couldn't handle.

But now, these people are sounding a lot more rational. It's all about trying to convert this energy into victory next year, and channeling their energy into productive activities. And I support that completely. Please, conservatives, donate money to your favorite politicians. Work the phonebanks. Knock on them doors. Anything, just as long as it's part of democracy, and none of this Coup by Election nonsense Glenn Beck was peddling recently.

The idea that we're "stealing" America "in the guise of an election" is entirely repulsive to democracy. Sorry Glenn, but if we win the election, it's not theft. That's the system of government you purport to defend.

Letting Democracy Work

Democracy doesn't mean you always win. Hell, it doesn't even guarantee good government. It merely guarantees that you get some influence in how your life is governed and if you don't win this time, you should stay on board, because you'll get another shot at the brass ring soon enough.

If they feel encouraged by 70,000 or even the supposed two million people they claim showed up yesterday in D.C., they need to remember that there were over 58 million folks who voted with them last year. They're not alone. They just lost an election and there will be other elections. And the best answer to Obama's healthcare plan isn't to scare everyone into believing they're going to be killed at the hands of Obama's "death panels," but merely to let democracy do what democracy does. And if the plan is as bad as conservatives believe, they should have no problem kicking our butts next year and repealing the law. That's how our system works and that's what these people need to keep their eyes on.

It's healthy for people to disagree with us. It's not healthy for them to lose hope in the process. So it's in all of our interests that conservatives learn to focus this energy into constructive measures. Go ahead, beat us at the polls. Anything's better than the vague threats of violence and revolt we've been getting. It's better for my congressman to lose an election than for him to get chased out of a parking lot. Voting is democracy; anger isn't.

Obamacare Ruins Market-Based Rationing

Per the AP:

The need for more primary care doctors comes as the country's shortage of all doctors is expected to worsen, according to a study by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which found the rate of first-year enrollees in U.S. medical schools has declined steadily since 1980.

If current patterns persist, the study shows the country will have about 159,000 fewer doctors than it needs by 2025.

But...this can't be. Don't they realize that the US has the greatest medical system in the world and that doctors from other countries flock here because they can charge market rates for their services? But to hear this, our markets aren't solving this problem, so we're paying far more than other countries yet still face healthcare shortages. As it is, we're already short doctors and that, were all Americans able to pay for their own medical care, we'd have an even worse medical problem. Why, it's almost as if we're (GULP!) rationing care! (Cue scary music.)

Curiously, the article acts as if this is going to be a major "hurdle" for Obama's healthcare plans, without mentioning that part of his plan is directly designed to fix this problem. It quotes Obama saying that we need more primary care physicians and later suggests that one solution would be to increase pay for physicians, yet somehow fails to mention that this is part of the plan.

So, the tone of the article is that there is a flaw with Obama's plan, even though this is a problem we already have, which Obama's plan is designed to fix. I'm really not surprised to see the AP logo on this one.

What's Wrong With Massachusetts

The article also mentions that Massachusetts has a similar problem, as if to suggest that it is inherently flawed to attempt to give everyone healthcare, as money-based rationing is required. As they say:

As Massachusetts' experience shows, extending health care to 50 million uninsured Americans will only further stress the system and could force many of those newly insured back into costly emergency rooms for routine care if they can't find a primary care doctor, health care observers said.

Massachusetts, home of the nation's most ambitious health care law, has seen the need for primary care doctors shoot up with the addition of 428,000 people to the ranks of the insured under a 2006 law that mandates health care for nearly all residents.

Wow, sounds horrible, right? A further stressed system which (yikes) might force people to have the same emergency care they get now (without the big bill). Just wait until you see the numbers, which were much further down in the article:

In a 2008 survey of physicians, the Massachusetts Medical Society found the average wait time to see an adult primary care doctor was 50 days, with some doctors reporting wait times for new patients of up to 100 days. That's compared to 2005, before the law was signed, when the average wait was 47 days and the longest was 87 days.

The society also found a drop in the number of primary care doctors accepting new patients. In 2008, 42 percent had closed their practice to new patients compared with 33 percent in 2004, before the law was signed.

Soooo, the average wait time went up three days, from a horrible 47 day wait to a slightly worse 50 day wait, and we're supposed to be imagining that universal healthcare totally stressed out their system? And doctors not accepting new patients went up by nine points. And sure, that's not good, but...they were also giving lots more people healthcare. And we're now to imagine that this is so bad that we should think twice before doing it.

And mind you, as the article already said, our healthcare system is already short doctors, while our population is naturally growing. So we should already expect to see these numbers get worse after four years. And hey, maybe Massachusetts really does have a big mess on their hands from all this healthcare they're giving to everyone, but the article never established that.

And so in the end, we're left with an article which tries to scare us away from "Obamacare," with very little data backing up those claims, and which doesn't mention that Obama's plan is designed to fix a problem we already have. After all, we're not talking about bringing fifty million new citizens into the country to require healthcare, but merely to provide care for the folks we already have. So giving them insurance only calls attention to a problem we already have; it doesn't make the problem worse. Hopefully, Obama's plan will become law and the problem will start to get a little better. And after that, it's Death Panels for everyone!!!

9/11 as Tragedy: Terrorist Victory

Apparently, 9/11 was NOT a tragedy, and if you suggest that it was, the terrorists win. According to conservatives (supported by Mr. Semantics himself, Dr. Donald Douglas), the attack on 9/11 was a terrorist attack and "terrorist attacks are terrorist attacks," which presumably means we can't use any other word to describe them. So while Dictionary.com tells me that "tragedy" can refer to:

6. a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; calamity; disaster: the tragedy of war.
[....]
3. A disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life: an expedition that ended in tragedy, with all hands lost at sea.
[....]
Note: In common usage, disasters of many kinds are called tragedies.

...none of this applies to 9/11, because it was a terrorist attack. And if you dare question the logic of that, then you're insulting the victims of 9/11, as well as the people who died in a war unrelated to 9/11. And the completely obvious reason for that is, of course, 9/11.

Blame Obama First

And who is the "source" of this horrible whitewash of 9/11 as "tragedy"? Who else: Barack Obama. Apparently, Obama was the first person to ever refer to 9/11 as a "tragedy," which he did in a column he wrote as an Illinois state senator on September 19, 2001.

And while most conservatives, including Doug Powers, only quote the part where Obama says that the 9/11 terrorists lack empathy (which conservatives all mock, as every sensible person knows that the "true" cause of terrorism is "evil," a term so well-defined that they never bother explaining it), here's what Obama wrote in the preceding paragraph which they never bother to quote:

Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.

Indeed. So while Obama did lament the terrorists' lack of empathy, as well as suggest that we root out the cause of terrorism; he had already suggested that we increase security, fix our intel deficiencies, find the perps, and attack the organizations that caused it.

Yet somehow, out of all the conservatives I saw who quoted Obama's piece, none of them actually included the previous paragraph. Why, if I didn't know any better, I'd think they were some sort of monolithic authoritarians who only know how to attack what they've been told to attack, while ignoring anything that refutes their attack.

And because Obama suggested that there was some other solution to fighting terrorism beyond killing Muslims, it was the equivalent of an abused wife "telling everybody she needs to learn how to cook better." But in reality, we all know that if a wife is abused, she needs to kill her husband's relatives and neighbors, as well as anyone of the same religious persuasion as her husband and people entirely unaffiliated with her husband in any way. And yes, it's 2009 and people are still writing such insanities without any sense of shame.

Terrorism as Tragedy

Sadly, after Obama whitewashed 9/11 a mere week after the event, it appears his brainwashing has taken hold of others. Not only does the phrase 9/11 Tragedy bring up over 7 million hits on Google, but he was also able to force this Marxist construct on to Republicans, the true defenders of 9/11. Witness this disgusting whitewash of terrorism as tragedy.

"This is an American issue, and this is an American tragedy, and we should not politicize that, and we've been very successful in keeping it from being politicized over the years." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sept. 11, 2008

"I, like all Americans, will never forget the defining moment of recent American history, the tragedy of 9/11." Senator John McCain. Jan. 30, 2008

"We can't do anything to rid ourselves of homegrown 9/11 con artists, but legal permanent resident aliens such as Kendall can be deported if convicted of crimes involving fraud or deceit in an amount exceeding $10,000. Kick them out and keep them out. These callous scavengers of tragedy don't deserve to call America home." Numbnut Michelle Malkin, July 16, 2003.

"I can imagine few sentiments more repulsive to our brave fighting soldiers and the victims of the 9/11 terror tragedy than to think the U.S. government deliberately allowed the events of 9/11 to occur." Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri), Sept 4, 2009.

(To be fair, Bond referred to this as a "terror tragedy," which might be an acceptable term, as long as "terror" is used to modify tragedy. And note, it's offensive to the victims of 9/11 and our soldiers if you accuse the government of doing something wrong.)

And of course, Obama's powers at manipulation know no bounds, as President George W. Bush himself was inexplicably forced to refer to 9/11 as a "tragedy," not once, but twice during a speech to both houses of Congress on September 20, 2001; one day after Obama inflicted the world with this Marxist monstrosity.

Behold!

I thank the Congress for its leadership at such an important time. All of America was touched on the evening of the tragedy to see Republicans and Democrats joined together on the steps of this Capitol, singing "God Bless America."
[....]
I ask you to continue to support the victims of this tragedy with your contributions.

The horror! (But perhaps he was referring to the tragedy of seeing Congresspeople sing.)

Bush Hearts Muslims

Even worse, while some conservatives properly understand that Islam dictates that all Muslims must Jihad their way to world domination, Bush actually said things like:

The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics, a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.
[....]
I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.

Yes, even in post-9/11 2001, Bush was showing his Obama-influenced liberalism, which would explain why our bombs were unable to destroy terrorism forever. Obama is the root of all evil. 9/11

Better Crime Names, Please

Via AP:

Delaware State Police said a woman punched a gas station clerk in the face and held scissors to his throat in a dispute over how much money she had given him.
[....]
As the woman drove away, police said she found the $20 bill in her purse and returned to the gas station. Police said she was arrested and charged with offensive touching and aggravated menacing.

Offensive touching and aggravated menacing? Damn, if I were that clerk, I'd be too ashamed to show up to court to testify that either of these crimes had been done against me. These sound more like rule violations in a kindergarten classroom than criminal charges.

Honest Weblog Awarded to ME!!!!!

Holy shitball, people. I won an award! No, I'm not referring to the Carnival of the Liberals #96, which I also won. No, I'm talking about a much more personal award. That's right, as the title suggests, I won the Honest Weblog Award. And let me tell you, I was so awed by this win that it took me a whole week to bother mentioning it. The great and powerful Broadway Carl bestowed this great honor upon me and six lesser blogs and now I'm stuck blessed with having to do the same to seven other lucky bastards.

Here are the rules of this esteemed award, as copied-and-pasted from Broadway's own blog:
1. You must brag about the award.

2. You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to that blogger.

3. You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.

4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with the Honest Weblog Award.

5. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself.

And yeah, it's obvious I already did the first one. I mean, any award I'm gracious enough to acknowledge is clearly bragging material. But if that's not self-evident, I'll give another "yippie!" to express my gratitude for this chain letter great honor. And I've also done number two, though not in my trousers (yes, pun intended).

Ten Honest Things About Myself

Because things about me are clearly more to my interest than things about other people, I'm skipping numbers three and four and heading right into number five: Ten honest things about myself. But as it turns out, to stay truly "honest" with myself (and honesty is the name of the award here), I'm forced to add an eleventh entry. I'm sure you'll agree.

So here are eleven honest things you might not know about me.

I'm smarter than I pretend to be.

I'm even funnier in person.

I'm so handsome that you'll assume I'm joking when I say that I really am incredibly handsome.

I've advanced enough to have moved beyond basic humility.

I cook.

Women want me.

Men want to be me.

My breath smells like sex.

I'm really good at video games.

I play the guitar.

And lastly, I really am incredibly handsome.

Blogs I Respect

As for number three, I'm in a bit of a bind, as I don't actually read seven blogs. I only have time to read three blogs on a regular basis, none of which, I suspect, would be the least bit interested in receiving this award. But hey, rules are rules, so let's see if I can find seven bloggers to name.

First up, I'll just take the easy road by naming the American Nihilist blog. Yes, it's cheating, as I actually write for this one, but it really is the most brilliant blog around. Why else would I deem it worthy of my best material?

My second choice was going to be Cannablog, written by longtime reader (and some time nemisis) Mahakal (aka, Mike Goldman), because I liked the blog's theme, but I see he stopped blogging about a year ago. So instead, I picked the most interesting link on his page (except my own, of course), and went with Dr. Frank Lucido's Bully Pulpit: Everyone's Entitled to My Opinion, solely based upon the name. It looks like Dr. Lucido has posted a total of seventeen entries on his blog, so perhaps this grand victory will encourage the good doctor to get off his stoned ass and write a little more often.

Nextly, I decided to look through my blogshares account, to see who the important people linking to me are, so I could return the favor. But fuck me if most of the important folks linking to me aren't blogging anymore. I feel like I'm Highlander here. But I found Capitol Annex, which is a local Austin blog which happens to feature me prominently on their blog list, and since anything associated with Austin is inherently superior to anything outside of Austin, it made my list.

And let's see, where else can I take this. How about Neural Gourmet? He started the Carnival of the Liberals, which makes him fairly awesome. And his blog really is pretty cool (not that I've ever read it), so I guess I'll just pretend I find it "brilliant" and move on. There, that gets me over the halfway point.

Here's one you wouldn't expect. It's Beth's New, Improved Austin Bloggery. I actually know this person. Sure, there are no politics involved with this blog and I generally don't read it, but hey, it's an Austin person and that makes up for everything.

And since I'm desperate, let's just go with Publius' old blog, Legal Fiction. Sure, nothing's been posted there since Pub sold out in 2007 and moved to a blog which shall remain nameless, but I still get a fair amount of traffic from Legal Fiction, so I thought I'd include it here for old time's sake. As a sidenote, I only got added to his blogroll because I kept pestering him so much about it while drunk. Drunken harassment is way underrated.

And that leaves me with one last blog, so what else could I go with but my own. That's right, bitches, I'm picking And Doctor Biobrain's Response Is... as my seventh brilliant blog. So suck on that!

And for all you loyal readers who were hoping I'd pick your blog, trust me, you didn't deserve it.

Michael Steele for President

Carpetbagger has a post in which RNC clown Michael Steele attacks Obama for disrespecting Ted Kennedy's death by reading a letter that Kennedy had requested be read after his death. And if this came from any other Republican, I'd just stare at the screen in disbelief that anyone could make such a stupid point. But coming from Steele, I can only nod my head in approval and say "touché."

Without a doubt, Michael Steele is my favorite Republican. While crazies like Bachmann and Palin are always good for a laugh, nobody goes straight for the clowning like Michael Steele. I'm not sure if he's ever failed to entertain me. Here's a highlight reel from back in May that the kind folks at Think Progress put together; and mind you, this was before he defended Medicare while attacking it.

No other Republican is as adept as he is at completely faking it while simultaneously believing every word he says. He steps in the dooty the moment it spills from his mouth and then feels compelled to smear it around on his face, just in case you thought he said it by accident. And when forced to backtrack, he refuses to acknowledge that he has changed position in the least; though even a small child could see immediately through his hopeless charade.

And while most Republicans share these traits, none are as hapless in their execution as Steele, who never met a talking point he couldn't accidentally trample into oblivion. Michael Steele is a clown act all the way.

Obama Indoctrinates Congress

So the president gives a big healthcare speech to both houses of Congress. I don't know about y'all, but I really don't feel comfortable with Obama indoctrinating Congress like this. If Obama wants to make this speech voluntary, by putting it on YouTube for Congresspeople to view at their discretion, that's perfectly fine. But by forcing himself upon impressionable middle-aged folks, he's really stepping into Hitler territory.

And from what I understand, he's going to be giving a strictly partisan speech, urging Congress to act upon his goals; and even going so far as to request that they write legislation to send to him for his approval, and probably have him send back messages of his own...at taxpayer expense, no doubt.

And that's just wrong. No other president in history has gone so far as Obama in forcing his will upon us, and now that he's trying to indoctrinate Congress into being a sort of Hitler Youth for old powerful dudes, I fear he's gone too far. Obama must be stopped at all costs.


Update: It appears that Obama completely changed his speech at the last minute, in order to avoid the most egregious of the indoctrinal rants I had predicted. I'd bet dimes to dollars that he did this specifically because of the message I posted above. You're welcome, people. You're welcome. I may have just saved America from the brink of ruin.

Obamacare Question of the Day

This is, I'm sure, a stupid question, but I needed to post something, yet the post I'm working on is getting too long and I need to go to bed; so here goes.

Now, this is probably the wine talking, but...will "Obamacare" insure homeless people? That seems like it wouldn't be such a bad idea, particularly if we can get them on the meds that might make them think twice about their lifestyle. But I wasn't sure if it worked like that. Anyone know?

Oh, and I just read the part in the bill in which it mentions that anyone who has insurance will automatically lose that insurance, and instead will pay for insurance premiums of someone in a Muslim nation; preferably Iran. Of course, I didn't technically "read" that in there. Nor did anyone even paraphrase it. But what the hell, the current accusations of what's in the "bill" are insane enough, so why not this too? We're also paying to abort all babies, too; including the ones who were already born. Pass it on!

Invasion of the Brain Snatchers

Great. My mom is now into Obamascare. I just had a lengthy phone conversation with her which somehow got into healthcare reform and she's repeating all the same lies that all the other freaks are saying.

Not only is she convinced that government bureaucrats are going to come to her house on a regular basis and try to pressure her to sign away her rights to full healthcare on her deathbed, but she insists that she read this in the bill. I assured her repeatedly that she couldn't have read that, as there wasn't anything like that in the bill, but she insisted it's there and that I had insulted her intelligence by suggesting otherwise.

And without a doubt, she repeated the exact phrases that all the anti-Obama nuts are repeating. This is being "rammed down our throats." How are we going to pay for fifty million new patients? Government bureaucrats shouldn't interfere with our healthcare. The shouting people at townhalls deserve better answers than the only ones they can possibly receive. The AARP is an insurance organization that makes more money when government gets involved, and doesn't care if their members die. And of course, she's read the bill, which she insists is extremely confusing and nebulous, yet which she knows contains all these nasty provisions which will intrude in her healthcare and kill her off early.

And sure, I had good responses to all of this, but she refused to even listen to any of it. And as the big irony, my dad was a career military guy and she's now in Medicare, which means she's had government healthcare for most of her life. And when I was pointing out that people really like Medicare and that Republicans oppose Medicare, she refused to even believe that. At best, she insisted that Republicans were only interested in cutting waste out of Medicare, and that Dems wanted to destroy it. Shortly after that, she insisted that she had to go and gave an unusually curt goodbye before hanging up.

And what's sad is that I thought she was better than this. Sure, she's been politically insane in the past. But after last year's elections, she swore off political news. She insisted that she wasn't watching Fox News or listening to Rush anymore, and I believed her, as I never saw her watching it during my visits earlier this year. Even last month while visiting, I was able to have reasonable discussions on this and even laughed at many of the ideas coming from rightwing nuts. And I specifically talked about the end-of-life stuff and how insane it is for anyone to imagine that this is somehow a bad thing.

But it's like the Pod People came and replaced my mom with a robotic replica. And while before, she was scoffing when I was telling her how nutty Obama's critics were (she couldn't believe that anyone could be as crazy as I was describing them), now she's repeating all their claims and insisting that I can't possibly be right when I correct her. After all, she's read the bill.

Why Sarah Palin Ain't Ronald Reagan

It's amazing to see reporter-types who are so caught-up in conventional wisdom that they actually imagine they're refuting the groupthink while continuing to perpetuate it. Here's a piece from Walter Rodgers, some former CNN reporter, who asks the pertinent question: Can Sarah Palin be more than a political celebrity?

And of course, the answer is a resounding: No. She can't. Even if she inexplicably won the presidency in 2012, it'd be due entirely to her celebrity status, as there never was a real "Palin" beyond the fakey conservative celebrity she pretended to be. And while this guy clearly has his doubts about it too, the fact that he even wrote the piece as he did suggests that he's still stuck in the conventional wisdom about Palin.

He might be flirting around the edges of doubting it, but for him to consider this to be a serious question is enough to undermine his credibility.

Exonerating McCain

And then there's this humdinger:

The McCain campaign scarcely had five days to find their man a running mate. Palin was effectively forced upon a reluctant Senator McCain in a risky campaign move designed to reverse Barack Obama's momentum.

But that wasn't really the case, as McCain clinched the nomination in early March and had over five months to find a VP, and he wasn't forced to announce his pick immediately after Obama's acceptance speech either. Plus, there were far better choices than Palin. That was all just stupid stupid stupid and was yet more proof about how completely unprepared McCain was for the bigtime.

And the fact that McCain originally wanted Lieberman for the job only shows how clueless he was. For as bad a choice as Palin was, forcing "Sore Loserman" on the Republican base would most definitely have sucked the air out of the party. He was a poor choice for Gore in 2000 and would have been a complete joke for McCain. Had he picked Joe, he might as well have just removed his name from the ticket and headed back to his day job.

While Rodgers realizes that selecting Palin was a risky move, nobody forced it upon McCain. He took the risk because he wanted to take the risk. He had five months to pick a VP, not five days, and still blew the call. This all smacks of historical revisionism by people who want to exonerate McCain for his part in creating the Palin monster.

Re-Remembering Reagan

But Rodgers saves his biggest turds for the Gipper:

Republicans now in search of a new messiah might ask themselves if Palin is truly another Ronald Reagan, as more than a few would like to believe. It wasn't movie star glitter that made President Reagan so effective but rather his political genius, which rivaled that of Franklin Roosevelt.

Reagan charmed scores of congressional Democrats into embracing his points of view on dozens of issues. In 1981, I watched big-spending Democrats walk out of the West Wing completely "Reaganized," happily confessing they were converted to his spending reductions and other presidential initiatives.

Setting aside his two terms as governor of California, presiding over what would become the world's seventh-largest economy, Reagan had a biblical talent for making "even his enemies to be at peace with him."

Yes, and we all know how spending went down throughout the 80's as Congressional Dems embraced Reagan's small government mantra and ended up throwing all those welfare queens out on their asses as we balanced the budget and started paying off the debt with our huge surpluses. Oh wait, that was Clinton who did that. While Reagan oversaw huge deficits while government spending ballooned. And this is all just part of the Reagan revisionism, in which Reagan didn't raise taxes many times, or reverse course on key issues like his desire to privatize Social Security.

As I've mentioned before, the reason Reagan remained popular wasn't because he "Reaganized" his opponents, but because he was pragmatic and listened to the polls. After all, the infamous euphemism of Social Security as the "third rail" was coined after Reagan got burned for trying to change it, and he ended up saving a program he had long opposed. As a reminder, Reagan's lowest approval rating came after his second year as president; with a 41% approval, 47% disapproval in January 1983. For as much as he made "peace" with his enemies, it was because he joined them.

The miracle of Reagan isn't that he made peace with his enemies, but that conservatives ever made peace with his betrayal of them. And for as much as Palin isn't the next Ronald Reagan, it's because she's embraced the conservative myth of Reagan, which pretends that Reagan remained a hardcore conservative who forced his critics to bend to his will; rather than vice versa. Unfortunately, dopes like Walter Rodgers only help perpetuate that myth.

Government Interference Helps Innovation

In my last post, I quoted Megan McArdle saying "I'm not defending Big Pharma--I could care less if Pfizer stays in business. I'm defending market pricing for drugs."

Yet, this only showcases what a complete nimrod she is. Because there IS no proper market price for new drugs. And that's because the government grants a temporary monopoly to drug manufactures as a reward for making new drugs; as a way of spurring more innovation.

And were it not for this government-based intrusion into the free market, anyone would copy their drugs, thus lowering the price to the point that you could never make a profit if you were the one who created it. Your competition could always under sell you, because they didn't need to pay research costs. And so that's why drug makers have such large profits: Because the government gives them a monopoly which basically allows them to set their prices. And as we all know, the government interferes with the free-market like this in countless ways, and conservatives never complain about patents, copyrights, and trademarks either. Yet they're very anti-competitive.

And the solution to this is for the government to essentially negotiatate drug prices on our behalf, thus using their vast buying power to force these drug companies to sell their drugs for less. In other words, they're using a market-based mechanism to offset the monopoly-power they gave to the companies; thus restoring market forces. This is really no different than what Walmart does to hold prices down, and I don't hear conservatives complaining about them stifling the free markets. And hey, if conservatives like Megan McArdle want to support the drug industry by negotatiating directly with the drug manufacturers, nobody's stopping them.

And so free-marketers like Megan McArdle have this entirely backwards. They support the government stifling free-markets by granting government-enforced monopolies, while opposing the government using market forces to keep costs down, and calling this a monopoly. But of course, this all just shows that, for as much as these people love the free market, it's quite obvious they haven't a clue what it really is.

Megan McArdle's Homework

Via TNR, I see that conservative Megan McArdle continues her "moderate" wingnuttery by pretending to take an open-minded view of why she opposes healthcare reform, before insisting that she's forced to oppose it based entirely on shit she just made up.

Her post says her primary reason for opposing government healthcare is because America is the last major market that hasn't socialized medicine, and therefore, we're supporting all the drug profits that keep the innovation pump flowing. And so she thinks we need to keep biting the bullet and subsidizing the rest of the world or we won't be getting any more new drugs.

And surely, if she's so open-minded about all this, she's readily providing the factual basis for her claims, right? No. She provides none. She merely asserts repeatedly that America is subsidizing the Pharma profits and, without us, there wouldn't be enough profits to make it worthwhile for them. And it's not even enough that she can't possibly provide proof of the second half of that claim, as it's a hypothetical with no real basis for objective analysis; she can't even support the first half of her claim...you know, the fact part.

TNR has a real catch, as she wrote in a comment at that post:

The United States currently provides something like 80-90% of the profits on new drugs and medical devices. Perhaps you think you can slash profits 80% with no effect on the behavior of the companies that make these products. I don't.

But as TNR points out, McArdle later admitted in a chat that "It wasn't a statistic--it was a hypothetical." It other words, she pulled this matter-of-fact rebuttal completely out of her ass. But it wasn't just that comment. She made that 80% claim a second time and repeated the basic assertion endlessly, often citing her earlier assertions as support for her later assertions; as if repeating an assertion makes it come true.

And the main assertion is absurd: McArdle is resting on the idea that price controls force drug companies to sell barely above their costs, and that we'll do the same if we control prices. Is there any basis for this bizarre idea? I don't know, as Megan never provides one. But as we'll see, there's good reason to believe she's wrong.

Megan Asserts

Here are a few of her other comments on that post (ellipses indicate separate comments):

1) Socialised systems in Europe use price controls and rationing to reduce the profits in providing medical care, discouraging innovation, and then free ride on innovations that are primarily aimed at the US market.
[....]
B) Even for foreign companies, we provide most of the profits.
[....]
Actually, the bulk of the profits are from the US. Look at the financial statements of any company that breaks out its international operations. The bulk of the sales often comes abroad. But all the margin is here.
[....]
As pointed out above, the issue is not that no company outside the US innovates. It's that they make the bulk of the money off of their innovations in US markets.
[....]
But those biotechs get funding largely because there's an exit strategy through an acquisition or IPO. If you slash the future profits on drugs 80%, the capital will dry up.

I'm not defending Big Pharma--I could care less if Pfizer stays in business. I'm defending market pricing for drugs.
[....]
Look at the financial statements of any company that breaks out its numbers by region.

And mind you, I wasn't selectively editing her facts out of this. She never provided any. She merely kept asserting that her position was factually correct and kept telling other people to cite their evidence and research her claims. Frankly, I can't conceive of any reason why these people tried to debate this ninny.

Crunching the Numbers

But hey, I'm a CPA who knows his way around numbers, so I decided to take Megan up on her challenge and actually read these financial statements. If she insists on having us do her research for her, I guess I'm up to the challenge. And the first drug company that came to mind was Pfizer, so I looked at their financial statements for 2008 (pdf).

And sure enough, Megan is totally full of shit. As page 59 clearly shows, Pfizer made far more money from international markets than from the USA. In fact, for 2008, Pfizer lost $1.7 billion in the US, due to a Justice Department settlement, while they made over $11.4 billion internationally. And over the last three years, they made over $30.2 billion internationally, compared with $1.7 billion domestically.

And mind you, these are profits before taxes; not total revenue. So not only did the US not account for 80% of Pfizer's profits, as Megan stated twice, they accounted for less than 6% of their profits. And sure, this is just one company, but this already refutes Megan's claim that we'd see this on "any" drug company. (Disclosure: I also researched GlaxoSmithKline's financials (pdf), but they only break-out revenues by country, and not profits, so I couldn't do that one. Plus, they use weirdo Europe-talk that I'm not familiar with, and the whole experience creeped me out.)

Ridiculous Profits

And so that shoots down the first part of Megan's premise. And the second one is even easier. Her claim that American profits are the only thing spurring innovation is completely destroyed once one realizes that a company like Pfizer spent $23.6 billion in research over the past three years while making $32 billion in profit. Meanwhile, GSK spent €6.7 billion on research in two years to make €16.2 billion. So they can spend billions on research while still raking in tremendous fortunes. Seems to me that they could be doing a whole lot more innovating, if they wanted to.

Needless to say, a price cap here in the US isn't going to break these guys. After all, it's not as if these caps will make them sell at a loss. And that's the thing, for as much as conservatives accept on faith that the US is subsidizing drug profits, it's obvious that they're doing quite well without us. And so Megan is left with a faulty premise with no factual basis as the primary reason she opposes our healthcare plans.

Of course, as with most conservatives, I suspect she reached her conclusion first, which is why she never bothered giving any actual facts. Not only did she not need them, but they would simply have refuted her point. After all, no one with half a brain could possibly assert that our current system reflects "market pricing for drugs," as she asserted in a comment. Thanks to temporary monopoly status granted to new drugs, drug companies pretty much get to set their own prices.

And based upon their tremendous marketing budgets (roughly double their research budgets for both companies above), I suspect that quite a bit of flim-flam also goes into supporting these "market prices." After all, new drugs aren't tested to see if they're any better than the old drugs, and that's why they pay more to sell the snake oil than they do to make it.

And so, for as much as Megan would like to imagine that America is the last bastion of innovation and that her faith in the all-powerful Profit Motive forces her to oppose healthcare, reality tells a different story.

Thou Shalt Not Promote Equality

Carpetbagger has a post in which he finds it ironic that the states where people most need "Obamacare," (ie, residents in Southern and Western states), are the most likely to oppose it. But I really think this all makes sense, as one big reason these places are so underinsured is because they're lacking in much of the advanced infrastructure that makes more progressive states more progressive.

They're conservative to their core and that means rejecting the progressive policies that give "blue" states advantages over these other places. And so it's just natural that they'd also oppose this progressive policy too. The establishment in these states have convinced the poor and middle-class that the status quo is the only quo for them, and these people will fight for their right to be kept down.

They believe they have a god given right to be screwed over by the powerful and to screw over those less powerful than themselves, and they'll be damned if they let anyone take that freedom away. And if that means that they get paid sucky wages and aren't offered real insurance by their employers in order to ensure that the powerful stay powerful, that's what has to happen; even if these policies harm the overall economy. It's better for a few ships to do good in low tide than to allow a high tide to improve everyone's ship.