Month: December 2009

by Patrick Appel

Jonathan Cohn:

News that the Senate Democrats were going to allow insurers impose annual or lifetime limits on policy caused quite a stir a few weeks ago. And rightly so. Very few people will ever incur medical bills in the hundreds of thousands or higher. But those that do will be the ones with the worst medical problems–the ones, in other words, who need protection the most.

The White House promised to seek changes, as did liberals on Capitol Hill. It looks like they succeeded.

Reihan Salam:

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a wonderful source for news and information on health coverage in the United States, has a useful chart on poverty rates in the states as of 2008. Nebraska is a relatively low-poverty state, with a poverty rate of 10.6 percent of households. Fifteen other states have lower poverty rates while thirty-five have higher poverty rates. Yet it seems that Nebraska, by virtue of its impressively stubborn Democratic senator, will receive unusually generous treatment.

Ezra Klein:

A smart observer told me that the bill would come down to whether Ben Nelson, in his heart of hearts, wanted to vote for it or wanted to use his demands to kill it. It looks like he wanted to vote for it. Nelson's compromises were achievable. Abortion language stronger than what the legislation had but considerably weaker than what Bart Stupak preferred. An extra year of federal funding for the Medicaid expansion, which is probably a good thing one way or the other.

Nate Silver:

The CBO score is out. It appears that the bill will be marginally more expensive than the previous version, but will also raise marginally more revenues, so the net effect on deficits (vis-à-vis the original version) is basically zero. Also, the CBO has stated that the changes introduced by Reid's Managers Amendment are unlikely to significantly alter the premiums that taxpayers are expected to pay under the bill; the public option would have saved the government some money by reducing the amount of subsidies, but would not have had a significant effect on the premiums that individuals pay.

Suderman:

This doesn't mean that there are no potential hurdles left: Democrats still have to reconcile the House and Senate versions, which may prove complicated. The House bill is financed in large part by a millionaire's tax on high earners, and the Senate bill is financed by an excise tax on gold-plated health care plans — a tax that's opposed by unions, which have far more influence in the House. And Nelson has explicitly reserved the right to vote against final passage of the reconciled bill should any significant changes occur. In other words, it ain't over 'till it's over.

That said, Democrats are now substantially closer to wrapping up this process than they were even a day ago. If I had to guess, I'd say that, with Nelson on board, it's all but a done deal.

Yglesias:

I don’t want to endlessly rehash the intramural argument about whether this bill is worth passing or not, since at the end of the day I’m looking forward to working with all the netroots activists of the world on more and better legislation in the future. But to repeat—despite flaws, I think this is an excellent piece of legislation. Among other things, it represents a return, after fifteen years, of the idea that congress should be trying to pass major legislation that tackles major national problems. 

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

After

Then, I started thinking about how you all can take this project a bit further.  Perhaps you’ve already thought about it too, but I would love to see follow up publications.  Something like “View from Your Window – January” with a collection of photos from different places taken during  each month of the year.  A whole 12 book set!  Or if that’s too much, maybe just based on the seasons so that you have a 4 book set.

I regret just getting two copies, because there are so many people for whom this would make a wonderful gift.

We also received a suggestion about doing versions from individual cities. Another reader writes:

I just received my copy of "the View From My Window" and lo and behold, there's one of my pictures in it! I am filled with disproportionate delight and glee! When my picture made it onto the site I had a similar experience; I felt like dancing with excitement and pride.

Why is this? I ask myself. Why such a large response? All I can come up with by way of self reflective explanation is that being published on the site, and then being published in the book underlines some small sense of ownership I feel in the Daily Dish. So often Andrew's (and helpers') writings parallel things I have been thinking or feeling, or help me gently cross-section and unfold long held ideas and ideals. Reading the Daily Dish, I never feel talked down to or pressured to hold any particular philosophy, political or religious. In other words, I am free to listen and learn, agree or disagree, as though I am in conversation with friends.

So, thank you. Thank you for your hard work each day, for the intelligence and passion in the writings. Thank you for showing me each day a view from someone else's life. And thank you for the honor of including a view from my window in this lovely book.

Details on how to get the book here.

by Conor Friedersdorf

In the last couple days, Julian Sanchez and I wrote posts arguing that a vocal group on the right are engaging in what Mr. Sanchez terms "the politics of ressentiment." Its a term I am still mulling over, and perhaps there are some differences in what we're saying, but on this we agree: these folks say their behavior is grounded in conservatism, but "the farce currently performing under that marquee is an inferiority complex in political philosophy drag."

It is noteworthy that both of us used the words "inferiority complex" in our posts — that is to say, our argument isn't that these people are in fact inferior. Indeed, explicit in our posts is the assumption that their "complex" is irrational. "Mark Levin, a man intelligent enough that he needn't have an inferiority complex," I wrote, "for some reason adopts the rhetorical style of the classic insecure bully — juvenile name calling, constant self-aggrandizement, vituperative outbursts." Nor would I ever question the intelligence of Laura Ingraham, who knows better than to mock the use of Dijon mustard, or Rush Limbaugh, an obviously intelligent man whose cultural affects — fancy cars, pricey restaurants, expensive cigars, sprawling mansion on the coast — hardly permit my opponents to argue that I jam motivated by contempt for the stereotypical lifestyle of regular non-elite Americans.

So it's interesting that, as if to prove our point about inferiority complexes, the folks who objected to our post responded as though we asserted the inferiority of these conservatives and their audiences, rather than merely laying out the particular way their politics are wrongheaded.

This confused post by Mike Farmer, who tellingly but absurdly assumes that Julian Sanchez is a "moderate" and that Rod Dreher disdains social conservatives, contains this excerpt:

Social conservatives are a dying breed, so why the sudden hand-wringing over this irrelevant and dwindling political faction? Perhaps it's the new polls showing the popularity of the Tea Party over Republicans or Democrats, and the Tea Party is not even a political party. This has to be disturbing to people who view the Tea Party as southern, conservatives hicks. The moderates are dying of embarrassment. They don't want to be associated with this movement so they are pulling out every cliche and stereotype they can dust off and use as a weapon.

Now, the angle is that the Tea Party crowd in envious of the moderates' superior intellect and have to make monsters out of these intellectual giants in order to muster to courage to even approach this superior class of people. The hicks in the TP movement are insecure and frightened by ideas they don't understand, so they hold on to their simplistic culture and religious ideas, clinging to their guns and religion.

Who said anything about moderates being a "superior class of people," or "intellectual giants"? Who called anyone a hick, or even invoked stereotypes that amount to the same thing? Who called the culture of the conservative base "simplistic" or denigrated their religion? All these supposed insults are conjured out of thin air.

It isn't surprising that a writer as clever as Robert Stacy McCain didn't make the same mistake as obviously, but he made it nonetheless:

Shorter Sanchez: "Hey, let's change the subject and talk about what a bunch of yahoos those Republicans are!"

Of course, Mr. Sanchez's post didn't assert that Republicans are yahoos, it argued that they're mistaken in obsessing over the possibility that somewhere, someone at Harvard is calling them a yahoo. These are very different things.

Mr. McCain goes on:

Notice that it is Mr. McCain here who not only asserts that Sarah Palin is provincial, but assumes the qualities she possess — the ones Mr. Sanchez is supposed to despise — are shared by "us." Mr. McCain lives near Washington DC. Occasionally you'll find him attending the same social gatherings as Mr. Sanchez. Even if we grant that it is understandable for him to assume that Mr. Sanchez dislikes Sarah Palin's uncommon Alaskan subculture of moose hunting and oil exploration, what on earth would possess him to imagine that Mr. Sanchez sees the conservative base, and even Mr. McCain himself, as part of that same "class" subculture? In fact, any coherent "us" here cannot refer to class or provincialism, it can only refer to styles of politics, a perfectly unobjectionable attribute to criticize.

Also noteworthy is a man who complains about treating political disagreement as a form of neurosis, yet himself writes about "Palin Derangement Syndrome," and has on many occasions psychoanalyzed what motivates Ross Douthat to write. I am not interested in dinging him for inconsistency so much as making this observation: when a writer forcefully expresses disagreement with Sarah Palin or Robert Stacy McCain, it is cast as a result of their elitism and disdain for regular Americans — evidence that they feel contempt for political opponents who they regard as stupid — but if you actually survey the Internet, you'll see that it is far more frequent to see so-called moderates like Mr. Douthat, Rod Dreher, David Frum, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker and others attacked due to what is called their elitist class, or having their cultural attributes mocked, or having their intelligence questioned.

Anyone still unconvinced by the "politics of ressentiment" thesis can find numerous examples beyond those already offered — there are a few in this piece, where I demonstrate the harm this tendency does to young professionals on the right, and speaking of Big Hollywood, here is an excerpt sent by a Dish reader from a post prompted by the fact that Sesame Street made fun of Fox News:

We're the cool kids now. We no longer "NEED" their approval.

Guess what?

You never did.

by Patrick Appel

David Kurtz on the monetary angle (Wonk Room has more):

For my money, increased federal Medicaid subsidies for a particular state ranks pretty low along the spectrum of pork barrel politics. Is it good policy to single out one state for special treatment? Probably not. Does it amount to the sort of sleazy special interest politics that awards fat federal contracts to major campaign contributors? Hardly. For those who would equate the two, what planet do you live on?

Cohn points to commentary on the abortion compromise:

The Hill's Jeffrey Young and Wonk Room's Igor Volsky have more details on the final compromise with Nelson and other features in the manager's amendment. The gist of the abortion amendment is that it'd give states the right to prohibit coverage of abortion within their own insurance exchanges, which is what the Stupak amendment in the House bill would do nationally. Also of note: Ron Wyden did a get a scaled-down version of his Free Choice amendment. 

by Chris Bodenner

Sebastian at Obsidian Wings shares a poignant story about a guy he played World of Warcraft with:

Last month a little before Thanksgiving, I heard while we were playing that he was coughing rather loudly.  I jokingly said he should consider taking up smoking if he was going to cough so much, and he admitted that he had pneumonia.  He was on antibiotics for it and the doctors said it was a fairly bad case, though not awful.  After the raid was over I wished him well and told him "no more coughing" in my best big brother voice.  I logged in the next day and his friend from college told me that he had died, presumably of a pneumonia related pulmonary embolism.  At first I thought that the friend was playing a joke in very poor taste.  Then, what an obnoxious irony to have my last words to him be "stop coughing".  He never listened to me before.

So after an initial shock, I then found myself crying over a person I had never met.  I didn't even know what he looked like until I saw his obituary!

Ta-Nehisi offers his own thoughts and anecdotes from his online social world.

by Andrew Sprung

Last week, Andrew linked to Glenn Greenwald's lacerating response to Obama loyalists who sounded off on the Dish against left-wing attacks on Obama (Patrick's response here; a reader's here):

Those who venerated Bush because he was a morally upright and strong evangelical-warrior-family man and revere Palin as a common-sense Christian hockey mom are similar in kind to those whose reaction to Obama is dominated by their view of him as an inspiring, kind, sophisticated, soothing and mature intellectual.  These are personality types bolstered with sophisticated marketing techniques, not policies, governing approaches or ideologies.  But for those looking for some emotional attachment to a leader, rather than policies they believe are right, personality attachments are far more important.  They're also far more potent.  Loyalty grounded in admiration for character will inspire support regardless of policy, and will produce and sustain the fantasy that this is not a mere politician, but a person of deep importance to one's life who — like a loved one or close friend or religious leader — must be protected and defended at all costs.

Greenwald is right, of course. Personality is seductive, and team sports are seductive, and politics for most people is a team sport. Obama is a highly seductive personality, and the seduction lies in large part in his showcasing of his own deliberative processes, and willingness to consider all sides, and base decisions on data, and present his policies as a synthesis that partly incorporates opposing points of view. That is part skillful marketing, as Greenwald suggests, but "marketing" embedded in his personality.

That intellect on display can induce some of us to invest Obama with the properties of what some Freudians call "the one presumed to know." When presented with an apparent Obama error of policy or presentation, it's tempting to assume that he's "playing a long game," thinking five moves ahead, not focused on the daily news cycle, etc. etc. — rather than that he or his surrogates just miscalculated, or suffered a failure of nerve, or failed to pay attention, or caved to corporate interests, or otherwise erred.  We owe it to him and to the country not to cede our critical faculties and to oppose him when we believe he's of-course.

But there's another side to this.  In assessing a leader's  actions or positions, personality can't be discounted entirely. That goes for writers too, and anyone else who influences us.  Take Greenwald, for example. His powerful polemics are fueled by a personality that never suffers doubt. It's hard to imagine him considering that were he ever in power, he might see some issues differently  And therefore to consider whether his own point of view might in some instances be partial — and whether in such circumstances, God forbid, it might be rational to give a leader who explains his own reasoning in detail the benefit of the doubt.

Greenwald's writings on Afghanistan are a case in point. So many writers deeply versed in U.S. foreign policy — Steve Coll, Andrew Exum,  Fred Kaplan, Joe Klein, James Fallows — have admitted to doubt as to the right course, whether they recommend a specific course or not. Fallows, hardly one to cede his judgment to leadership (though a self-confessed nonexpert on that part of the world), plainly senses with every instinct that the U.S. will never foster a viable government in Afghanistan. Yet his respect for Obama's process and reasoning led him to title his post following Obama's West Point speech, "Well, I hope he's right"   and to allow for the possibility that he might be. Not Greenwald.  Here's a sampling of his writing on the subject:

How long are we going to continue to do this?  We invade and occupy a country, and then label as "insurgents" or even "terrorists" the people in that country who fight against our invasion and occupation.  With the most circular logic imaginable, we then insist that we must remain in order to defeat the "insurgents" and "terrorists" — largely composed of people whose only cause for fighting is our presence in their country.  All the while, we clearly exacerbate the very problem we are allegedly attempting to address — Terrorism — by predictably and inevitably increasing anti-American anger and hatred through our occupation, which, no matter the strategy, inevitably entails our killing innocent civilians.  Indeed, does Hoh's description of what drives the insurgency — anger "against the presence of foreign soldiers" – permit the conclusion that that's all going to be placated with a shift to a kind and gentle counter-insurgency strategy?

Powerful stuff. But some facts and strong counter-theories are conspicuously left out, e.g. 1) U.S. neglect of Aghanistan after the Soviets pulled out led to years of civil war contributed mightily to the rise of the Taliban, and the safe haven for al Qaeda. 2) The cycle described here was to some degree arrested in Iraq by the surge. 3) The Afghan people were not hostilely disposed toward the U.S. and allies when the Taliban were first driven out, and the country was hardly 'occupied ' by the minimal forces deployed in the aftermath. Again, arguably, the country spun into chaos more because of U.S. neglect than because of a too-heavy occupying hand. 5) Even now, the populace as a whole is not ill-disposed toward the U.S . or well-disposed toward the Taliban. 

This is not to say that Greenwald — and Matthew Hoh, whose argument he was seconding in this post — may not prove right about the futility of the U.S. attempt to stabilize Afghanistan. The point, again, is that absence of doubt is a limitation as well as a strength of Greenwald's. As Andrew Exum wrote in reference to this post:

Look, if someone writes something and it matches up with your opinion, by all means say so. But I know about 50 really smart people on Afghanistan with lots of time on the ground there, and no two have the same opinion about what U.S. policy should be. Let's not turn one dude whose opinions on Afghanistan happen to line up with the zeitgeist into the flippin' Delphic oracle.

Certainty comes from ideological consistency, and Greenwald is nothing if not consistent.  His contrast between "corporatist" and anticorporatist Democrats has a lot of truth to it, as does his portrayal of Obama as someone generally willing to play ball with corporate interests. But I think he underestimates  the realism, and the purpose behind the realism, behind Obama's conciliatory approach. The Senate health care reform bill, if something very like it passes, may transform health care delivery and health care insurance — over twenty years, with many subsequent reforms built on the basic structure. Obama is determined to move the battleship by degrees, because that's the only way it can be moved. Greenwald considers the Senate HCR bill a gift to the insurance industry. I see it more as a trade — 30 million new customers in exchange for ending their worst practices, not to mention some stiff taxes. 

Further, while no one would accuse Greenwald of not thinking out any of his own policy positions, most people who adopt a pronounced ideological framework tend to buy at least some of their opinions off the rack. (Okay, so do those who don't adopt one.) Some might even follow Greenwald (or, say, Rachel Maddow) in lockstep. In many cases, opposing a leader who tacks to what's perceived as the center on a given issue may be just as reflexive and represent just as much an abdication of independent thought as supporting a charismatic head of the party with whom one identifies.

Finally, judgment based in part on assessment of personality is not only inherent in human nature, it's essential to democracy. Though most people would probably disagree, I believe that over the long curve of history the electorate continues to prove itself smarter than all of us.  That's because the mass of voters — or at least of swing voters — are moved by some alchemy of events and response to the individuals competing for their vote.  Campaigns can obfuscate, and sometimes the obfuscation prevails. But you still can't fool all of the people all of the time.

by Patrick Appel

DiA writes about Muslim organizations refusing to cooperate with the FBI because of tactics used the government:

I've always thought these kinds of situations can probably be sketched with a sort of Laffer curve. In principle, you're going to be able to get the same amount of terrorist violence at two places along a curve of repressive law enforcement: a low-repression point, where the population is cooperative and feels included, and a high-repression point, where the population is angry and alienated but a lot of them are in jail. It's worth expending some effort to try and stay on the low end of that curve. 

This sounds a lot like the concept Conor tried to sketch out over last weekend.

by Patrick Appel

Greg Sarget analyzes the health care news:

[Sen. Ben] Nelson said that the bill had to effectively remain as is, or he would vote against it in the final cloture vote after conference negotiations, which also requires 60. In effect, Nelson is still pointing a gun at the head of reform, and telling House liberals that if they move a muscle, he’ll pull the trigger.

by Andrew Sprung

In this Bloggingheads exchange, Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network tries to explain why the U.S. has to fight in Afghanistan to keep Pakistan from imploding — and expresses some surprise that Obama did not talk more about Pakistan in his West Point speech. Eric Posner quite effectively plays the bemused ordinary citizen who doesn't get the logic of "fight in Country A to stabilize Country B."