What she said:
"From its first day, the Obama Administration has worked to promote Israel's security and long-term success. And if you ever doubt the resolve of President Obama to stay with a job, look at what we got done for the United States last night when it came to passing quality affordable health care for everyone."
That was my core thesis in the Sunday Times last Sunday. Gideon Rachman echoes the theme:
Of course, there is no direct connection between the renewal of Mr Obama’s domestic political momentum and his chances of success in foreign policy. But there is an indirect connection. Put crudely, the passage of healthcare reform makes Mr Obama look like a winner rather than a loser. It also shows that he is tenacious and that his stubbornness can pay dividends.
Healthcare looked like a lost battle – but it turned out just to be a long battle.
Foreign leaders who have written off Mr Obama’s chances of succeeding on the big international issues – Afghanistan, the Middle East, climate change, Iran – will now have to consider the possibility that the president’s persistence might ultimately deliver success. That increases the likelihood that leaders who are wavering will listen and try to work with him.
It may also make foreign leaders who are inclined to thumb their nose at the president think twice. This is not a great week for Mr Netanyahu to arrive in Washington – where he is scheduled to speak to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). If healthcare reform had collapsed in Congress, the Israeli prime minister might have been emboldened to try to rally US opposition to the Obama administration’s Middle East policies. But now that the president has a following wind, confronting him looks riskier.
Success over healthcare may also encourage fickle pundits (I include myself among them) to take a more balanced view of Mr Obama’s first year in office. The administration did, after all, avert the threat of a complete meltdown of the banking industry. The US economy is now growing at an annualised rate of almost 6 per cent a year – much faster than any comparable western economy.
GOP Amendment: No Viagra For Sex Offenders
"Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian," – Mitt Romney, April 11, 2006.
A reader writes:
Oh please … ”contempt" for the electorate”? As I recall, the bill passed with 219 votes precisely because Congress and the President were empowered by the electorate in 2008. Perhaps Megan thinks we should just dispatch with the whole notion of elections and just leave decisions up to Rasmussen and Gallup. Perhaps the pollsters could set up shop at the Capitol and the White House. What a thought! Voters don’t just vote for ideas, but for representatives, who tend to be extraordinarily useful in making reasonable decisions when unreasonable minority factions are scaring the shit out of everyone else.
Another writes:
Her post strikes me as a bit hysterical, and it seems as if Megan has no recollection of 2000 through 2008. As I recall there were a number of things that happened during those years that did not satisfy the will of the people. The 2003 House vote on the Medicare Modernization Act, where the GOP leadership held the vote open for hours (literally in the middle of the night), while twisting arms with some pretty craven tactics, seemed far worse than anything we have seen in the past week.
Another:
I am not sure what Megan means by "legislative innovations." Does she mean a straight up or down vote after a year of debate and negotiations? Does she mean reconciliation, a move used by Republicans and Democrats alike for years? The only "innovation" we saw this weekend was Democrats not backing down.
The will of the people was clearly expressed in November 2008 when Obama won the presidency with a clear mandate and the Democrats won overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate. Health care reform was a central part of Obama's campaign as well as the campaigns of many Democratic Reps and Senators. Health care reform was not some wild surprise Obama sprung on the American people after he tricked them into electing him. I don't think polls should be totally ignored, but I think that election day is the ultimate poll.
Also, she seems only interested in Congress honoring the will of certain people. My rep, Luis Guiterrez, was threatening to vote no. I and many others called and wrote to his office to urge him to vote yes. He listened to his constituents and voted yes. He was honoring the will of the people in his district. I also wrote to my senators, Obama, and Pelosi. Why should some Tea Party protester's desires trump mine? McArdle ignores the fact that there are millions of regular citizens like me communicating with their legislators, and even more who silently wanted this legislation to pass.
Sometimes the other side just wins – it doesn't mean the end of the country as we know it, and it doesn't mean that they cheated. I have only read a few things here and there by McArdle, but that post pretty much guarantees that I won't be reading much more by her. Not because she disagrees about HCR but because of the lack of intellectual honesty displayed in that posting.
Friedersdorf objects to all the energy spent on whether the health care bill would pass or not:
If the political blogosphere covered basketball games, we’d not only be told about shots, makes, and misses, but every rotation of the ball on the way to the hoop. “He shoots, the ball appears to be on course, it’s getting closer and still seems like it’ll make it, I give it a 90 percent chance of going in, IT HITS THE BACK RIM, it didn’t make it, it definitely appears as though it may bounce out, it’s going to bounce on the rim a second time, now it’s perched on the lip and may go in or out — an instant poll of the crowd confirms that 75 percent of people think it’ll wind up a miss — my God it’s actually falling into the basket, this moment it is falling through the net, it’s a basket!”
In arguing why she's a "bad choice," Shales writes that "[s]upporters of Israel have more than once charged Amanpour with bias against that country and its policies," and adds: "A Web site devoted to criticism of Amanpour is titled, with less than a modicum of subtlety, 'Christiane Amanpour's Outright Bias Against Israel Must Stop,' available via Facebook." Are these "charges" valid? Is this "Web site" credible? Does she, in fact, exhibit anti-Israel bias? Who knows? Shales doesn't bother to say. In fact, he doesn't even bother to cite a single specific accusation against her; apparently, the mere existence of these complaints, valid or not, should count against her.
Earlier thoughts here.
Reihan outlines a few of his preferred reforms.
Benen celebrates Gallup's latest health care poll:
If Republicans were right, these results would be impossible. Democrats are "ramming through" a proposal that the country hates? Americans will be outraged. But they're not. In fact, most Americans are apparently pretty pleased with the outcome — and that's after just one day after the House vote. As more of the country learns that GOP scare tactics were baseless, and hears about the new benefits that kick in this year, the polls will likely improve further.
Nate Silver warns about reading too much into one poll. Gary Langer's two cents on health care polling more generally:
[T]here’s opportunity ahead for each side to make its case – and while the future's unknown, we do have one recent experience to consider: In our polling in April 2006, just 41 percent of adults overall, and 50 percent of seniors, supported the expansion of prescription drug coverage in Medicare that had just passed the Congress. By 2008, in an AARP poll of seniors who were enrolled in the program, 67 percent described themselves as very or extremely satisfied with it.
Kinsley is taking heat for his article worrying about inflation. There isn't much reason to fear inflation at this very moment, but Kinsley's larger concern is about the unsustainable debt. He responds to Krugman's critique:
I have been waiting for Paul Krugman to tell me how we are going to handle the debt, once we get this recession out of the way. No, really. There’s no economist whose judgment I trust more. (About economics, that is.) I’ve been all for the stimulus and the jobs bill and even, I guess, the sundry bailouts. But don’t we at some point have to start paying the money back? And how are we going to do that? Krugman’s failure (unless I’ve missed it) to give us an answer to that question is one of the things that makes me worry.
Krugman replies. Ryan Avent adds his thoughts, which Felix Salmon seconds. More on why we can't inflate away the debt from Catherine Rampell.
The Dish 