Month: May 2011

Matt Yglesias reviews Bush's original demands to the Taliban and finds that we have accomplished all of them:

[I]f this isn't victory, what would victory look like?

Sometimes, American policy in Afghanistan seems aimed at the odd idea that our troops can't leave the country until they've succeeded in killing everyone there who wants us to leave. It also doesn't make sense for us to be fighting to obtain a permanent military presence in a distant, impoverished, landlocked country. Nothing we can do can guarantee that no future regime in Afghanistan will play host to high-profile terrorist groups. But al-Qaeda has demonstrated an ability to get by without such a host, and we've demonstrated the ability to chase terrorists out of even the most remote areas. Our complacency in the face of al-Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan before 9/11 was a mistake, but with bin Laden dead, we can turn the page and say we've rectified that error. We've achieved what we went in to Afghanistan to achieve, and now it's time to start heading for the exit.

Amen.

Accokeek, Maryland, 8.04 am

Bruce Bartlett notes how the GOP's absurd refusal to contemplate any new revenue in lowering the debt is increasingly isolated in public opinion. More evidence of a clear ease with higher taxes among elites here [PDF].

Marc Thiessen has posted Mukasey's response to McCain. Marcy Wheeler is amused by the "seamlessness between Thiessen and Mukasey speaking in the first person":

Mukasey–must hope that readers don’t see that McCain’s claim had everything to do with whether torturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led to Osama bin Laden, whereas Thiessen’s–um, I mean Mukasey’s rebuttal–clings to KSM’s use of a nickname that the US already knew. Or maybe Thiessen–um, I mean Mukasey–didn’t want his readers to know that KSM lied under torture and actually hindered the hunt for OBL, even after Thiessen’s–um, I mean Mukasey’s–cherished torture was used.

He really was a classic fundamentalist, wasn't he?

"Every day I am haunted by the fact that I gave impoverished Massachusetts citizens a chance to receive health care. I'm only human, and I've made mistakes. None bigger, of course, than helping cancer patients receive chemotherapy treatments and making sure that those suffering from pediatric AIDS could obtain medications, but that's my cross to bear," – Mitt Romney.

The best part of the Onion story:

"The major strike against Mitt Romney is that he not only tried to help people get medical care, he actually did help people get medical care," conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg said. "No other Republican in the field has that type of baggage. And in the end, in order to defeat President Obama, the GOP needs someone who has a track record of never wanting to help sick people."

I'm actually shocked and impressed that Romney has defended his reform rather than running speedily away from it.

A reader writes:

I thought I'd share this twitter hashtag that I first saw on @ezraklein's feed. Some of them are pretty funny, but you have to know a little bit about hip-hop to get most of them.

Another writes:

I doubt either Sarah or Bret Baier know the lyrics to Rapper's Delight. They are pretty extensive – on the order of 70-100 lines (note that this is the shortest of the three versions). I'm guessing she may know the opening two or four lines at best, probably from her days at a roller rink in Wasilla.

Not that it's important, but it seems like yet another odd lie.

Duly noted.

It has become almost settled wisdom that Newt told his first wife he was divorcing her while she was in hospital with uterine cancer. In fact-checking my column for this week, I came across the following first-hand testimony that this is untrue. More people, it seems to me, should acknowledge this. I was previously unaware of the rebuttal.

John Avlon sees some hope in the radio ratings.

Jonathan Cohn:

He tried to explain why his problem-solving in Massachusetts shouldn't offend the conservative electorate. But a quick look around the web makes me think conservatives remain offended. As Karen Tumulty noted in her writeup for the Washington Post, “His greatest achievement is also his biggest liability. It is the kind of paradox that would test the most agile of politicians, of whom Mitt Romney is not one.”

Jason Linkins:

The unremarked-upon irony of this situation is that it's fair to say that Mitt Romney's existence — as a credible candidate for President — depends entirely upon his Massachusetts health care reform. … Four years ago, the conventional wisdom was that Romney had deftly co-opted universal health care coverage as an issue, and demonstrated — as only a governor could, goes the narrative — the ability to actually stop talking about the problem and craft a solution.

Stanley Kurtz:

The idea that the Romneycare issue fades away with time seems totally implausible. Every debate from here on out is bound to feature all the candidates taking pot shots at Romneycare. Far from fading away, Romneycare is going to become the central issue of the nomination campaign–the surest way to take down a major rival and establish a challenger’s conservative credentials to boot. How is Romney going to overcome that? And even if he does, how is he going to unite the party?

Rick Santorum:

"Both RomneyCare and ObamaCare infringe upon individual freedom and exponentially increase the government's healthcare cost burden. RomneyCare has, in fact, not made healthcare better or saved costs in Massachusetts. It's done just the opposite. This is not a failure of execution, but a lack of foresight on Governor Romney's part to understand the implications of his policy proposals. We need leaders who believe in the American people again, not the power of government to solve our problems. Yes, the Governor had the right to implement Romney-ObamaCare at the state-level, but that does not make it the right thing to do."

Scott Brown:

"Governor Romney showed a lot of courage today by standing his ground on the reforms he put in place in Massachusetts. What he did as governor worked for Massachusetts by getting health insurance to more people."

Steven Taylor:

Quite frankly, I think this underscores much of what is wrong with our politics:  that it is often as much about whose side is doing something rather than the value (or not) of what is being done.  We have our tribe and that is where we start.  Does our tribe like this policy?  Does our tribe not like it?

Matt Steinglass:

He contrasts MassCare with ObamaCare by claiming that MassCare introduced no new taxes. This is pretty clearly a fib. The law wasn't implemented until after he was gone, and the fact that he didn't raise taxes to pay for it simply meant he refused to deal with the funding issue. His successor as governor, Deval Patrick, had to hike business fees by $100m and raise the cigarette tax by $1 a pack in 2008 to pay for the programme's subsidies.

Aaron Carroll:

How can you simultaneously argue that states should have the ultimate responsibility and right to experiment within their own walls (slide 16) AND that people should be able to buy insurance across state lines (slide 18). Don’t get me wrong; both are arguments that conservatives make. It’s just that few people make them at the same time. That’s because they run counter to each other.

Peter Suderman:

Romney may want us to believe that he hates ObamaCare, but his speech resembled nothing so much as a defense of it. If anything, he made the case better than Obama did. And that’s why, in the end, the same criticisms Romney lobbed at ObamaCare apply to his own plan.

Screenshot from Romney's healthcare slides (pdf).