Author: Andrew Sullivan

How Much Does A Prime Minister’s Character Matter?

The Economist’s Bagehot asks:

In [Gordon] Brown’s case, it isn’t only his temper. He is dangerously workaholic, sometimes indecisive, and he struggles to delegate. A lifetime in politics has enthralled him to its machinations and short-termism—though he also possesses an almost superhuman resilience, which has helped him to withstand the serial meltdowns and coups of the past few years. These traits may indeed help to explain some of his government’s failings, if they mean he intimidates his staff and wastes his own energy. Perhaps his alleged propensity to throw mobile phones and punch car seats is somehow connected to Britain’s gargantuan deficit and the severe recession he has presided over.

Or perhaps it isn’t. History suggests that sometimes bad manners and habits are destructive; sometimes they are not. And ultimately it is the facts of the deficit and recession that matter, not rumours of hurled phones and stapled hands, etc; it is the record, not the irruptions. If Mr Brown’s record were better, people would probably be less interested in his mood swings.

A Quarter The Cost

Douthat wants a smaller bill:

[E]ven as a hypothetical, the more modest plan is instructive. Per the Journal, it would insure half as many people as the House and Senate bills — 15 million, all told — at a quarter of the cost. 15 million happens to be roughly the number of American citizens who don’t have insurance, aren’t already eligible for Medicaid or S-CHIP, and make less than 300 percent of the poverty line. Which suggests that you can do some of the most morally urgent work of health care reform without a mandate or price controls, and at a fraction of the current legislation’s price tag.

Chait says Ross is mistaken.

Did It Change Anything?

Nate Silver scores the summit:

Fundamentally, one's impression of where the health care debate stands is liable to be very similar to where it was 24 hours ago. Personally, I err a bit on the pessimistic side because (i) the math in the House, already challenging to the Democrats, has gotten even tougher with the death of John Murtha and the impending retirement of Neil Abercrombie; and (ii) it seems like there are a lot of ways the Democrats could fumble the exchange between the bipartisan tone they sought to strike today and their need to pass their policy in a reconciliation/majority-rules environment later on.

Chart Of The Day, Ctd

A reader writes:

What's striking to me about that chart is that "Welfare" has a relatively high percentage of conservatives wanting to cut it but "Aid to The Poor" has a low percentage. It once again shows how the way you describe a program has a huge effect on how people react to it. I guarantee you that if you renamed welfare as "economic opportunity assistance" conservatives would be very supportive of it even if you didn't change a thing in the policy. This, of course, is one of the reasons we have a representative republic is that, in theory, you've got experts who can get beyond labels like that. In theory…

Er: Welfare means aid to the black poor, surely? And aid to the poor means white, right? Not that hard to figure it out.

The Daily Wrap

Today on the Dish we followed coverage of the healthcare summit. Reax here and here. More commentary and analysis from Jonathan Bernstein, Mark Blumenthal, Jon Cohn, and Ross Douthat. Andrew wanted to laud Paul Ryan but couldn’t quite get there. Meanwhile, McCain huffed and Palin watched hockey.

Readers here and here disagreed with Andrew on the latest provocations in Israel, Goldblog sided with Andrew, and we were informed from a good source that the Mossad actually did do it. OPR update here. Andrew suspected Newsweek was being ironic about their semantic debate over terrorism, and Newsweek largely confirmed it.

Another beauty contestant spoke out against gay people, Maggie naturally jumped in, and Andrew came down hard. Pete Davis sounded off on the Gregg-Wyden bill and Rick Hertzberg picked apart Rush’s racism. Hilarious correction of the day here.

— C.B.

Newsweek And “Terrorism”: Irony Overload? Ctd

Devin Gordon of Newsweek responds to my question:

Dear Andrew, thanks for asking, and I am sorry we left the e-mail transcript so murky that the question was raised. Now here’s the answer: she was absolutely, positively “mocking craven and inconsistent and obviously racist distinctions in the MSM.” Indeed, we presumed—perhaps mistakenly—that those taxonomical distinctions were so self-evidently craven, inconsistent, and racist that it never occurred to us someone might believe our managing editor, Kathy Jones, actually shares them herself. She is mortified that anyone would think otherwise. Her post was missing a single word that could’ve helped us avoid the confusion. If she had called it her “handy MEDIA guide,” or “handy USERS guide,” her intent almost certainly would’ve been clear. Suffice it to say, in retrospect, she dearly wishes she had.

I should also point out that Kathy’s post in this e-mail chain immediately followed my opening salvo, in which I called out The Wall Street Journal for labeling Joseph Stack a “tax protester.” Kathy was reacting to the table I set, which she interpreted to be a request for a conversation about how the media label these nutballs. However, when one reads her comment outside of that context, it begins to sound much more like a view she holds herself. I would urge anyone interested in this conversation to read the entire chain of e-mails, and I apologize for the lack of clarity at the outset. I also apologize to Kathy—because “craven,” “inconsistent,” and “racist” are three words no one would ever use to describe her.

David Graham’s Newsweek Joe Stack story on February 18 uses the phrase “domestic terror attack.” Looks like irony by Kathy Jones to me. And happy to set the record straight. I mean that unironically.