The Dish

A reader writes:

One of the deepest frustrations settling in for me over the last 24 hours has been not only the recriminations towards Obama, but the multiplicity and utter lack of consistency about them. I’m to believe, from reading a fairly representative swath of news coverage, Facebook statuses, etc., that Obama has to 1) stop freaking the middle class out with talk of health care reform 2) come back to the table strongly in support of a public option that cannot pass the senate 3) slow down 4) not let the process take up so much time 5) don’t lose focus on health care  6) listen to his base and act passionately, just like Bush did 7) engage the other side and independents better 7) stop pretending that the GOP will ever negotiate in bad faith 8) make a more earnest effort to negotiate with the GOP in bad faith 9) get something done and 10) stop trying to get so many things done.

While there is so validity to some of these points, what we’re seeing right now is much bigger than a freak-out; it is the absolute rejection of an even a conceptual political center by a combination of off-cycle voters and the fourth estate. I worry that this is the calcification of the culture wars past a point where no political headway can be made, and no compromise can be brooked, without either side claiming treachery by the other; whether it’s the tea bagger base of the GOP and their phantasm of a government takeover of health care, or whether it’s the progressive left base of the party who honestly believe that none of this would have happened if, say, Howard Dean were HHS Secretary (or something like that).

The GOP, of course, has a much easier job: to just say “No” repeatedly while the nihilists on the Left can keep making idiotic claims about “starting over”, with nothing based in practical or even conceptual experience to explain how this would be done. This is infuriating on so many levels because it confirms something that I wasn’t sure Obama could fix, but which compelled me (and still compels me) to give him my unwavering support: it’s that our political culture, at every single level-from the fickle but decisive independent voters, to the reflexively Manichean right and congenitally spineless Congressional Dems- is just so, so, so STUPID.

This is a rough conclusion for me to come to, but hear me out. You’ve been talking for months about the long game and how this is how the process is supposed to play out. We now have a message from a certain segment of Massachusetts voters which, rightly or wrongly, is being viewed as a repudiation of the process, which, remember, is supposed to work this way. Basically, it’s the effect of voters not so much saying, “We don’t want change” but more like a child’s backseat complaint of “Are we there yet?!”.

This is not to say that the Administration did not make a few key mistakes (letting this turn into a debate about cost controls, while it might satisfy a few deficit hawks here and there, doesn’t galvanize your average voter in, say, Foxborough). However, it does point to an insistence by voters for both 1) moderation (which I think we have been provided in not-unseemly amounts from Obama) and 2) immediate results (which moderation makes unattainable). If what voters want is a President that acts like George W. Bush (whose legislative legacy remains a poorly timed tax cut, two wars, two complete wastes of time-No Child Left Behind and the Drug Entitlement-and a barely constitutional intervention into state courts) with the intellectual acuity and prowess of, well, Barack Obama, then, I can’t help but throw my hands up in the air.

Of course, I won’t in the end (some of your Views from Your Recession continue to give me hope that we’re on the right course). But the more I see it, our politics are unserious because our voters are unserious about our politics. We get the leadership that we deserve. (at least we did from 1992 through 2008). Now that we have leadership that may be more than we deserve, I suspect that, for a number of voters out there, it simply can’t compute.

St. John, Virgin Islands, 8.29 am

Another reader throws up her hands:

This is yet another email from an Obama supporter who has lost all hope. I will no longer vote in national elections, because it is clear to me now that my vote for president or senator are worthless. A handful of morons in (insert a state here) invalidate my choice because the Senate is ruled by 5-6 Senators that refuse to face tough choices that need to be made to avoid a financial catastrophe in 10 years. There will be NO health care bill passed and the raging idiots will blame the Democrats and vote the Republicans in a landslide in November 2010. Forget about the REALLY tough problems like the debt, Social Security, moving away from our dependence on foreign energy supplies, etc. If Congress can't get it's collective shit together to pass a bill that attempts to fix a problem EVERYONE agrees on, then all hope is lost.

Obama can't change this. The country has exactly the government it deserves: fat, stupid and lazy. Built to respond to the 24-hour news cycle and a singular goal of protecting seats in the next election. Obama is a one termer. I hate writing that, but it's true. Republicans will put up some populist puff piece in 2012 and he's going to win.

I'm done.

For what it's worth, I'm not. And for what it's worth, I beg you not to be.

We supported Obama precisely because he was trying to combat this system, to attempt governance that was not hostage to news-cycle Rovian politics. And this he has tried to do, operating within a system that is the one we have, in a climate that the last four decades has created. He has achieved, despite the carping on the left and rage on the right, many good things. Health insurance reform is one of the toughest. And the more I have studied this subject, the more sensible the Senate bill actually appears – given the exigencies of the system and the economic distress of the moment.

I don't think ramming the Senate bill through the House and trying to get through reconciliation will work. I do think Obama has a golden opportunity at his SOTU to do what he did last September, and patiently explain why some reform is necessary, that he is open to constructive criticism, but that he was elected to get difficult things done. What he needs to do politically is expose the vacuity of the opposition, by hanging back a little and letting their politics of no and never sink in. If he can credibly explain how he will bring the budget back to balance, and how healthcare reform is actually partly a means to do this, he can regain the initiative.

This is the GOP's high water-mark. They have abdicated any responsibility to tackle the problems we all acknowledge, while indulging in extremist rhetoric. They live for the spin and the rage. So this is the moment they have been waiting for. Most Americans don't think this way. They are legitimately worried that health reform is too costly right now. They're wrong if we find the will in the coming years to ensure that the Medicare cuts are real and the cost controls are followed up. And we need to do our part in persuading them.

This is not over. In some ways, it is only just beginning.

Which is why Obama needs us breathing down his neck, and galvanizing support for necessary reform – now, more than in the campaign. If we give up, we will be copying the hysteria and nihilism of the right. Do not give up. Focus. Argue. Mobilize.

Yes. We. Can.

Benjamin Zycher, writing at NRO's health care blog, outlines what he sees as the next battle:

Dems will now turn to a limited version of health-care legislation designed and labeled as "insurance reform" — that is, sharp limitations on underwriting combined with guaranteed-issue and no-cancellation regulations. In other words, no denial of coverage based on medical condition.

This would yield a massive adverse-selection problem: No one would sign up for coverage until they developed expensive medical conditions. Even accident victims would be invited to sign up for "insurance" — shifting their known costs onto others — as they were wheeled into the emergency rooms. This, of course, would destroy the private-insurance sector, leaving only government to fill the void. Voila! Single-payer by stealth.

As he writes:

Public-opinion polls show overwhelming support for such regulations, and Republicans in Congress would be hard-pressed to oppose them.

In the end, they may realize just how sensible the current Senate bill is. There are some twists and turns in this yet to come.

Oy:

Both a Venezuelan state-owned radio and television properties zeroed in on a secret U.S. "weapon of earthquakes" as the cause of the earthquake that struck Haiti last week causing a death toll could exceed 200,000 according to some sources. On the website of Radio Nacional de Venezuela (RNV) are published statements of the university professor, Vladimir Acosta, a regular contributor to the media controlled by the government of Hugo Chávez, accusing the U.S. of wanting to make Haiti a protectorate under the guise of the natural disaster.

An all-white basketball league is poised to launch in 12 cities:

“Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch?” [All-American Basketball Alliance commissioner Don “Moose” Lewis] said. “That’s the culture today, and in a free country we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction.”

Jonathan Bernstein makes sense:

Obviously, Republicans should oppose Obama and the Democrats on substance, sharply if there are (real) sharp disagreements, which is the case on many policies.  But the rejectionist strategy they’re following (oppose Dems at every turn, regardless of policy difference) is, I continue to believe, a real mistake.

What’s the cost to Republicans?  First, on policy, they lose the ability to negotiate on behalf of their important constituency groups; as we’ve seen, this can have the effect of actually driving some of these groups (the doctors, for example) right out of the party.  Second, embracing the crazy yields, well, the crazy in charge of your party.  Republicans stand to gain in the 2010 cycle because the economy is lousy, because Democrats have a lot of exposure after two terrific cycles, and because the party of the president almost always does badly in midterms.  If, however, Republicans nominate candidates who have embraced the crazy, they will be far more vulnerable to counterattacks than if they nominate good, solid candidates (and not every Democratic candidate will emulate Martha Coakley and not get around to attacking crazy things that their opponents say until the last 48 hours). 

However, no one is going to listen to advice like that.

Felix Salmon whacks the NYT's paywall proposal:

[There’s] no mention of what’s going to happen to the NYT’s many blogs, and on this front I think no news is bad news and that they, too, will be part of the metered system. Suffice to say that the number of successful blogs behind a paywall is, at present, exactly zero.

While Nick Carr defends the paywall. Earlier thoughts here and here.

Today on the Dish we surveyed the fallout over the Coakley-Brown bout. Reader reax here. Reactions from Obama here, Jim Webb here, and Barney Frank here and here. A Senate staffer vented to TPM. Olbermann spewed some bile. Nate Silver performed an autopsy of the race, Cohn agonized over the remains, and Megan proposed a cure for HCR.  Larison assessed both sides of the debate, Packer pitted Obama's pragmatism against GOP populism, and Andrew saw the return of Rovism. Mort Zuckerman jumped the shark on Obama and Bainbridge lived in a libertarian bubble. More commentary from E.D. Kain, Yglesias, Chait, and Greenwald.

Dissent of the day here. The latest recession update here. Another meth memoir here. And a fantastic window here.

— C.B.