Uncategorized
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Factcheck.org vs. CAP
On Thursday, Factcheck.org, our former colleagues when we were running Spinsanity, released an article criticizing stupid liberal/Democratic rhetoric about Bush’s Social Security plan being intended to enrich Wall Street — a point I’ve made before. Brooks Jackson, who runs Factcheck, pointed to the low administrative costs of the Thrift Savings Plan, the federal program President
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Reflexive hypocrisy accusations
There’s a strange reflex people have when reading political articles they don’t like: rather than respond on the merits, they immediately allege hypocrisy to defuse the charge. So when I criticized Robert Byrd’s invocation of Hitler’s takeover of Germany during Senate debate over the “nuclear option” in my last post, one of the commenters immediately
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Putting Byrd out to pasture
We need to get Robert Byrd out of the Senate. Comparing the “nuclear option” to Hitler’s takeover of the German government is only the latest of many, many stupid and offensive things he’s said over the years. And yes, he carries a copy of the Constitution around, knows lots of parliamentary procedure, and quotes Cicero.
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Failing to grasp the failure of private accounts
New polls from New York Times/CBS News, Pew and even the Senate Republican Conference confirm what we already knew – support for private accounts is cratering. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of Senate Finance, is hinting that Republicans should drop them entirely. Yet even as the GOP flails around for a deal to cut, the President
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Support for private accounts in free fall
The wheels are visibly coming off the wagon: Associated Press (poll conducted 2/22-2/24): “More than half of Americans, 55 percent, say they oppose the president’s plan to create private accounts, while 39 percent say they support it, according to the poll conducted for AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.” USA Today (poll conducted 2/25-2/27): “A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup
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Bush sets deadline for public to change its mind on Social Security
Republicans have issued an ultimatum to the American public — you have six weeks to change your mind about private accounts… or else! Here’s the Washington Post: White House officials are telling Republican lawmakers and allies on K Street that they must begin to overcome opposition to President Bush’s proposal for changing Social Security within
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Time to start worrying about risk
The American Prospect’s Matthew Yglesias does a good job of covering some material I was planning to write up. Economic risk has become a hugely important policy issue: RISK AND REWARD. Kevin Drum alerts us to the fact that Peter Gosselin‘s superb series on economic risk in America is now available in a convenient package.
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Playing on anti-Arab bigotry
Ann Coulter recently tried to include this sentence in her syndicated column: “Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.” And Rep. Sam Johnson recently advocated nuking Syria (though his staff denies it): “Syria is the problem.
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What’s the matter with Dean in Kansas?
Howard Dean, fresh from stereotyping minorities as hotel workers, has weighed in recently with two more bits of wisdom during a visit to Kansas. As Mickey Kaus notes (by way of Polipundit), Dean ended a speech on Friday in Lawrence, Kansas with this statement: “This is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the
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What is Matt Bai talking about?
Here’s a classic example of a bogus logical opposition from Matt Bai in the New York Times Magazine: So-called [Democratic] centrists, with precious few exceptions, have lined up with their party’s base against the idea of partly privatizing Social Security, even though those same Democrats used to argue that the program was gravely ill. How