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New York Times op-ed on health care reform myths
I have an op-ed in the New York Times today on myths about health care reform — here’s how it begins: At the White House signing ceremony for health care legislation on Tuesday, President Obama declared, “In a few moments, when I sign this bill, all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront
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GOP control of Congress doesn’t help Obama
Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza is floating another silly up-is-down argument about how President Obama would benefit from Republican control of Congress: How would the health care fight have played out differently if Republicans were in control of the House? It’s impossible — though fascinating — to game out what might have happened but what’s
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The difficulties of repealing health care reform
It looks like Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) and the other Republicans promoting repeal of the health care reform bill need some civics lessons. Here are the last four tweets to Inglis’s Twitter account in chronological order (via Steve Singiser): -What do you do when Congress passes a bad bill? You get a new Congress to
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Obama as a “polarizing” president
In today’s New York Times, Peter Beinart describes President Obama as having “failed in the effort to be the nonpolarizing president” and calls him “our third highly polarizing president in a row”: “Let’s face it, he’s failed in the effort to be the nonpolarizing president, the one who can use rationality and calm debate to
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Twitter roundup
From my Twitter feed: -Breakdowns of last night’s House vote on health care reform by the New York Times, Stanford’s Simon Jackman, and 538’s Nate Silver -John Thune is yet another GOP supply-sider with presidential aspirations: “I’m always for cutting … marginal rates because you get more revenue” –The unscientific state of forensic evidence in
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Kinsley wrong to blame inflation for decline in trust
Michael Kinsley is a brilliant writer, but sometimes it’s possible to be too glib. Take, for instance, his monocausal explanation in The Atlantic of the decline in trust in civic institutions and government: Furthermore, as Samuelson notes, the damage is more than just economic. These days everyone is disenchanted with civic institutions and government. They
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Obama and the Reagan myth revisited
As I’ve repeatedly noted, journalists have a tendency to attribute electoral outcomes and poll ratings to political tactics rather than the underlying fundamentals (most notably, the state of the economy). That’s why the current Obama blame game has been so painfully predictable. The latest example comes from TNR’s John Judis. To his credit, Judis has
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Twitter roundup
From my Twitter feed: -David Brooks: Hacky and wrong -Brad DeLong values bloggers on the Kaus scale — I’m available at those rates! -Rep. Alan Grayson has a dignity problem -Vaccine/autism link again discredited — someone tell the Huffington Post -I guarantee you’ve never heard anyone rap around Rutherford B. Hayes before -Judge concludes Filegate
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“Death panels” postmodernism
The latest example of conservative postmodernism comes from a Noah Schachtman’s Wired story on Andrew Breitbart (founder of the websites Big Journalism, Big Government, and Big Hollywood), which discusses Big Government blogger Michael Walsh’s utter indifference to the truth: The stories don’t even have to be true to be useful. In December, Big Government’s Michael
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Roger Cohen reads Obama’s mind
Via TAP’s Mori Dinauer, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen pretends to read Barack Obama’s mind — time to break out the swami (emphasis mine): The Obama presidency has been a shock to Europe. At heart, Obama is not a Westerner, not an Atlanticist. He grew up partly in Indonesia and partly in Hawaii, which