The Commentariat -- November 8

I've been wondering why the Affordable Care Law has taken such a beating, especially since it contains so many provisions that are popular with voters. Then it dawned on me. Every Republican who thinks s/he should be President in 2012, which is practically every Republican, is using healthcare reform as a cudgel not just against President Obama but also against the presumptive Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, who -- while governor of Massachusetts -- approved a healthcare package similar to the federal program. -- The Constant Weader

** Eugene Steuerle of the Brookings Institution: "... for close to 15 years now, all major congressional actions have basically been giveaways. Now, even if you believe we need more temporary stimulus, the long-run budget is so out of whack that our newly elected officials must restore some sort of balance. That's right, our elected officials must become tax collectors in the broadest sense of the word: they must ask us to give up something.... Our newly minted leaders have just won the honor of being our tax collectors." Via Michael Scherer of Time: "In other words, if you hate your government now, just wait a few more years."

** Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is supposed to oversee national banks, has done less than nothing to scrutinize the largest banks' foreclosure procedures, relying on the banks to do their own policing & preventing state regulators from acting.

Paul Krugman: Fed Chair Ben "Bernanke is getting the Obama treatment, and making the Obama response. He’s facing intense, knee-jerk opposition to his efforts to rescue the economy. In an effort to mute that criticism, he’s scaling back his plans in such a way as to guarantee that they’ll fail."

Tom Shanker of the New York Times: "President Obama is about to receive an unusual opportunity to reshape the Pentagon’s leadership, naming a new defense secretary as well as several top generals and admirals in the next several months."

Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal: "The drive in Congress to repeal the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy appears all but lost for the foreseeable future, with action unlikely this year and even less likely once Republicans take charge of the House in January."

Alissa Rubin of the New York Times: "The choices for Afghan women are extraordinarily restricted: Their family is their fate. There is little chance for education, little choice about whom a woman marries, no choice at all about her role in her own house. Her primary job is to serve her husband’s family. Outside that world, she is an outcast." They often resort to suicide, commonly by self-immolation.

As Jim Fallows titles it, "The Mid-Term Elections, in One Chart":

Eric Ostermeier of Smart Politics: "Only 3 percent of 230 Democratic U.S. House incumbents on the ballot increased their margin of victory in 2010 compared to 2008; Nancy Pelosi had the second largest increase."

** RicK Hertzberg: the midterm electorate was "whiter, markedly older, and more habitually Republican: if the franchise had been limited to them two years ago, last week’s exit polls suggest, John McCain would be President today." And they're ignorant. ...

... Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: strategists for the two parties & within the Democratic Party itself disagree on "how much ... the health-care law ... [had] to do with Republicans winning back the House and gaining six seats in the Senate." 

President Obama on "60 Minutes"

The Commentariat -- November 7

There doesn't seem to be anybody in the White House who's got any idea what it's like to lie awake at night worried about money and worried about things slipping away. They're all intellectually smart. They've got their numbers. But they don't feel any of it, and I think people sense that. -- Gov. Phil Bredesen, Democrat of Tennessee

Karen Tumulty & Dan Balz of the Washington Post assess the status of & prospects for the national Democratic party.

Frank Rich: the bad news -- Obama has no plan for the country's future. The good news -- neither do the Republicans. Rich says Obama should call the Repubicans' bluff, AND he needs to show some Trumanesque fight.

Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "Republicans [are] at a stronger position in the South than at any time since Reconstruction. And with Republican control of so many legislatures on the eve of redistricting, white Democrats, who once occupied every available political office in the region, are facing near extinction in some states."

Historian David Kennedy finds "disturbing parallels" between today's "political volatility" and that of the Gilded Age, with its "combination of extraordinary social and economic dynamism and abject political paralysis."

Nicholas Kristof finds even more downsides to our growing economic inequality. To the powers that be, Kristof says, "... let’s not aggravate income gaps that already would make a Latin American caudillo proud. To me, we’ve reached a banana republic point where our inequality has become both economically unhealthy and morally repugnant."

Artwork by David Klein for the New York Times.... AND speaking of growing economic inequality, what about the estate tax? Prof. Richard Thaler, in a New York Times op-ed, reminds us that after a one-year exemption for everybody, it is due "reappear in 2011 at the lower exemption level and higher rates that were in place in 2001." He calls this provision the “planned Bush tax increase." The Obama Administration wants to "make the 2009 rates and exemption permanent," but many Republicans want to continue the exemption for the super-rich. Thaler asks, which is more prudent, "Trim the deficit, improve education, support the troops, or make sure heiresses like Paris Hilton have the proper attire for trips to St.-Tropez." ...

... SO, to cut down that pesky deficit while keeping Paris is bling, Robert Pear of the New York Times reports that Congressional Republicans plan to try to gut programs that benefit the middle class -- like the Affordable Health Act. ...

... CW: will somebody please explain this to those poor old dingbats of the tea party persuasion? ...

... AND speaking of teabaggers, Tom Levenson (who isn't one), writing in Balloon Juice, makes a compelling argument that one of the tea party's favorite revolutionaries, Ben "Franklin, approved of sharply progressive taxation to pay for crucial functions of government.... Franklin understood and approved of the idea that the inflationary tax created by the collapse of the infant American dollar not just did but should hit the rich harder than the poor."

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran. Instead of a surgical strike on their nuclear infrastructure, I think we're to the point now that you have to really neuter the regime's ability to wage war against us and our allies. And that's a different military scenario. It's not a ground invasion but it certainly destroys the ability of the regime to strike back. -- Sen. Lindsey Graham

If you look at who we’re electing to Congress, to the Senate—they can’t read. I’ll bet you a bunch of these people don’t have passports. We’re about to start a trade war with China if we’re not careful here, only because nobody knows where China is. Nobody knows what China is. -- NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Peter Stein of the Wall Street Journal: "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on a visit to Hong Kong and the neighboring city of Shenzhen, had some harsh criticism for his own fellow Americans: Stop blaming the Chinese for their problems."

Oh No! Teaching Kids the "Gay Lifestyle." Erik Eckholm in the New York Times: "... efforts to teach acceptance of homosexuality, which have gained urgency after several well-publicized suicides by gay teenagers, are provoking new culture wars in some communities.... Angry parents and religious critics, while agreeing that schoolyard harassment should be stopped, charge that liberals and gay rights groups are using the antibullying banner to pursue a hidden 'homosexual agenda,' implicitly endorsing, for example, same-sex marriage."

Republican Civil War. Michael Gerson:  Sarah "Palin recently took to Fox Business Network to call establishment Republicans 'sleazy.' 'Some within the establishment don't like the fact that I won't back down to a good-old-boys club,' she said. This odd mix of Tea Party Jacobinism and feminist grievance has become Palin's operating style. What many Republicans, establishment and otherwise, don't like is this: The leading figure of the Tea Party movement seems increasingly indifferent to Republican fortunes and increasingly tolerant of disturbing extremism." ...

... ADD to this Peggy Noonan's calling Palin "a nincompoop," ...

... AND you're gonna get some blowback from the Palinistas, like this from Doug Brady on the Conservative 4 Palin blog: after calling Noonan a "cartoonish," "self-important" author of "incoherent hot gas... 20 years past her useful shelf-life," Brady lays into Gerson.

Slow-Rolling Lone-Star Secession. Emily Ramshaw of the New York Times: "Some [Texas] Republican lawmakers — still reveling in Tuesday’s statewide election sweep — are proposing an unprecedented solution to the state’s estimated $25 billion budget shortfall: dropping out of the federal Medicaid program. Far-right conservatives are offering that possibility in impassioned news conferences. Moderate Republicans are studying it behind closed doors. And the party’s advisers on health care policy say it is being discussed more seriously than ever, though they admit it may be as much a huge in-your-face to Washington as anything else." ...

... AND Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: Gov. Rick Perry wants to opt out of Social Security. With video. ...

... Gov. Perry cites as a model for his plan three Texas counties that opted out of Social Security in 1981. But Ian Millhiser of Think Progress notes that a study determined that residents of those three counties "left participants worse off than they would have been under Social Security." Millhiser also demonstrates that such a plan would be effectively unworkable.

Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times reviews George W. Bush's Decision Points:

Certainly it’s the most casual of presidential memoirs: how many works in the genre start as a sort of evangelical, 12-step confession (“Could I continue to grow closer to the Almighty or was alcohol becoming my god?”), include some off-color jokes and conclude with an aside about dog poop?

The prose in 'Decision Points' is utilitarian, the language staccato and blunt. Mr. Bush’s default mode is regular-guy- politico, and his moods vacillate mainly among the defensive and the diligent — frat boy irreverence, religious certainty and almost willful obliviousness.

... Maureen Dowd has read Dubya's memoir. According to Dubya, he never knew what was going on, but Dowd finds this memoir about nothing a good read anyway, largely because it contains anecdotes like this one Dowd recounts:

He writes of a visit to Russia, when Putin showed him his black Labrador, Koni. 'Bigger, stronger, and faster than Barney,' Putin bragged.

Later, when W. recounted this to Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, Harper drolly noted, 'You’re lucky he only showed you his dog.'

... Steve Holland of Reuters: "In his memoir, "Decision Points," [George W.] Bush strongly defends the use of waterboarding as critical to his efforts to prevent a repeat of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He says waterboarding was limited to three detainees and led to intelligence breakthroughs that thwarted attacks." ...

... CW: John Hohmann of Politico reports on one fascinating bit of Decision Points: -- the presidential candidates' reactions to the 2008 financial meltdown. Bush writes that McCain's "suspension" of his campaign was "erratic" & forced Bush to call a "farcical" meeting, while Obama was "gracious." Here are a couple of excerpts from Decision Points, but read Hohmann's article for the full effect:

In periods of crisis, voters value experience and judgment over youth and charisma. By handling the challenge in a statesmanlike way, John could make the case that he was the better candidate for the times.... I thought it was smart when [Obama] informed the gathering that he was in constant contact with Hank [Paulson]. His purpose was to show that he was aware, in touch, and prepared to help get a bill passed.... [When Bush turned to McCain, the senator had nothing to say.] I was puzzled. He had called for this meeting. I assumed he would come prepared to outline a way to get the bill passed.... What had started as a drama quickly descended into a farce.

Currently the Top Headline in the New York Times: "While Warning about Fat, U.S. Pushes Sale of Cheese."

Not Your Grandfather's India. Jim Yardley of the New York Times: "Gandhi remains India’s patriarch ... but modern India is hardly a Gandhian nation, if it ever was one. His vision of a village-dominated economy was shunted aside during his lifetime as rural romanticism, and his call for a national ethos of personal austerity and nonviolence has proved antithetical to the goals of an aspiring economic and military power. If anything, India’s rise as a global power seems likely to distance it even further from Gandhi."

Brady Dennis of the Washington Post on what Washington, D.C., was like when Abraham Lincoln was elected 150 years ago. The Post has a whole page titled "Civil War 150." This is a war, BTW that, despite the fact that it ended 145 years ago, is still being waged in the minds of some Southerners.