As I wrote the other day, the NYT can self-censor as much as it wants, the Republicans will continue to bash them anyway (and they did). This is the best never-published lede ever, from Krugman:
I’m almost never censored at the Times. However, I was told that I couldn’t use the lede I originally wrote for my column following the 2007 State of the Union address, in which Bush made ethanol the centerpiece of his energy strategy:
“Before the State of the Union address, there had been hints and hopes that President Bush would offer a serious plan to reduce our dependence on imported oil. Instead, however, he took refuge in alcohol.”
[N]ew estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton’s would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan resembling Mr. Obama’s — at only slightly higher cost....
Both plans require that private insurers offer policies to everyone, regardless of medical history. Both also allow people to buy into government-offered insurance instead.
And both plans seek to make insurance affordable to lower-income Americans. The Clinton plan is, however, more explicit about affordability, promising to limit insurance costs as a percentage of family income. And it also seems to include more funds for subsidies.
I'd be interested in also knowing what each plan does to help keep health care affordable for the rest of us too. Are we going to see $2,000 a month premiums for 60-something-year-old self-employed individuals under either plan? What about lifetime caps on how much you can get out of the plan? I don't care how "rich" you are, good luck paying for a catastrophic illness if your health insurance runs out or simply refuses to cover it. After the jump, the details of why Hillary's plan covers more, and why Obama may have boxed himself in by criticizing mandates.
More from Krugman:
Mr. Gruber finds that a plan without mandates, broadly resembling the Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion. Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700.
That doesn’t look like a trivial difference to me. One plan achieves more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs more than 80 percent as much, covers only about half of those currently uninsured....
You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance to the “Harry and Louise” ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care.
If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage, he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.
As Krugman notes, even with the surge "working" more people than ever think Iraq was a waste. I think McCain's whole strategy is fatally flawed if he thinks constantly talking about Iraq is going to save him.
The quarterly losses were hideous, setting a record low for the Wall Street bank. Considering the awful state of banks (in both the US and Europe) at the moment and the recession talk, it's only a matter of time before voters start digging deeper into the economic plans offered by presidential candidates.
Krugman had an interesting article yesterday on this that's worth investigating. The leading GOP candidate has some amazing remarks that are worth noting. McCain does not sound like someone we need during these times.
Take, for example, John McCain’s admission that economics isn’t his thing. “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” he says. “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”
As we head into 2008, what will the critical election issue be? Will it be health care or more the economy, or perhaps some of both? As much as I hear about the health care issue, I remain skeptical about the US voters wanting real change. Everyone talks about the issue, but then the next comment is something about how bad the "socialist" health care system is in Canada or the UK. This tells me that the Democrats continue to do a poor job explaining the issue, while the health care powers continue to do a great job of spreading fear. As I have said many times, I've used both the US and the French system and there is no way I would ever go back to the current system in the US. Even with taxes, it's much cheaper and better in France.
Krugman asserts here that health care is the pivotal issue in 2008 and that Edwards is the only person that can bring real change. While I tend to agree that Edwards is the only leading candidate who can bring change on this issue, I would also extend that and say he just might be the only leading candidate who can tackle the bigger issue of moving the country back to the middle. (More on the special interests after the jump.) I wholeheartedly agree with Krugman that the special interests, whether in health care or big business in general, will not just sit down and have an easy discussion and give up power. These are groups that sink millions upon millions of dollars into the lobbying system. Look just what happened a few weeks ago when the Democratic member of the FCC cooled off on the idea of competition within the cable TV industry. Look at the complete lack of action that we have witnessed from Congress on so many issues. It's nice that we are moving the Big Auto industry into the 1980s, but is this really a great accomplishment? Is this the best our political leaders can do? Is this what they consider compromise?
In recent years, including during the Clinton administration, we moved so far to the right in favor of every business special interest, "compromise" like we have been witnessing is just one baby step after another. Big deal, we moved the auto industry a few steps, though still decades behind the auto industry around the world. Yippee. It is precisely this kind of compromise that makes America a less competitive nation. China must be shaking in their boots.
Like Krugman, I have serious doubts about Obama taking on these special interests via consultation and simple discussion. And Hillary? I love the fight that she can deliver, heaven knows we could have used a more combative attitude in the build up to Iraq, but it didn't quite work out that way, did it? We could have used a strong voice even in recent months on critical battles in Congress (issues that are important to Democrats such as privacy, rule of law, etc) but she was occupied with her presidential campaign.
The special interests dominate DC and yes, they do rule the day. How many of us believe this is actually a good thing? Our traditional political leadership seems unable or unwilling to take any action without asking these groups for a hall pass to visit the bathroom. That goes for both sides of the isle.
Nobody is saying we need to trash the system and start over, but we are kidding ourselves if we think the powerful lobbyists will help American find a middle ground. Edwards is saying that to expect the powerful groups to give up that power (that they bought and paid for!) is "fantasy" and I completely agree. Groups and people use the power that they are given. We have handed over much too much power to business across the board in recent years and it's time to start taking some back.
Pick any special interest...Big Food, Big Auto, Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Pharma, Big Health Care...and ask yourself if their agenda matches your own personal/family agenda. Is it advantageous to have factory farms that continue to churn our e. coli and salmonella breakouts? Have we seen any changes in the policies that led to the problems? How about the price of gas at the pump? Any help from the Senate there? Those banking charges that pile up every month? How are they working out? Do you really see tremendous benefits from paying higher charges? What great benefits and cost savings are you seeing from your health insurance company? Lower costs?
I am for any Democrat that can defeat the GOP next year but I also want to see a Democrat that can bring real change and not just a change of party name. I like the big three Democrats and each candidate has qualities that will be good for the country but I do wonder which of those three will be a force for change. Which will move us back to the middle and offer fairness for average Americans? Who do you think can do this and will they be up for the task? Propping up special interests is soooooo 2007.
Doesn't he know you're not allowed to criticize the failed policies of the Bush/Greenspan years or else it will be considered "gloating?" Shouldn't we all rally round the wonderful effort that Team Bush gave us? It helped us with the war, so why not with the economy?
How did things go so wrong?
Part of the answer is that people who should have been alert to the dangers, and taken precautionary measures, instead blithely assured Americans that everything was fine, and even encouraged them to take out risky mortgages. Yes, Alan Greenspan, that means you.
But another part of the answer lies in what hasn’t happened to the men on that Fortune cover — namely, they haven’t been forced to give back any of the huge paychecks they received before the folly of their decisions became apparent.
Around 25 years ago, American business — and the American political system — bought into the idea that greed is good. Executives are lavishly rewarded if the companies they run seem successful: last year the chief executives of Merrill and Citigroup were paid $48 million and $25.6 million, respectively.
But if the success turns out to have been an illusion — well, they still get to keep the money. Heads they win, tails we lose.
One of the best things that comes out of the NY Times decision to stop charging for access to its op-ed writers is that everyone has access to Paul Krugman again. Today's column, Fearing Fear Itself, is a must-read. And by must-read, I mean that reporters, pundits and people on Capitol Hill should read it, too. That crowd can't fall for the drumbeat of war with Iran like they did in 2002 with Iraq.
Krugman deconstructs the GOP campaign of fear using the made-up concept of Islamofascism, which he notes is "not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination." And that neocon imagination is running wild -- and influencing the ideas of the GOP Presidential candidates, particularly Giuliani, Romney and Huckabee:
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was — an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary — the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.
Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration’s rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up — perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base’s older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general.
And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.
Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself — the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America’s two great political parties.
The GOP candidates and the GOP base are clamoring for war. This time around, they must be stopped. And, since the traditional media fell for the Bush/Cheney/Neocon war agenda in 2002, we'll be beating the drum to expose the war agenda this time.
Krugman does a great job looking about how the Senate Republican leader joined right-wing bloggers and Rush Limbaugh in trying to smear a sick 12 year old boy.
Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).
You might be tempted to say that bloggers make unfounded accusations all the time. But we’re not talking about some obscure fringe. The charge was led by Michelle Malkin, who according to Technorati has the most-trafficked right-wing blog on the Internet, and in addition to blogging has a nationally syndicated column, writes for National Review and is a frequent guest on Fox News.
The attack on Graeme’s family was also quickly picked up by Rush Limbaugh, who is so important a player in the right-wing universe that he has had multiple exclusive interviews with Vice President Dick Cheney.
And G.O.P. politicians were eager to join in the smear. The New York Times reported that Republicans in Congress “were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance” but had “backed off” as the case fell apart.
In fact, however, Republicans had already made their first move: an e-mail message from the office of Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, sent to reporters and obtained by the Web site Think Progress, repeated the smears against the Frosts and asked: “Could the Dems really have done that bad of a job vetting this family?”
And the attempt to spin the media worked, to some extent: despite reporting that has thoroughly debunked the smears, a CNN report yesterday suggested that the Democrats had made “a tactical error in holding up Graeme as their poster child,” and closely echoed the language of the e-mail from Mr. McConnell’s office.
On Memorial Day 2007, it's well-established that George Bush led us into war based on lies. Bush, Cheney and Rove used terrorism and war for political advantage to win elections in 2002 and 2004. Politics was always more important than policy for the Bush team. The current crop of GOP candidates for President are using Bush's political scare tactics -- invoking Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Paul Krugman explains what should be the appropriate response:
The truth is that the nightmare of the Bush years won’t really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn’t happened yet.
Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.
When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.
And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.
But they aren’t, at least not yet. And until belligerent, uninformed posturing starts being treated with the contempt it deserves, men who know nothing of the cost of war will keep sending other people’s children to graves at Arlington.
Every time the GOP candidates invoke Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, they are also highlighting Bush's failure to defeat the actual enemy who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001. And, they must be held accountable for the reality that Bush's Iraq war has created a terror training ground in Iraq.
Paul Krugman thinks that the Democratic politicians -- and their consultants -- should actually listen to their base because that's where the American people are on Iraq and other key issues. This cycle, catering to the base for the Democrats means catering to the opinions of most Americans. The pundit-types tend to dismiss us as the extreme, turns out we're the mainstream:
It took an angry base to push the Democrats into taking a tough line in the midterm election. And it took further prodding from that base — which was infuriated when Barack Obama seemed to say that he would support a funding bill without a timeline — to push them into confronting Mr. Bush over war funding. (Mr. Obama says that he didn’t mean to suggest that the president be given “carte blanche.”)
But the public hates this war, no longer has any trust in Mr. Bush’s leadership and doesn’t believe anything the administration says. Iraq was a big factor in the Democrats’ midterm victory. And far from being a risky political move, the confrontation over funding has overwhelming popular support: according to a new CBS News poll, only 29 percent of voters believe Congress should allow war funding without a time limit, while 67 percent either want to cut off funding or impose a time limit.
And, as Krugman explains, GOP candidates have a base that is out-of-touch on key issues. But that's not true for the Democrats, if they can ever grasp it:
Democrats don’t have the same problem. There’s no conflict between catering to the Democratic base and staking out positions that can win in the 2008 election, because the things the base wants — an end to the Iraq war, a guarantee of health insurance for all — are also things that the country as a whole supports. The only risk the party now faces is excessive caution on the part of its politicians. Or, to coin a phrase, the only thing Democrats have to fear is fear itself.
Excessive caution is the big risk. Americans have staked out their positions. We need a leader who can take us there.
Paul Krugman exposes the theocratic infiltration of the Bush administration:
Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.
Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.
But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.
So much have what we've been saying gets dismissed as just conspiratorial thinking. But, we've been right. It's happening with the theocrats. And, they do want to impose their religious agenda. Anyone who criticizes them is deemed anti-religious, but that's not true. The theocrats want to control our lives. They hate, but are yet oddly obsessed with, gay people. They want to prevent contraception. Yes, birth control. That's not a whacked out conspiracy...it's a frightening reality.
For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real, disastrous consequences. The situation in Iraq might not be quite so dire — and we might even have succeeded in stabilizing Afghanistan — if Mr. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney had been willing to admit early on that things weren’t going well or that their handpicked appointees weren’t the right people for the job....
The base is remarkably forgiving toward Democrats who supported the war. But the base and, I believe, the country want someone in the White House who doesn’t sound like another George Bush. That is, they want someone who doesn’t suffer from an infallibility complex, who can admit mistakes and learn from them....
Mrs. Clinton’s problem. For some reason she and her advisers failed to grasp just how fed up the country is with arrogant politicians who can do no wrong. I don’t think she falls in that category; but her campaign somehow thought it was still a good idea to follow Karl Rove’s playbook, which says that you should never, ever admit to a mistake. And that playbook has led them into a political trap.
We need people in Washington who are willing to stand up to the bully in chief. Unfortunately, and somewhat mysteriously, they’re still in short supply.
You can understand, if not condone, the way the political and media establishment let itself be browbeaten by Mr. Bush in his post-9/11 political prime. What’s amazing is the extent to which insiders still cringe before a lame duck with a 60 percent disapproval rating....
Well, here’s a question for those who might be tempted, yet again, to shy away from a confrontation with Mr. Bush over Iraq: How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a bully’s ego?
No, I don't understand how the political and media establishment let itself be browbeaten by Bush. I understand for Democrats how, during the first year, maybe two, after September 11, it was difficult publicly challenging Bush on foreign policy issues because of the 9/11 effect. But for the media? Come on. What price would the media have paid for doing their job? Not getting re-elected? I don't forgive much of anybody for not taking on Bush since 2003, when the 9/11 effect was starting to wane, but pre-03, the media had ample opportunity to do their job and tell the public the truth, and they didn't.
Krugman has some very important advice for Democrats in his column today (yes, it's Times Select):
Now that the Democrats are strongly favored to capture at least one house of Congress, they’re getting a lot of unsolicited advice, with many people urging them to walk and talk softly if they win.
I hope the Democrats don’t follow this advice — because it’s bad for their party and, more important, bad for the country. In the long run, it’s even bad for the cause of bipartisanship.
There are those who say that a confrontational stance will backfire politically on the Democrats. These are by and large the same people who told Democrats that attacking the Bush administration over Iraq would backfire in the midterm elections. Enough said.
Enough said is right. The American people support the Democratic agenda based on the latest Newsweek poll. Despite that, they'll need to fight to get that agenda enacted.
Krugman also points out that the dialogue in American politics is not going to change as long as the GOP strategy is to divide and polarize:
The reason we have so much bitter partisanship these days is that that’s the way the radicals who have taken over the Republican Party want it. People like Grover Norquist, who once declared that “bipartisanship is another name for date rape,” push for a hard-right economic agenda; people like Karl Rove make that agenda politically feasible, even though it’s against the interests of most voters, by fostering polarization, using religion and national security as wedge issues.
As long as polarization is integral to the G.O.P.’s strategy, Democrats can’t do much, if anything, to narrow the partisan divide.
The Democrats have to fight hard to win against the GOP slime and negative campaigning. They'll be fighting the same slime and negativity when the GOP is in the minority, too.
O.K., what about the Senate race in Connecticut, where Ned Lamont is the Democratic nominee, and Mr. Lieberman, who lost the Democratic primary, is running as an independent but promising to caucus with the Democrats if he wins? Is this a case where the man, not the party, is what matters? Only if you believe that Mr. Lieberman’s promise not to switch parties is 100 percent credible.
Does anyone believe Joe?
UPDATE: After this debate, Joe better watch his Republican flank. Not sure what I expected from Alan Schlesinger, but he came across as credible (you know, as Republicans go).
Lieberman really is one of the most sanctimonious pols around.
Lamont definitely looked Senatorial. I thought he was good.
a huge Democratic storm surge is heading toward a high Republican levee. It’s still possible that the surge won’t overtop the levee — that is, the Democrats could fail by a small margin to take control of Congress. But if the surge does go over the top, the flooding will almost surely reach well inland — that is, if the Democrats win, they’ll probably win big....
And here’s the thing: because there are many districts that the G.O.P. carried by only moderately large margins in recent elections, a large Democratic surge — one only a bit bigger than that needed to take the House at all — would sweep away many Republicans holding seats normally considered safe. If the actual vote is anything like what the polls now suggest, we’re talking about the Democrats holding a larger majority in the House than the Republicans have held at any point since their 1994 takeover.
So if the Democrats win, they’ll probably have a substantial majority.....
Bear in mind that the G.O.P. isn’t in trouble because of a string of bad luck. The problems that have caused Americans to turn on the party, from the disaster in Iraq to the botched response to Katrina, from the failed attempt to privatize Social Security to the sudden realization by many voters that the self-proclaimed champions of moral values are hypocrites, are deeply rooted in the whole nature of Republican governance. So even if this surge doesn’t overtop the levee, there will be another surge soon.
But the best guess is that the permanent Republican majority will end in a little over three weeks.
Since 2000, we've seen what happens when people who aren't interested in the facts, who believe what they want to believe, sit in the White House. Osama bin Laden is still at large, Iraq is a mess, New Orleans is a wreck. And, of course, we've done nothing about global warming.
But can the sort of person who would act on global warming get elected? Are we — by which I mean both the public and the press — ready for political leaders who don't pander, who are willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible policies? That's a test of national character. I wonder whether we'll pass.
Here's another reason why it sucks that the NY Times hides their columnists behind Times Select -- Krugman dissects Lieberman today. After documenting Lieberman's Republican views on Iraq, Social Security and Terri Schiavo, Krugman captures the essence of "Talk Show Joe":
Mr. Lieberman's defenders would have you believe that his increasingly unpopular positions reflect his principles. But his Bushlike inability to face reality on Iraq looks less like a stand on principle than the behavior of a narcissist who can't admit error. And the common theme in Mr. Lieberman's positions seems to be this: In each case he has taken the stand that is most likely to get him on TV.
You see, the talking-head circuit loves centrists. But a centrist, as defined inside the Beltway, doesn't mean someone whose views are actually in the center, as judged by public opinion.
Instead, a Democrat is considered centrist to the extent that he does what Mr. Lieberman does: lends his support to Republican talking points, even if those talking points don't correspond at all to what most of the public wants or believes.
I always thought the whole sanctimonious gig by Lieberman was mostly just an act. It sure gets him on TV. After Lamont beats him, Joe can do TV full time.
And the first half of his article reads like my blog post. Why aren't I writing for the NYT? Oh that's right, because they have Adam Nagourney to represent my point of view.
...if you choose to make common cause with religious extremists, you are accepting some responsibility for their extremism. By welcoming Mr. Falwell and people like him as members of their party, Republicans are saying that it's O.K. — not necessarily correct, but O.K. — to declare that 9/11 was America's punishment for its tolerance of abortion and homosexuality, that Islam is a terrorist religion, and that Jews can't go to heaven. And voters should judge the Republican Party accordingly.
As for Mr. McCain: his denunciation of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson six years ago helped give him a reputation as a moderate on social issues. Now that he has made up with Mr. Falwell and endorsed South Dakota's ban on abortion even in the case of rape or incest, only two conclusions are possible: either he isn't a social moderate after all, or he's a cynical political opportunist.
