The Journalism We Have.

The Onion takes on Cable News. Simply perfect.

Sullivan: Washington Bullshit Watch

No one does it better than Mark Halperin. Every single thing he cites in his latest brain-dead critique is, I believe, tangibly false, and the moronic attempt to grab some pageviews by a counter-intuitive and utterly dumb analogy - Obama is like Bush, guys! Aren't I clever? - is Beltway hackery at its worst.

This administration has resolutely pursued policy before politics on the economy, the wars, and health insurance reform; has some real cabinet stars - Duncan, Gates and Geithner come immediately to mind - who have actually done the right thing rather than the politically expedient thing; and the president remains a completely different brand in the public mind than the Congress.

Halperinism really is part of what's deeply wrong about Washington. Obama really is the only thing that's still right.

Sullivan: Christianist Watch

10 Mar 2010 08:48 am

Wow:

[R]eligious right mainstay Janet Porter [is] praying at "Convergence 2010: A Cry to Awaken A Nation" conference on March 4-6, 2010. She's not praying for love or peace, but control over the nation's media. This just goes BEYOND any criticism I can give against Porter and the groups whom she aligns herself with. This is more than insane. It's scary. Whatever Jesus would do, I feel safe to say that He wouldn't support such madness.

digby: Dancing With Himself

Media Matters caught the voices in Glenn Beck's head having an argument with each other:

Beck "hacked off" by RNC memo, claims America is looking for "someone that is not going to play on our fears"
1 hour and 47 minutes ago

Beck: "We are sitting around and we are watching the systematic destruction of everything we hold dear by thugs"
2 hours and 28 minutes ago

Not that any of his listeners have any trouble holding those two ideas together in their heads either. Cognitive dissonance is a permanent condition on the right. But Beck takes it to a higher level.

John Cole: What Chait Said

This:

Without a doubt, Obama’s proposals would leave the health care system far short of what most progressives, myself included, would design in the absence of political constraints. But also without a doubt, it would lift the system far above the status quo that is the only near-term alternative. Here it is, the most dramatic improvement in social justice in at least four decades fighting for its life in the home stretch, and the left can barely be roused to fight for it. The somnolence is far from universal, but on the left there is at least as much passion against health care reform as for it. One of many considerations the vulnerable Democratic moderates who hold reform’s fate in their hands must balance is, in return for the limitless rage of the right, will they get any credit from the left for backing this reform? At the moment when every voice counts, when every ounce of pressure could prove decisive, here is FireDogLake:

Lynn Woolsey says she’s a definite “yes” vote on the Senate health care bill. Even if it lacks a public option. Despite the fact that it’s the biggest blow to a woman’s right to choose in a generation, and may come at the price of a stand-alone vote that allows Blue Dogs and ConservaDems to join with Republicans and roll them back even further in order to get Bart Stupak’s support.

Any ability for progressives to negotiate, to achieve meaningful concessions, to exert their influence and make the bill better just disappeared.

It’s time for Lynn Woolsey to resign as the head of the Progressive Caucus.

Yes, that is what it is time for! One day, when progressives study this moment in history, they will evaluate all of us by this single standard: What did they do to stop Lynn Woolsey?

I’m just ready for Republicans to take over again and save us all from the threat that is Rahm Emanuel and Obama’s health care reform. We’ll just have to make sure we have bigger majorities in 2045 when we get another shot at this. Obama is so much like Bush that it won’t be much difference anyway, amirite?

And the five of you who are going to write me emails telling me you are done reading Balloon Juice because I am too mean to “progressives”- save your time. Stop being an idiot and I’ll stop being mean.

Sullivan: Stewart vs Thiessen

I was worried, to tell you the truth, after Jon's failed run-in with war criminal John Yoo. But Stewart totally destroyed the McCarthyite mediocrity last night. He didn't get into Thiessen's disgusting defense of the brutal torture of al-Qahtani, but he completely devastated the vile insinuation that because Thiessen believes torture made America "safe" - his sole evidence being seven years of no attacks, which Stewart briliantly reminded him could have been said of the no-torture Clinton administration record as well - Obama was somehow endangering American lives.

My favorite point was the lawyers defending pedophiles. Thiessen went so far to say that a lawyer who defended pedophiles in court should be suspected of supporting child abuse.

Thiessen's arguments were both morally repugnant, legally absurd, McCarthyite and ignorant. For this, he gets a weekly column from Fred Hiatt in the Washington Post. That tells you all you need to know about Fred Hiatt and what has happened at the WaPo.

Lying Scary Liars

Booman: Add Your Caption

Obama with, from left, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Mona Sutphen, White House Counsel Bob Bauer, and Director of the Office of Health Reform Nancy-Ann DeParle in the Oval Office, Feb. 12, 2010, reacting to the idea that they might compromise some more and actually win some Republican votes for health care reform.

No seriously, I just made that up. I don't know what they're laughing about. I just know that they look a lot better than John McCain, Sarah Palin, and whoever they would have selected to be part of their team.

But, hey, make your own caption. Who are they talking to? Orrin Hatch?

Sudbay: EJ Dionne called out Orrin Hatch's lie while sitting next to Orrin Hatch

There was a great exchange between Orrin Hatch and E.J. Dionne on "Meet the Press" yesterday. Well, it was great for Dionne, not Hatch. Last week, Dionne wrote a column challenging the lies in Hatch's op-ed about reconciliation. Then, Dionne did it right to Hatch's face:

Joan Walsh:

I predicted Wednesday that Republicans and the mainstream media would soon have a new but typically simplistic partisan line: that recent scandals involving Democratic Reps. Eric Massa and Charlie Rangel and New York Gov. David Paterson would make 2010 what 2006 was for Republicans -- the year voters punished the party for its corruption. Throw in oldies but goodies like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, both Democrats, and I foresaw an avalanche of 2006-2010 comparisons. And I was right.

Before I attack that false equivalence, let me make clear: I'm not defending these Democrats.

Drew Westen:

To his credit, the president pushed through a stimulus bill that prevented us from falling off the cliff. But he refused, as FDR had done, to brand the crisis that had occurred as the direct result of Republican ideology and governance. He refused to explain to the American people why deficit spending in times of a crashing downward spiral is a virtue and not a vice. And he refused to call out -- let alone even answer -- Republican politicians attacking him from his first days of office for deficit spending, although they had just created as much debt in 8 years as in the previous 200-plus with enormous tax breaks for the wealthy and a trillion dollar war "off the books," neither of which they even considered paying for. As a result, he got little credit for having prevented another Great Depression, and now there are two competing narratives, that the stimulus saved us and that it was a waste of taxpayers' money.

• DemFromCT adds:

  FDR didn't contend with political foes with their own cable network and credulous he said, she said stenographers.

Benen: 'FEAR-GATE' FLAP PROVES UNSPINNABLE

I have to admit, I didn't really expect to see so many Republican leaders respond with contrition to the flap surrounding the so-called "fear-gate" controversy.

Last week, a Republican National Committee fundraising presentation was leaked, and immediately became a headache for the party. The RNC's message -- filled with donor insults, offensive caricatures, and an admission that the party will rely on little more than "fear" -- has already put many Republican officials on the defensive. It's even driving donors away.

The subject came up during the Sunday shows, and GOP lawmakers continued to distance themselves from the controversial party materials.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blasted the Republican National Committee on Sunday for producing a fundraising presentation that mocked the President and congressional leadership as cartoon villains and socialists.

Asked about the document -- which outlines how "ego-driven" wealthy donors could be persuaded to take out their checkbooks -- the Kentucky Republican called it "certainly not helpful" to the Republican cause.

"I can't imagine why anybody would have thought that was helpful," McConnell added. "Typically the way parties raise money is because people believe in the causes they advocate. I think the way we raise money from donors across America is to stand for things that are important for the country."

McConnell dodged a question about whether anyone at the RNC should lose their jobs over this, but he added, "I don't like it and I don't know anybody else who does."

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) added, "There is no excuse for that type of stuff." When Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) offered some tepid praise for the underlying message of the RNC materials, his office soon after issued a statement describing the presentation as "juvenile and insulting."

What I find most interesting about this is the fact that Republicans actually seem rather embarrassed. That's an exceedingly rare sight. Generally, Republicans -- at the RNC, in Congress, or both -- will say or do something completely indefensible, and when Dems try to raise a fuss, the party shrugs its shoulders and says, "So?" No matter what the circumstances, Republicans generally reject the very idea of remorse.

But this "fear-gate" controversy is apparently proving to be unspinnable, perhaps because it includes insulting comments about GOP donors.

Benen: THE GOP STILL JUST DOESN'T LIKE THE UNEMPLOYED

It's astounding, but in the midst of an unemployment crisis, prominent Republicans continue to castigate those struggling to find jobs.

Yesterday, for example, disgraced former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) argued that unemployment benefits are a bad idea, because, as he sees it, they discourage people from entering the work force.

"You know," DeLay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions of these unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs." When CNN's Candy Crowley described his argument as "a hard sell" to the public, DeLay replied, "It's the truth."

Crowley followed up, asking, "People are unemployed because they want to be?" DeLay again said, "Well, it is the truth."

When it comes to Republicans condemning the unemployed, there seems to be something of a trend of late. Two weeks ago, Rep. Dean Heller (R) of Nevada expressed concern that the government is "creating hobos" by extending unemployment benefits. Around the same time, Rep. Steve King, a right-wing Republican from Iowa, explained his opposition to extended unemployment benefits: "We shouldn't turn the 'safety net' into a hammock."

Last week, Senate Minority Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate's #2 Republican, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working." And this, of course, coincided with Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-Ky.) crusade against extending benefits.

As a matter of economics, the GOP argument is absurd: "[W]hen the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. That's because the economy's problem right now is lack of sufficient demand, and cash-strapped unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that aid to the unemployed is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, as measured by jobs created per dollar of outlay."

As a matter of conscience, having prominent Republicans chastise those struggling to find work during an unemployment crisis is just callous and cruel.

And as a matter of politics, who, exactly, is going to be impressed by Republicans attacking the unemployed as lazy? Since when is "screw struggling families, let's worry about corporate tax cuts and the estate tax" an effective election-year message during difficult economic times?

Joe Sudbay:

The pressure is on to pass the health insurance reform bill. This morning, the President is heading to suburban Philadelphia to make a pitch for the plan. Later this week, he's heading to St. Louis to do the same thing.

House leaders are counting the votes to see if they can pass the Senate bill. Then, the fixes will come through reconciliation. But, expect to keep hearing the GOPers lie about the reconciliation process. Lindsey Graham lied yesterday on "Face the Nation." You'd think with all the talk about Karl Rove's new book that some in the traditional media might recall how he trained the Republican Party to lie. He knew that reporters and pundits were patsies who would never call call them liars. But, the reconciliation lie is so easy to disprove. Think Bush tax cuts.

So, it should be another interesting political week. Never a dull moment. Rarely a gratifying moment anymore, but never dull....

John Cole: Jon Chait is Shrill

More of this, please:

Jesus Christ, Mike Allen, Reconciliation Is NOT THAT COMPLICATED

When I read the op-ed, I figured it had to be totally redundant. What sentient being who’s following this closely could not understand it by now? I give you Politico’s Mike Allen, writing Saturday:

When Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) made this confusing argument last week on “Face the Nation,” we weren’t sure he was being deliberately disingenuous. It was, in fact, spin. Now, he’s made the same case in a similarly obtuse WashPost op-ed, “Reconciliation is not an option for health-care reform.” Don’t misread it: It’s an Alice-in-Wonderland argument FOR the use of reconciliation as part of the recipe for getting comprehensive health reform to the president’s desk

Confusing? Obtuse? Does Conrad need to stop by Politico’s offices with a picture book and some finger puppets? I understand perfectly well how intelligent people who don’t follow this debate closely might not catch on to the distinction. But this is what Mike Allen does all day—and, as I understand it, much of the night and the wee hours of the morning as well. How can anybody still not understand this? I’m at a loss here. Look, there’s an endless list of topics I don’t understand at all. I went through an entire semester of pre-Calculus in high school and was never able to understand what a function is. I still don’t. It’s a complicated subject and I was a lazy student. But this reconciliation distinction is easy, and Mike Allen is (legendarily) not lazy. So, what the hell is going on here?

Mike Allen, dishonest right-wing hack, or complete moron?

I vote both. And how much better would our media be if everytime someone was as bad as Allen, someone like Chait would call them on it?

• from the comments:
  

  cat48
  

  Hmm, looks like his dad, Gary Allen, was also a George Wallace speechwriter. Those were some hateful speeches.

  It also appears someone has been messing with Mike’s wiki page again:

  Michael Allen (1964-) is the chief political stenographer for The Politico.

Ezra Klein: Your procedural workarounds in charts

This is the best chart summarizing the history of the reconciliation process. That would be true, I think, even if there were other charts summarizing the history of the reconciliation process.

I really wonder how much longer the Post will allow Ezra to kneecap their op-ed "stars." He's not in the least shy about doing it, and rarely subtle when he does.
Ezra Klein: Can't judge a policy by its price tag

This argument from Charles Krauthammer is really very weird:

The final act was carefully choreographed. The rollout began a week earlier with a couple of shows of bipartisanship: a Feb. 25 Blair House "summit" with Republicans, followed five days later with a few concessions tossed the Republicans' way.

Show is the operative noun. Among the few Republican suggestions President Obama pretended to incorporate was tort reform. What did he suggest to address the plague of defensive medicine that a Massachusetts Medical Society study showed leads to about 25 percent of doctor referrals, tests and procedures being done for no medical reason? A few ridiculously insignificant demonstration projects amounting to one-half of one-hundredth of 1 percent of the cost of his health-care bill.

Reasonable people can disagree with whether state-run demonstration projects are the best way to figure out an effective medical malpractice system (they can also disagree with Krauthammer's number, which is eye-poppingly high, and bears no relationship to the demonstrated gains from tort reform. Many states have imposed harsh tort reforms and their medical system is barely any different. Texas is one of those states, yet McAllen is the national poster child for unnecessary care).

But whatever tort reform you attempt, it's not going to be expensive. Tort reform is a series of regulations that change the way lawsuits are handled. Saying that the experiments come to only "one-half of one-hundredth of 1 percent of the cost of his health-care bill" is saying exactly nothing about them. If they made all malpractice lawsuits illegal, they'd actually have a negative cost to the federal government, but by Krauthammer's logic, they'd be a total slap in the face to reform advocates.

Think Progress: Graham Falsely Claims GOP Has Only Used Reconciliation With ‘Bipartisan Support’

With President Obama endorsing the use of the budget reconciliation process in the Senate to finish health care reform, Republicans have flown into overdrive to discredit the simple majority procedural tool. Use of reconciliation would be “ripping a piece of the fabric of America off,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) on Saturday.

On CBS News’ Face The Nation today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) declared that use of reconciliation “would be catastrophic.” Sensitive to charges of hypocrisy over the fact that Republicans have pushed legislation through the reconciliation process more often than Democrats have, Graham claimed that every time the GOP used reconciliation the bills “received bipartisan support”:

GRAHAM: Well, reconciliation will be used to clean up the Senate bill to make House members happy. House members are going to vote for the Senate bill and they hate it. And the Senate and the president saying, OK, we’re going to change what you don’t like.

And when it comes to the Republicans, you all don’t matter anymore. You just need a simple majority. So reconciliation will empower a bill that was very partisan. We’ve had reconciliation votes, but all of them had received bipartisan support. The least was 12 when we did reconciliation with tax cuts.

Watch it:

Graham’s claim that “the least” amount of Democratic votes a GOP reconciliation bill received “was 12″ is flat out false. As The Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky has detailed, during the Bush presidency, the Republican-controlled Senate passed three reconciliation bills with three or less Democratic votes. The 2003 Bush tax cuts were supported by only two Democrats and needed Vice President Dick Cheney’s tie-breaking vote to pass:

	Vote Count	Bipartisan support?
College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007*	79-12-9	Yes, although all 12 voting against it were Republicans
Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005*	54-44-2	3 Democrats (Nelson (D-NE), Nelson (D-FL), Pryor (D-AR)) voted for it
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005*	52-47	2 Democrats (Landrieu (D-LA) and Nelson (D-NE))
Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003*	50-50	2 Democrats (Nelson (D-NE) and Miller (D-GA)) voted for it
Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001*	58-33-2-7	Yes
Marriage Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2000*	60-34-5	Yes
Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of 1999*	50-49	Yes, 3 Democrats (Breaux (D-LA), Landrieu (D-LA), Torricelli (D-NJ)) voted for it
Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997	92-8	Yes
Balanced Budget Act of 1997*	85-15	Yes
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act*	74-24-2	Yes
Balanced Budget Act of 1995*	52-47	Yes
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993	49-49-2	No
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990*	54-46	Yes
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989*	87-7-6	Yes

In 2005, Graham voted for two of the reconciliation bills that passed with three or fewer Democratic votes, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 and the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Elliott (TPM): GOP Rep Runs Taxpayer-Funded Campaign-Style Ads On 'Out Of Control Spending'

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) is running campaign-style Web ads for a "tele-town hall" on "out of control spending" that are financed by taxpayer dollars -- and the ads were OKed as permissible under House rules.

The ads, which you can check out one version of below, are set on an American flag background and include a red-white-and-blue button that reads "Congressman."

The words "OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING" appear in large white letters on a blue background. The ads include a note saying they are paid for by official funds.

They were approved by the Committee on House Administration, which is in charge of authorizing spending by members, according to Roskam Communications Director Dan Conston. (See the approval letter here.)

"Clearly out of control spending and our massive national debt are relevant to our constituents," Conston tells TPMmuckraker.

Conston says Roskam's office has bought Google ads for the last four or five tele-town halls conducted by the congressman. "We find it very valuable that we are reaching non traditional voters -- really disenfranchised voters, specifically younger voters," he says.

Here's one version of the ad:

In tele-town halls, which have been used by multiple members of congress, a company is hired which calls thousands of households for what is essentially a mega-conference call. Those who pick up the phone can listen to the congressman talking about the issue at hand, and press a button to offer a question.

In Roskam's case, the calls typically go out to just under 100,000 households.
He has done over 25 such calls since taking office in 2007. Roskam, who represents Illinois' 6th district, has been called a "rising star" in the GOP caucus and is heavily favored to win reelection in the fall.

Under House ethics rules, members may hold town halls one of two ways: either "arranged, promoted, and put on entirely or almost entirely using official allowances" or "as political events, organized and funded by their campaigns."

According to Attorney Stan Brand, who was previously general counsel to the House, a taxpayer-funded town hall would only be in violation of House rules if it was explicitly campaign-related.

Benen: LIZ CHENEY'S DOJ SMEAR FACES INCREASED BLOWBACK

Last week, Liz Cheney's right-wing vehicle, "Keep America Safe," launched a pretty disgusting smear against nine Justice Department attorneys. The group includes lawyers working in the Department of Justice who fought the Bush administration's treatment of suspected terrorists as unconstitutional.

The vile attacks from Cheney and her cohorts seek to characterize the attorneys -- who actually deserve the nation's thanks -- as terrorist-sympathizing traitors. Keep America Safe's scurrilous ad asks about the lawyers, "Whose values do they share?"

Last week, Cheney's efforts faced some pushback from the left and right. Fortunately, the blowback from across the legal establishment is getting more forceful and organized.

A group that includes leading conservative lawyers and policy experts, former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and several senior officials of the last Bush Administration, is denouncing as "shameful" Republican attacks on lawyers who came to the Obama Justice Department after representing suspected terrorists. [...]

"We consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications," wrote the 19 lawyers whose names were attached to the statement as of early Monday.

The statement cited John Adams's defense of British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre to argue that "zealous representation of unpopular clients" is an important American tradition.

The attacks on the lawyers "undermine the Justice system more broadly," they wrote, by "delegitimizing" any system in which accused terrorists have lawyers, whether civilian courts of military tribunals.

That some of the signatories are Bush administration attorneys who went up against these lawyers in court gives the argument that much more credibility.

In the larger context, Adam Serwer explains why this matters so much: "The reason for the backlash is that the attack on the so-called Gitmo Nine or al-Qaeda Seven wasn't just an attack on a handful of liberal lawyers, it was an attack on the American system of justice, suggesting that certain classes of people aren't entitled to robust legal representation and that those who chose to represent them in order to ensure due process are America's enemies. If anyone can be denied due process, than all of us can be denied due process. The people at KAS, for whatever reason, are incapable of looking beyond their political self-interest and are willing to cannibalize the very institutions of American democracy in order to gain political ground against their political targets."

Health Care Saturday

Weekly Address: The Immediate Benefits of Health Reform

Booman: Your Liberal Media

You can tell that the media is liberal by looking at the Sunday morning political talk show lineups. On Face the Nation, Lindsey Graham is balanced by Evan Bayh. On Meet the Press, Orrin Hatch is balanced by Harold Ford. On This Week, Mitch McConnell is balanced by no one. On Fox News Sunday, Mitt Romney is balanced by no one. On State of the Union, Tom DeLay is balanced out by Chris Van Hollen and Brian Baird. Obviously, that means there are no progressives and, aside from Van Hollen, no mainstream Democrats. It's extreme right-wingers matched up against the most 'centrist' Democrats in the business. The only person on any of these shows other than Van Hollen who will wholeheartedly defend the president's health care plan is Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. That's how they game the system against us.

The Republicans think that the media is liberal because the reporters believe in things like global warming and the value of the United Nations and the theories of evolution and plate tectonics. But, just because the media is educated and cares about world opinion doesn't mean that they are helpful to liberal causes like avoiding senseless wars or extending health care accessibility to 30 million Americans. They're not helpful. If they were, they'd have invited Raul Grijalva and Sheldon Whitehouse on their shows instead of Harold Ford and Evan Bayh.

DemfromCT (DKos): Gallup: Obama Retains More Trust Than Republican Leaders On Health Reform

It's a truism that when the parties battle, some independents and non-political people turn off to both parties. But that hides the fact that there are winners and losers in the battle for public opinion. One big loser is health insurance companies, but they are only marginally less trusted than Republican Congressional leaders.

This Gallup poll released yesterday notes:

Americans remain more confident in the healthcare reform recommendations of President Obama (49%) than in the recommendations of the Democratic (37%) or Republican (32%) leaders in Congress. But these confidence levels are lower than those measured in June, suggesting that the ongoing healthcare reform debate has taken a toll on the credibility of the politicians involved.

Take a look at the numbers (click for bigger pic):

But take a look at the expanded graph for who the real losers are:

Republican leaders, 32. Health insurance 26. Losers.

Hey, you can take my word for it. I'm a doctor, and I come in at 77. And I'm telling you, health reform needs to pass. And I am far from alone.

The graphic, put together by Christopher Hughes, MD here, stems from data collected at Doctors For America.

Some of those organizations (AAP, AAFP) were interviewed here on Daily Kos.

Let's see Republican obstructionism for what it is: fear of losing the issue politically, as well as losing the vote in the Congress. And that's what's about to happen.

Benen: 'STUPAK HAPPENS TO BE WRONG'.

Arguably the single biggest threat to health care reform is Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and his dozen Democratic allies, who are threatening to kill the legislation over indirect, circuitous funding of abortion.

Efforts to work with Stupak are ongoing, but it's worth emphasizing a relevant detail: Stupak is just wrong about the underlying policy dispute. Whether he knows he's wrong, and he's just hoping to kill health care reform, is unclear. But the accuracy of Stupak's claims aren't in dispute: the facts aren't on his side.

ABC News did a nice job fact-checking Stupak's argument this week, and Slate's Tim Noah (a Monthly alum) published the definitive takedown a couple of days ago, explaining that some areas of the debate are open to interpretation and debate, but this isn't one of them: "Stupak happens to be wrong."

Ideally, this would be enough. Democratic leaders would explain the truth to Stupak and his allies, making the case on the merits -- the Senate compromise language, endorsed by center-right Dems who oppose abortion rights, already does what Stupak & Co. want, which is to prevent public funding of abortion.

But Stupak has been reluctant to listen to reason, and continues to make claims that simply fail to stand up to scrutiny. The new goal is to strike a related deal that would address Stupak's concerns in a separate-but-connected bill. That may or may not be enough.

If reform is going to pass, however, the votes are going to have to come from somewhere. Stupak claims to have a dozen "yes" votes in his pocket, all of whom will bolt and side with Republicans. Without them, Pelosi would need a dozen Blue Dogs who opposed reform in November to switch, which may prove too high a hurdle.

In the meantime, though, it's worth re-emphasizing reality -- Stupak's argument is factually in error. That will make negotiations with him more complicated -- lawmakers who stick to a mistake after it's been exposed as a mistake can be challenging to deal with -- but that's where we find ourselves.

Ezra Klein: Stupak's abortion argument: Still more about class than choice

Matt Miller hits on one of the most important points in the abortion and health-care debate. The practical effect of Bart Stupak's position is not that the federal government will not subsidize abortion by subsidizing health-care insurance. It is that it will not subsidize abortion by subsidizing health-care insurance for poor women. We already spend much more subsidizing coverage that includes abortion for richer women:

This entire debate is ridiculous, because the feds already subsidize abortions massively, via the giant tax subsidy for employer-provided care. Today the feds devote at least $250 billion a year to subsidizing employer-based coverage, a subsidy that skews incentives horribly (but which big business and big labor wouldn’t let the politicians touch this year). A Guttmacher Institute study says that 87 percent of typical employer plans cover abortion, and a Kaiser study found that 46 percent of covered workers had abortion coverage.

As I've written before, the Stupak amendment is as much about class as it is about choice. Imagine if Stupak attempted to expand his campaign to the coverage employed women receive. It would, after all, be the same principle: Federal policy should not subsidize insurance that offers abortion coverage. But it wouldn't have a chance. That group is too large and too affluent and too politically powerful for Congress to dare to touch its access to reproductive services. But the poorer women who will be using subsidies on the exchange are a much easier target.

Ezra Klein: McCain's Medicare brinksmanship

"No problem is in more need of attention and action by Congress than the looming financial challenges of entitlement programs," reads John McCain's campaign Web site. But back in Congress, McCain isn't exactly making good on that promise: He has turned his attention to Medicare, and the action he has proposed will make the looming financial challenges of entitlement programs virtually impossible to correct.

Last night, John McCain introduced an amendment that makes Medicare immune to the reconciliation process. That's all fine, except for McCain's record: Of the nine reconciliation bills McCain has voted to pass during his time in office, four of them included substantial cuts to Medicare. For those keeping score at home, they were the Balanced Budget Act of 1995, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The Balanced Budget Act of 1995, in particular, included many more cuts to Medicare than anything on the table today. Now he's saying that "entitlements should not be part of a reconciliation process." They're "too important."

The issue here isn't mere hypocrisy. It's dangerous shortsightedness. If McCain wants to try to strip the Medicare reforms from the health-care bill, that's his right. But to render Medicare untouchable to the reconciliation process will hamstring future congresses that need to make tough decisions to avert the consequences of the program's substantial deficit. In his zeal to attack the health-care reform bill, McCain is making it harder to address our entitlement spending. It's wildly irresponsible and shreds whatever remaining credential McCain had as a deficit hawk.

McCain may know that the campaign is over. But it's increasingly clear that he's not over it.

Ezra Klein: Can't judge a policy by its price tag

This argument from Charles Krauthammer is really very weird:

The final act was carefully choreographed. The rollout began a week earlier with a couple of shows of bipartisanship: a Feb. 25 Blair House "summit" with Republicans, followed five days later with a few concessions tossed the Republicans' way.

Show is the operative noun. Among the few Republican suggestions President Obama pretended to incorporate was tort reform. What did he suggest to address the plague of defensive medicine that a Massachusetts Medical Society study showed leads to about 25 percent of doctor referrals, tests and procedures being done for no medical reason? A few ridiculously insignificant demonstration projects amounting to one-half of one-hundredth of 1 percent of the cost of his health-care bill.

Reasonable people can disagree with whether state-run demonstration projects are the best way to figure out an effective medical malpractice system (they can also disagree with Krauthammer's number, which is eye-poppingly high, and bears no relationship to the demonstrated gains from tort reform. Many states have imposed harsh tort reforms and their medical system is barely any different. Texas is one of those states, yet McAllen is the national poster child for unnecessary care).

But whatever tort reform you attempt, it's not going to be expensive. Tort reform is a series of regulations that change the way lawsuits are handled. Saying that the experiments come to only "one-half of one-hundredth of 1 percent of the cost of his health-care bill" is saying exactly nothing about them. If they made all malpractice lawsuits illegal, they'd actually have a negative cost to the federal government, but by Krauthammer's logic, they'd be a total slap in the face to reform advocates.

Benen: GREGG COMPLETES THE TRANSITION TO BUFFOON

It was just five years ago that Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) was so anxious to let oil companies drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, he tried to use the budget reconciliation process to do it. "If you have 51 votes for your position, you win," he said at the time, adding, "Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don't think so."

This week, Gregg not only said there's something wrong with majority rules, he manufactured a bizarre history of the Senate that exists only in his imagination.

[U]nder the Senate rules, anything that comes across the floor of the Senate requires 60 votes to pass. It's called the filibuster. That's the way the Senate was structured. [...]

The Founding Fathers realized when they structured this they wanted checks and balances. They didn't want things rushed through. They saw the parliamentary system. They knew it didn't work... That's why we have the 60-vote situation over here in the Senate to require that things get full consideration.

That guy named Judd Gregg who said, "If you have 51 votes for your position, you win"? Yeah, he's gone missing, and has been replaced with this shameless hack.

It's hard to overstate how truly ridiculous Gregg's analysis is. It simply has no foundation in reality. The Senate wasn't "structured" to require supermajorities on literally every bill, nomination, and resolution -- that's the exact opposite of the truth. This isn't a subjective question open to interpretation; Gregg is just lying.

And when Gregg says the framers of the Constitution "saw the parliamentary system" and rejected it, he's just making things up. Matt Yglesias, who refers to Gregg as "an idiot," explained, "There were no countries operating on a modern parliamentary system when the constitution was written. And why doesn't it work? It seems to work in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, etc."

Keep in mind, Gregg spent years nurturing a reputation as something of a high-minded moderate. Indeed, the New Hampshire Republican briefly agreed to join President Obama's cabinet last year, before abruptly changing his mind. Now that he's retiring from Congress, the senator can finally be himself. Released from the burdens of satisfying donors or impressing voters, Gregg can be as honest and as honorable as his conscience dictates.

And this is what we're left with -- an embarrassing buffoon.

Think Progress: Gregg: Not ‘A Lot Of People’ Would ‘Really Care’ If Democrats Use Reconciliation To Finish Health Care

For weeks now, Republicans have been grousing that, if Democrats use the budget reconciliation process to finish health care reform with a simple majority, it “would be unprecedented in scope.” “It would really be the end of the Senate as a protector of minority rights,” declared Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). It would “harm the future of our country,” said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). “They will lose their majority in Congress in November” if they use reconciliation, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) predicted.

On Fox News last week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-AZ) declared that using reconciliation “to pass the most significant piece of public policy” of his lifetime would be “a railroading of the system”:

GREGG: We’re talking now about changing the entire way that health care is delivered in this country. We’re talking about taking the federal government and growing it from 20 percent of the economy to 25, 26 percent of the economy. We’re talking about changing the way that you and your doctor interact and you and your hospital — and your hospital treats you. These are huge public policy issues which really are way outside the reconciliation concept because they need debate. They need discussion. And they need to be subject to amendments on the floor of the Senate in order to do them correctly, or at least to have a proper airing of them and a fair treatment of them.

Watch it:

But this past week, the GOP has begun trying to downplay reconciliation in an effort to “scare House Democrats against voting for the health care plan, arguing that there’s no guarantee that the Senate approves a reconciliation package.” On CNBC, Gregg mused that “once they pass the great big bill, I wouldn’t be surprised if the White House didn’t care if reconciliation passed. I mean, why would they?” In an interview on Fred Thompson’s radio show, he even suggested that reconciliation was “almost irrelevant”

GREGG: But that’s what the game plan here is. Is to pass that bill, the big bill, and what they’re doing is they’re using this other bill, reconciliation, to basically buy off votes in the House from the more liberal members of the House who want to make this bill even bigger and more intrusive. And when they get those votes and they pass the big bill, that will go down to the president and it will be signed. And this side bill, which is called the reconciliation bill, will really become almost irrelevant. I mean, as a very practical matter, there isn’t really going to be a lot of people who really care whether it passes or not because they will have already gotten their massive bill through and it will be law.

Later in the interview, Gregg further contradicted his previous claims that reconciliation would be used as “an entire rewrite of the health care system of America.” “Even if they did something else, it would be at the margins. I mean it’s not going to dramatically impact what is this huge bill that will then be law,” said Gregg.

Bernstein: Hey, House Dems: Don't Worry About the Patch

Greg Sargent has more great reporting about the GOP's latest plan to derail the health care bills. Remember, the plan is Pass Then Patch: House votes on the Senate bill, then House votes on the relatively small reconciliation bill that makes relatively small changes, and then the Senate votes on the reconciliation patch.

The new plan is for the GOP to challenge lots of provisions in the patch as violations of the Byrd rule. The hope, according to Sargent's reporting, is to force at least one change, which would then mean that they House would have to vote yet again. The real plan, however, is to scare House Democrats into voting against the main (Senate-passed) bill, because the Dems are nervous about whether the Senate will leave them hanging once again.

The problem with the new plan is that the Democrats are not going to have any problem at all in passing the reconciliation bill: it's all ice cream, no spinach. The "patch" part of Pass Then Patch is made up of repealing various deals that the GOP has been complaining about; trading in the (unpopular) Cadillac tax for a (popular) tax on rich people; the GOP ideas that Obama put in his letter to Ried and Pelosi this week; and a bunch of other relatively popular items. If looked at as a stand-alone bill -- which it will be, at that point -- I'm guessing that well over 55 Senators will support it, and I would set a betting line at 58. And take the over. All the problems are with finding 217 (or whatever the number turns out to be) for the main bill.

The deeper problem with the new plan for the GOP is that as far as I can tell, the patch bill is being pretty carefully drafted to avoid Byrd rule problems.

The even deeper problem with the new plan for the GOP is that it puts them in a position of opposing repeal of the Nelson deal, the Florida deal, etc. The one thing that I believe might be very vulnerable to a Byrd rule challenge is lifetime caps. Does the GOP think that it can hold all 41 Republicans on that issue? I don't. Moreover, do they really want a vote on lifetime caps?

The yet even deeper problem with the new plan for the GOP is that if they do manage to stop the patch, then health care reform would still have passed.

Granted, none of that matters if the Democrats hear "Republicans have a plan" and hightail it for those hills were always hearing about. As I read the coverage, however, the House Democrats are getting over their concerns about the Senate, and we're down now to the core issue of Democrats who want the bill to pass, but without their vote. I don't see how this latest GOP tactic speaks to that situation. Or at least, House Dems should be getting over their concerns about the Senate. Yes, the Senate has double-crossed them before, many times, but this time the Senate has an easy vote remaining, not a hard one.

Following the Al Qaeda 9

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Reconciliation Follies

Marshall: A Friggin' Crock

Let's stop dancing around it. On "reconciliation" the Republicans are being such a gang of hypocritical liars it's shocking even for them. It really is. The Health Care Bill isn't being passed through reconciliation; it's being used to pass a few amendments to the bill that's already passed. The Republicans have used it numerous times and themselves and for bill's that were far bigger in budgetary terms than this bill. The whole thing is just an immense crock. And it's borderline scandalous that any of their nonsense is even being taken serious. E.J. Dionne has a great column explaining the whole thing. Do read it.

Robert C. Byrd: Reconciliation can be used to find savings

Letters to the Editor

Thursday March 4, 2010

It has been said that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. In the Daily Mail's March 2 editorial regarding health care reform legislation, "Using reconciliation would hurt Democrats: Choking off debate is no way to muscle through health legislation," the newspaper's misunderstanding of congressional procedures misinforms readers who, in rapidly increasing numbers, find themselves unable to obtain or afford medical insurance.

The editorial correctly quoted me as saying in the spring of 2009 that using reconciliation to enact a huge health care package would "violate the intent and spirit of the budget process . . .".

I believed then, as now, that the Senate should debate the health reform bill under regular rules, which it did. The result of that debate was the passing of a comprehensive health care reform bill in the Senate by a 60-vote supermajority.

I continue to support the budget reconciliation process for deficit reduction. The entire Senate- or House- passed health care bill could not and would not pass muster under the current reconciliation rules, which were established under my watch.

Yet a bill structured to reduce deficits by, for example, finding savings in Medicare or lowering health care costs, may be consistent with the Budget Act, and appropriately considered under reconciliation.

With all due respect, the Daily Mail's hyperbole about "imposing government control," acts of "disrespect to the American people" and "corruption" of Senate procedures resembles more the barkings from the nether regions of Glennbeckistan than the "sober and second thought" of one of West Virginia's oldest and most respected daily newspapers.

My commitment to protecting the best interests of all West Virginians and the American people remains as firm and consistent as my devotion to observing the necessary and essential Senate rules and procedures intended to guarantee debate and the airing of diverse views.

Robert C. Byrd

Washington, D.C.

Byrd is the senior U.S senator from West Virginia.

DougJ: I just wasn’t made for these times

Sometimes the silliness of our public dialog scares me more than it amuses me.

Steve Benen on reconciliation:

Scholars of propaganda could write an impressive paper on the Republican campaign on reconciliation in recent months. Partisan hacks have managed to convince an entire political world and a media establishment that use of a fairly routine Senate procedure is not only problematic, but genuinely scandalous. They’ve even convinced some Democrats to feel squeamish about a process Republicans have used repeatedly with no qualms at all.

Atrios:

I’m really not sure how we got from we don’t torture, to that torture stuff we do isn’t torture, to anyone who opposes torture hates America. Apparently that’s where we are.

I sort of understand how these things came to be, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s all very strange. I know Tom Friedman thinks all our problems can be cured with a new tax credit for R&D and that the Village thinks a big bipartisan commission could clear all this up. But I think the problems here run deep.

E.J. Dionne (WaPost): The Republicans' big lie about reconciliation

For those who feared that Barack Obama did not have any Lyndon Johnson in him, the president's determination to press ahead and get health-care reform done in the face of Republican intransigence came as something of a relief.

Obama's critics have regularly accused him of not being as tough or wily or forceful as LBJ was in pushing through civil rights and the social programs of his Great Society. Obama seemed willing to let Congress go its own way and was so anxious to look bipartisan that he wouldn't even take his own side in arguments with Republicans.

Those days are over. On Wednesday, the president made clear what he wants in a health-care bill, and he urged Congress to pass it by the most expeditious means available.

He was also clear on what bipartisanship should mean -- and what it can't mean. Democrats, who happen to be in the majority, have already added Republican ideas to their proposals. Obama said he was open to four more that came up during the health-care summit. What he's (rightly) unwilling to do is give the minority veto power over a bill that has deliberately and painfully worked its way through the regular legislative process.

Republicans, however, don't want to talk much about the substance of health care. They want to discuss process, turn "reconciliation" into a four-letter word and maintain that Democrats are "ramming through" a health bill.

It is all, I am sorry to say, one big lie -- or, if you're sensitive, an astonishing exercise in hypocrisy.

In an op-ed in Tuesday's Post, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) offered an excellent example of this hypocrisy. Right off, the piece was wrong on a core fact. Hatch accused the Democrats of trying to, yes, "ram through the Senate a multitrillion-dollar health-care bill."

No. The health-care bill passed the Senate in December with 60 votes under the normal process. The only thing that would pass under a simple majority vote would be a series of amendments that fit comfortably under the "reconciliation" rules established to deal with money issues. Near the end of his column, Hatch conceded that reconciliation would be used for "only parts" of the bill. But why didn't he say that in the first place?

Hatch grandly cited "America's Founders" as wanting the Senate to be about "deliberation." But the Founders said nothing in the Constitution about the filibuster, let alone "reconciliation." Judging from what they put in the actual document, the Founders would be appalled at the idea that every major bill should need the votes of three-fifths of the Senate to pass.

Hatch quoted Sens. Robert Byrd and Kent Conrad, both Democrats, as opposing the use of reconciliation on health care. What he didn't say is that Byrd's comment from a year ago was about passing the entire bill under reconciliation, which no one is proposing. As for Conrad, he made clear to The Post's Ezra Klein this week that it's perfectly appropriate to use reconciliation "to improve or perfect the package," which is the only thing that Democrats have proposed doing through reconciliation.

Hatch said that reconciliation should not be used for "substantive legislation" unless the legislation has "significant bipartisan support." But surely the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, which were passed under reconciliation and increased the deficit by $1.7 trillion during his presidency, were "substantive legislation." The 2003 dividends tax cut could muster only 50 votes. Vice President Dick Cheney had to break the tie. Talk about "ramming through."

The underlying "principle" here seems to be that it's fine to pass tax cuts for the wealthy on narrow votes but an outrage to use reconciliation to help middle-income and poor people get health insurance.

I'm disappointed in Hatch, co-sponsor of two of my favorite bills in recent years. One created the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The other, signed last year by Obama, broadly expanded service opportunities. Hatch worked on both with his dear friend, the late Edward M. Kennedy, after whom the service bill was named.

It was Kennedy, you'll recall, who insisted that health care was "a fundamental right and not a privilege." That's why it's not just legitimate to use reconciliation to complete the work on health reform. It would be immoral to do otherwise and thereby let a phony argument about process get in the way of health coverage for 30 million Americans.

Bernstein (Daily Dish): Scandal! Or, Whatever

Here's a challenge for the press: which fringe political nonsense is going to be the next White House travel office scandal (lasts for months if not years before fizzling out) and which is going to be the next Kevin Jennings (bubbles up from the crazy, but fizzles before anyone beyond a narrow group hears about it)? Take today's kerfuffle, explained ably by Kevin Drum. Will it still be around after Easter? Who knows?

Mostly, however, I agree with Steve Benin, who says:

If Republicans had the congressional majority right now, Congress would literally launch a federal investigation into something like this. Come 2011, it's likely any nonsense published by the Weekly Standard (or related outlets) in the morning, will produce subpoenas by the afternoon. This was the model from 1995 to 2000, and it would be just as ridiculous next year.

Which brings me to the real reason for this post, which is to encourage everyone to predict the first Member of the House to file for impeachment against Barack Obama, and the date that he or she will do so. I'm afraid that Bachmann, Brown-Waite, Joe Wilson, and Ron Paul are already taken, but that leaves plenty of others to choose from -- including the possibility that none of them will do it.

Tim F.: Doing What They Do Best

Republicans have a huge robocall effort today to sic their teabaggers on key Dem Congressmen. That sucks, but it illustrates a point that I cannot stress enough: these calls make a difference.

Do you know your Representative’s staffers on a first-name basis? Maybe you should. They appreciate hearing a friendly voice once in a while.

Switchboard: (202) 224-3121.

Guide for first-timers here.

***Update***

It will help to point out to your Rep that 95% of these angry callers wouldn’t vote for a Democrat if Jesus Christ showed up at their door and told them to.

John Cole: Sick of This man

The most tedious man on the planet speaks:

The Senate’s healthcare bill would lose 12 Democratic votes in the House, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Wednesday.

Stupak, the sponsor of an amendment to the House healthcare bill that barred federal subsidies for health plans covering abortion, said that 12 lawmakers who had previously supported healthcare reform legislation in the House would be ready to switch.

“It’s accurate to say there are at least 12 of us who voted for healthcare that have indicated to the speaker and others that unless you change this language, we will vote against it,” Stupak said during an appearance on MSNBC.

Name them, Bart. Until then, STFU.

Kind of crazy that an atheist can’t chair a committee but a panty-sniffing religious moralist can attempt to sink the signature legislation of the party and no one blinks.

*** Update ***

Bart’s number: 202-225-4735

Suggested Script: “Hi, my name is XXXXX and I am from XXXXX, and while not normally a constituent, Rep. Stupak insists on making me with his repeated attempts to kill HCR because of his fetus fetish. Please be assured I intend to donate the maximum amount to any opponent of Bart’s, Republican or Democrat, if he manages to torpedo HCR, andwill worked to have him stripped of any and all committee assignments and removed from the Democratic caucus. And this includes if he should have any delusional gubernatorial aspirations.”

Benen: PUTTING PROCESS AHEAD OF PEOPLE

Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.) represents a district that's historically been unfriendly to Democrats. It was, for example, Kratovil who was hung in effigy by right-wing activists last summer, outside his district office.

It wasn't especially surprising, then, when Kratovil, one of Congress's least progressive and most vulnerable Democrats, voted against health care reform last November. Earlier this week, however, his office suggested that Kratovil is open to considering the more moderate Senate bill.

Now he's making clear that he does not intend to change his mind. It's his reasoning, though, that seemed odd.

"He would vote against it," the spokesman, Kevin Lawlor, says. Crucially, Kratovil would vote against the Senate bill even if there's some kind of verbal guarantee that it would be fixed via reconciliation later, Lawlor says.

The only way Kratovil -- one of the targets of a barrage of NRCC robocalls hammering the reform proposals as "dangerous" -- could support the Senate bill is if it's fixed first via reconciliation, before the House votes on it. But no one expects this to happen.

Here's hoping that Kratovil's reasoning goes far beyond this, because if he's willing to see health care reform die over this procedural issue, he's both foolish and callous.

I'm trying to imagine how a lawmaker goes back to his district and says, "Sorry, struggling families and businesses getting screwed by the dysfunctional health care system. I was considering supporting a solution to this mess, but I couldn't -- I wanted one chamber to go first, not the other. So, you're screwed. Good luck."

Maybe now would be a good time to remind some lawmakers that the issue here goes beyond institutional rivalries, polls, attack ads, hurt feelings, and parochial piques. Real people are struggling. There are families that can't get coverage because of a pre-existing condition, and they need a champion. There are small businesses that can't afford coverage for their employees, and they need a champion. There are entrepreneurs who want to start a business but can't because the premiums are unaffordable, families facing bankruptcy because their insurers dropped them when they needed help most, industrious workers whose wages have been stuck while health care costs rise, single moms waiting tables who can't afford to buy coverage on the individual market -- they all need a champion.

And instead of rising to the occasion, some in Congress are worried about legislative procedures? Indeed, they're more worried about these procedures than they are in helping struggling families?

I understand campaign anxieties. I don't understand this.

The Good and the Ugly

Fallows: Two Illustrations of Good, Clear-Minded Journalism

David Leonhardt, in an "Economic Scene" analysis piece in the NYT today, talking about fears that the U.S. unemployment situation might be about to get even worse. One problem is the continued weakness of consumer spending. And then:

The second problem is that the stimulus program and the Fed's emergency programs are in the early stages of slowing down.

These programs have done tremendous good, as I've written before. The bubbles in housing and stocks over the last decade were far larger than an average bubble, and yet the resulting bust is on pace to be shorter and less severe than the typical one in the wake of a financial crisis. That's not an accident. It's a result of an incredibly aggressive response by the Fed, Congress, the Bush administration and the Obama administration.

Why do I mention this at all? Because he didn't let the current landscape of partisan argument scare him into a "sources say" approach. The most ill-informed part of the GOP/Fox criticism of stimulus spending is that unemployment is still bad, so the programs must not have done any good. It's almost embarrassing to have to point out the reply, which is: unemployment would be even worse without the intervention. (So the stronger argument would be: the stimulus should have been larger all along.) The real point is, Leonhardt wasn't cowed into saying, "sources say the programs have done tremendous good." He could just say what the facts were. Plus, he gracefully points out that both the Bush and Obama administrations were pulling the plow.

Also, just now on NPR's All Things Considered, Michele Norris's interview with Sen. Lamar Alexander about what happens next with the health-care reform bill. (Link here; audio will be there later this evening.) Alexander was manfully making the same points he did at last week's Health Summit -- the Republican "ideas" that had been added to the plan were "rear view mirrors on a car going the wrong way," passing the bill on a majority-vote reconciliation would be a historic offense against Constitutional balance etc. In each case, Norris in a polite but no-nonsense way asked him the "Yes, but what about???" questions. Didn't GW Bush get his big measures through by reconciliation? Why was it good then and bad now?

The impressive aspect, which should be standard in big-time interviews but obviously isn't, was the refusal to take a first-level talking point as the end of a discussion, and instead raising the counter-evidence. Significantly, this was not just "gotcha" counter-evidence familiar from many talk shows, the effort to smoke out some minor changes of position over time, but rather the probing of deeper holes in an argument. And, before you ask, of course politicians from every part of the spectrum should be subjected to such "Yes, but what about?" questions. This just happens to be what I heard today.

Marshall: Keep'n It Foxy

Proud day for CNN. See the chyron about right-wing complaints about the Obama Department of Justice ...

John Cole: Anatomy of a Smear

If you want to see how the wurlitzer works, and how our media establishment has completely failed us, go read Glennzilla:

When discussing the McCarthyite DOJ witch hunt spawned by Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol, I wrote yesterday: now that “we have real, live, contemporary McCarthyites in our midst—Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol—launching a repulsive smear campaign, we’ll see what the reaction is and how they’re treated by our political and media elites.” On Twitter yesterday, I wrote: “How media figures treat Liz Cheney after her vile McCarthyite smear campaign will say a lot about their character.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer spoke volumes today about himself and his “news network.” First, on Twitter, he excitedly promoted his upcoming story about what he called the “intense debate about Obama Justice Dept bringing in lawyers who previously represented Gitmo detainees.” On March, 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow famously devoted his entire broadcast to vehemently condemning Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts, explaining: “This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent.” By contrast, Wolf Blitzer—receipient of an Edward R. Murrow award—sees such smear campaigns as nothing more than an “intense debate” to neutrally explore and excitingly promote.

Read the whole thing. Just plain disgusting.

John Cole: Fuck These People

Really all I have to say:

This is why I laugh when I hear the term principled conservative or I listen to the folks at the Next Right or the Frum Forum talk about principled conservatism. Nice party you got there. I’m sure the Fonzi of Freedom Nick Gillespie will appear on Fox News or at Big Government to decry this bullshit.

Anyone with any associations with the GOP at this point has no excuse.

Spewing

Marshall: Heat

TPM Reader DP checks in from Upstate ...

I live in Upstate NY and there is a commercial running quite frequently urging people to call Arcuri and tell him to vote no. They link him to Pelosi and spew a lot of untruths (income tax surcharge, massive medicare cuts, government take over of health care) and suggest that Arcuri is the critical vote. I think the commercial is from Concerned Voters of America. Arcuri's district is fairly rural and pretty conservative by NY standards and he really squeaked out a victory last time against a poorly funded candidate. He may be feeling the heat.

Sargent: Exclusive: GOP To Unleash Huge Wave Of Robocalls Warning Of Dem Plot To “Ram” Health Reform Through

National Repubicans are planning to unleash a huge wave of robocalls tomorrow targeting dozens of House Dems and warning their constituents that Obama and Nancy Pelosi are plotting to “ram” their “dangerous” health reform plans through Congress.

The robocalls — the first paid media by the NRCC’s new “code red” program, which targets Dems on health care — comes after Obama told Congress to pass reform via reconciliation.

The calls are meant to spook House Dems right at the moment when the White House and Dem leaders are about to undertake a grueling effort to round up support for what’s expected to be a hair-raisingly close vote. It warns constituents that the targeted House Dem risks supporting this “dangerous” move.

“Even though a majority of the country wants them to scrap it, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Obama are planning to ram their dangerous, out-of-control health care spending bill through Congress anyway,” the call says, according to a script provided by a GOP official.

The version targeting Dem Rep Frank Kratovil of Maryland continues:

What’s worse, Congressman Frank Kratovil might vote for it. Frank Kratovil votes with Nancy Pelosi 84% of the time and may follow her orders on this bill too. Frank Kratovil might vote for a bill that will kill jobs, raise the costs of health care, and increase taxes. Frank Kratovil should be focusing on creating jobs, yet he might be the deciding vote that causes this massive new spending bill to pass.

The call concludes by calling the reform proposals “dangerous” a second time and admonishing voters to call their Representative and urge a No vote “before it is too late.”

The call — which will be pumped into GOP, independent and Dem households — will target 25 House Dems who voted for the proposal the first time, 11 who voted No, and four open-seat Dems who have yet to say how they plan to vote this time.

The call is another sign that the national GOP is doubling down on making the looming reconciliation vote a major issue in the 2010 elections, portraying it as the latest in back-room dealing presided over by Pelosi and other Dem leaders. It raises questions about whether Dems are planning anything in kind. Full script here.

Greg Sargent

* The full court press begins: Obama to take his health care sales pitch on the road, with stops in Philadelphia and St. Louis next week.

* And: Tonight at the White House, Obama will woo House Dems who voted No last time.

* Ben Smith obtains an RNC fundraising document that reveals a plan to raise money by vowing to “save the country from trending toward socialism” and depicts Obama as The Joker.

It’s always worth recalling that it’s the official RNC position that Obama, while perhaps not a full-fledged socialist himself, is moving us “towards socialism.”

* Mitch McConnell had the foresight to see months ago that there’s a political upside in not putting out comprehensive GOP proposals: It makes it easier to make the story all about Obama’s proposals.

* A piqued Robert Gibbs wonders why Republicans “can’t take yes for an answer” and support a health bill with GOP ideas in it.

* Maybe wavering Blue Dog Dems should consider supporting the new health proposal and take credit for watering it down from its original, scarier version?

* Back on the Merry-Go-Round with Bart Stupak: He now says a dozen House Dems who voted Yes last time could flip to No.

* Which is interesting, because last week he put the number at 15 to 20.

Republicans freak out in face of health reform passage

March 3: Rachel Maddow reviews some of the latest acts of Republican lying and hypocrisy as they freak out in desperation to block health reform. Senator Sherrod Brown discusses what further obstruction he expects the bill will face on the way to passage.

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Aravosis: Secret RNC fundraising plan depicts Obama, Reid, Pelosi sending America into 'Socialism,' targets 'ego-driven' wealthy donors

UPDATE: I just found this on page 31 of the secret RNC fundraising plan. They made a photo of Obama as the joker (not sure painting a black man in white face is entirely wise) and under Obama's face wrote the word "Socialism." That alone deserves an apology from Michael Steele directly to the President.



From Ben Smith:

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.

The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms.

"What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?" it asks.

The answer: "Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.”

Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”

And just an aside. I've been arguing for a good year that the Democrats need to nip this "socialism" crap in the bud. The Republicans have taken a bizarre slur and made it real for many people. It's sick, and it's crazy. And when you don't respond, it gets worse.

UPDATE: Statement from DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse on RNC Fund Raising Document

If you had any doubt, any doubt whatsoever, that the Republican Party has been taken over by the fear-mongering lunatic fringe, those doubts were erased today. The Republican Party, which barely 20 percent of Americans will even admit they belong to anymore, seems hell bent on damaging their battered brand even further by engaging in the most despicable kind of imagery, tactics and rhetoric imaginable. This type of politics at all cost approach to our public discourse is what the American people are sick and tired of – and if anyone thinks this wasn’t approved of or signed off on at the highest levels they are kidding themselves. Republicans across the country have cheered on crowds where these very images appeared, they’ve encouraged and perpetuated scandalous lies about the President and his plans. And, from calling for secession to condoning violence against government officials they have sunk to new and unbelievable lows.

It’s no wonder the RNC reacted with alarm when they learned the American people would see this presentation. This revealing document proves what the Republican party has long denied. But now, by their own admission, the express strategy of the Republican party is not to offer new ideas, but ‘fear.’ Republicans can no longer deny that they are peddling fear when they are literally selling it as their path back to power. It is a sad commentary on the state of the Republican Party that, devoid of ideas and solutions to our nation’s problems, problems created on their watch, that they would resort to these type of tactics. It’s sad. But true.