Morning Swim: Monday, December 14th

post from Firedoglake on 14 December 2009 07:57:55 AM. © Firedoglake

A roundup of current news for the morning of Monday, December 14th, 2009.[...]

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Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

post from Daily Kos on 14 December 2009 07:57:45 AM. © Daily Kos

It ain't Christmas yet - get back to work, pundits!

Paul Krugman:

Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.

And Congress believes it.

Ross Douthat: Liberals are responsible for being soft on crime, so don't blame Mike Huckabee for poor judgment. Our prisons are bursting at the seams, thanks to conservative success. So Huckabee can't be Willie Hortoned on this because I said so.

WaPo on CA Republicans:

"There are large parts of the state where the party is irrelevant," said Allan Hoffenblum, a well-known California political analyst who has been a campaign manager for Republicans in the state. "It's not even a statewide party, really."

But few stories better reflect the divisions and disarray among state Republicans than the saga of an obscure Southern California assemblyman.

He was unknown even by political junkies in the region until early this year. Then, with one vote, conservative Assembly member Anthony Adams became a symbol of California Republicans' chaos and destructive divisions. The story of the man who was once regarded as a loyal foot soldier exposed the toxic infighting that has come to define the party.

There's no California Republican like a Southern California Republican.

Michael Gerson:

After a series of disappointing appearances on the rhetorical stage, President Obama’s Nobel Prize Lecture was complex and impressive. It is the only Obama speech I can recall when expectations were low, and he exceeded them dramatically.

Jackson Diehl: Foreign policy? Meh. Obama's a "failure" on the Middle East because everyone else did so much better.
EJ Dionne:

A French diplomatic veteran ticked off all the good news: Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo, the ban on torture, the continued withdrawal from Iraq, his reaching out to Iran and North Korea, engagement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the quest for nuclear disarmament, the effort to "reset" relations with Russia. And there is America's new stance on global warming, on display in Copenhagen. This repositioning matters not just to elites but also to a rank-and-file green movement emerging as an alternative on the center-left to social democratic parties, notably in France and Germany.

But these are the days of European second thoughts: Obama is still interesting, he's still not George W. Bush, but what can he show for his efforts?

Charles Lane: Start with Krugman? End with this. Get the government out of job killers, like minimum wage. and get flouride out of our water. And no socialized medicine - and get your hands off my Medicare. (Lane is a member of the WaPo editorial staff. And I'm shocked to find there's gambling in this casino.)

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Time to give up on health care reform And other
updates...

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 14 December 2009 07:45:00 AM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

A third of Dems say they're less likely to vote in the 2010 election if public option doesn't pass. Only 7% say they're more likely.

Last week Lieberman said he didn't know how anybody could decide which way they'd vote on the health care bill before they saw the actual language (which still hasn't been shown to anyone). Yet, yesterday Lieberman decided he was going to filibuster the bill if it included the Medicare buy-in that he had previously said he was fine with.

Washington Post says the next 48 hours are crucial, if Senate wants to pass reform before Christmas.

Robert Reich is not happy about where health care "reform" is heading.

Ezra Klein on Lieberman's lack of principles. Ezra thinks Lieberman is simply doing all of this to get back at liberals. Hell of a way for a US Senator to decide which way to vote on legislation affecting the lives of millions.

NYCeve at DailyKos is asking everyone to help "Remove Hadassah Lieberman as paid shill for the Susan G. Komen Foundation."

And Joe Paduda at Managed Care Matters says maybe it's time to just give up on the entire bill:

After months of negotiation, compromise, and horse-trading, we're getting close to a health reform bill that will come to a vote - probably in the next couple or three weeks. There's much work to be done to get to the magic sixty Senate votes, but it looks like no compromise, concession, or giveaway is too big to stand in the way of this must-pass (for the Democrats) legislation.

Yet after all this, we're going to end up with a bill that won't work - it will not appreciably reduce health care costs today, tomorrow, ever.

Sure, we'll end up with lots more Americans covered, better/smarter regulation of insurers, and maybe even lower Medicare costs. But ten years from now, the system will be pretty much the same - a fee-for-service based health system with costs increasing well above inflation.

Why, you say? Aren't there cost controls in the bill? Pilot programs that promise to reduce cost inflation by rationalizing the care delivered to patients?

No, there aren't. What we have is a mishmash of ideas that have long been on the table, demonstrated to work, and completely without traction. Not to mention the huge costs not addressed in the current bill - like the current quarter-billion dollar deficit in the Medicare physician reimbursement program, a deficit that will have to be added to the total cost of any reform initiative that changes how docs are compensated under Medicare.

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The Impotent Political Party

post from TalkLeft on 14 December 2009 07:37:00 AM. © TalkLeft

What now? As if "now" was different than 6 months ago. Here's the dirty little secret the Village Bloggers won't tell you - there were never 60 votes for "health care reform." This ridiculous dance that began when Max Baucus did not deliver his crappy proposal on time was just part of the process to try and kill any health insurance bill. The 11 Dimensional Chess players got played - by Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, and the rest. Remember the absurd "Gang of Six?" We were always where we are "now." They pretended otherwise in order to run out the clock.

In the end, the question was always about reconciliation and what could pass under reconciliation. Or do you REALLY think if you capitulated on "everything," they would not dream up new objections?

And now we have the results of the Post-Partisan Unity Schtick. The Theory of Change. It lies smoldering in a rubble of ruins. The Village Wonks will tell you this means that "the country is ungovernable." What it REALLY means is that it is ungovernable by wimpy, timid, "post partisan" Democrats who will not exert their power. It's not just an Impotent President. It is an Impotent Democratic Party.

Speaking for me only

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The Errington Thompson Show Special Healthcare
update

post from Where's the Outrage? on 14 December 2009 07:33:11 AM. © Where's the Outrage?

I talk with Joan McCarter from the Daily Kos about what the heck is going on in the Senate. Joan[...]

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The Errington Thompson Show Special Healthcare
Update (plus an addition)

post from Where's the Outrage? on 14 December 2009 07:33:11 AM. © Where's the Outrage?

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Docudharma Times Monday December 14

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 14 December 2009 07:30:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Monday's Headlines: Citigroup Nears Deal to Return Billions in Bailout FundsLearning From the Soviets U.S. unveils plan to rev up clean technology in poor nations Lieberman criticizes Senate healthcare compromiseTaliban stalls key hydroelectric[...]

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Monday Open Thread

post from My Left Wing - Front Page on 14 December 2009 07:00:00 AM. © My Left Wing - Front Page

I delight in what I fear.

Shirley Jackson

Born December 14, 1919

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CEOs of Goldman, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley
weren't at White House meeting with the President. They called in.

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 14 December 2009 06:35:00 AM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

There's been an enormous amount of attention focused on Obama's meeting with top "fat cat" bankers. So, how did the leaders of three of the biggest -- and most controversial -- banks manage to miss the meeting with the President? Fog, we're told:

Three top bankers invited to the White House on Monday will not be able to attend in person because their flight was delayed due to bad weather but will participate by phone, the White House said.

The three are: Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs (GS.N); John Mack, chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley (MS.N); and Dick Parsons, chairman, Citigroup (C.N).

A source familiar with the situation said all three were on the same plane and the flight was delayed due to fog.

It's quite amazing, actually. They could have taken the Bolt bus, for Christ sakes. It's not like they needed to get to D.C. from Siberia.

This line from the WSJ blog is pretty much spot on:

This appears to be the downside of not having a private plane to fly in, or not traveling to Washington the night before the meeting or not thinking to take the train.

John adds: Or not fearing the President.

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"Smartest Person in the Room"

Watching President Obama on 60 Minutes recalls a memorable exchange from the 1987 movie, "Broadcast News," in which Holly Hunter's boss taunts her, "It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room."

With a stricken expression, she answers, "No. It's awful."

Last night, as he was being pressed by Steve Kroft about the mess in Afghanistan, the President responded, not with dismay but beyond it with a laugh, explaining "this is really hard. And there's not a question that you asked that I haven't asked in meetings, and that I don't ask myself."

His reaction is a reminder of the limitations of brains alone in the life-and-death decisions made in the White House. After eight years of low intellectual expectations, the American people were ready for a renaissance in the coming of what a new Administration calls "smart power," but America's problems are beyond the multiple-choice format of TV quiz shows.

In citing Obama's West Point announcement of the troop escalation, Kroft told him "you seemed very analytical, detached, not emotional. The tone seemed to be, 'I've studied this situation very hard. It's a real mess. The options aren't very good. But we need to go ahead and do this.' There were no exhortations or promises of victory. Why? Why that tone?"

The President disagreed, calling it "the most emotional speech that I've made...I was looking out over a group of cadets, some of whom were going to be deployed in Afghanistan. And potentially some might not come back. There is not a speech that I've made that hit me in the gut as much as that speech."

That kind of decision, Barack Obama was reminding us, has to be made not just by a president who is "the smartest person in the room" about today's pluses and minuses but who has the reserves of emotional intelligence and moral imagination to absorb what it will mean for the future.

Just being smarter and more humane than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is setting the bar too low.

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