Category: Politics

President Obama’s statement on Wednesday was brilliant. He made the case again for why reform was important and listed all the broken stuff that it would fix, he allayed fears about ruining the benefits enjoyed by people who like their current insurance benefits, he was clear that Medicare benefits would not be cut, and he described how the plan is paid for.

Still, some will say it is too much. So he explained why it isn’t too much – why if you don’t cover everyone, then the other changes can’t take effect: “unless everyone has access to affordable coverage, you can’t prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions; you can’t limit the amount families are forced to pay out of their own pockets”. You may not be a fan of the size of the bill but lots of people smarter than me (and admit it – probably you too) have determined that this is fact. No reasonable person disputes this fact. The only remaining debate, then, is whether you believe it is in the best interests of everyone to insure everyone.

I believe that it is. Again, as people smarter than me have determined, uninsured sick people cost the government/taxpayers more in the long run than getting them on some sort of insurance so it’s better for me if they have insurance. And that’s to say nothing of the “golden rule” – what if it were you that got sick and got dumped by your insurer? That may be a small minority of people, but a majority of us are one crappy turn of events away from being those people.

You can’t flip past Fox News without hearing about how the American people are against the current plan. And while it may be true that the current plan would be voted down if you were to hold a nationwide referendum, that has more to do with fear-mongering and an infatuation with the status quo than with intellectual disagreement over the policy issues I’ve described above.

In 2008, the country voted a Democrat into Presidential office who promised health care reform. Here it is. The country even voted into office a Democratic majority in the House and Senate to support the President. And while the economy isn’t doing the Democrats any favors right now, they still need to stick to the plan and look at the big picture. If you are a politician who got elected for purposes of power and every day you fear what happens if you make a risky decision, then clearly you aren’t cut out for the job. But for every member of congress that has the balls to do what is right, even if it means potentially losing that job and the power that goes with it, now is the time to vote the health care reform into law.

I get that people that try to blow up planes and kill many people are more evil than your run of the mill criminal up for murder 1. And I could even be persuaded to believe that such a person, if found guilty, should be punished according to rules of war instead of criminal law. But I have a question… How do we know that they are guilty of being an enemy combatant before trying them?

I’ll grant you that some dude trying to light his explosive-laden underwear on fire on an airplane on approach to DTW does seem to point to an act of war. But people who look guilty are found innocent every day. Now you could argue that some of those that are found innocent did do the deed but got off unfairly; but as we all know, that’s the price we pay for making sure that we don’t put away innocent people. And, to be sure, there are people who look guilty who didn’t do it.

Maybe the underwear bomber was an unwitting carrier to the explosives and the people who secretly put the explosives in his underwear at the laundromat knew that he has a thing for lighting his nuts on fire while the flight attendant says the tray tables need to be upright. Yeah, pretty unlikely. But isn’t there a time when somebody might look like they are an enemy combatant and be erroneously treated as such? And since we are a society of “innocent until proven guilty”, it seems wrong to say “yeah, but the thing that this guy is accused of is super evil so we’re going skip over due process and jump right into the war accusations”. Shouldn’t everyone get the same trial to determine guilt and then sentencing for an enemy combatant could be done differently from that of a common criminal?

I’m no legal expert so maybe I’m missing something. I do not mean the following rhetorically – I really want to know: Is there a reason why people who appear as enemy combatants can be legally treated differently from the start?

So it’s not over yet, but not looking good. Scott Brown’s lead has been holding solid as results trickle in. Results may still, change depending on whether Martha Coakley-centric areas have been tallied or not at this early point.

I know a lot of people are going to talk about how Brown’s high numbers (even if Coakley does win, it won’t be by much) is a national referendum on the Democratic agenda. I don’t buy it. To some extent, the damaged national Democratic party did give Brown a boost – something to build on. But the bigger issue is that Coakley was not a strong enough candidate. Hard to believe that the Democrats couldn’t find somebody stronger to represent the state.

EDIT: It’s over; Brown won. The scene at the Brown party includes a lot of out of state people partying – clearly a sign that there was a lot of national involvement in Brown’s win. But the reporter on the channel I was watching found a guy in the crowd that said he was a registered independent who voted for Brown; his reasoning was that Brown wears a barn coat just like a regular guy. Good god, have we learned nothing from having Bush 43 in office for 8 years? We don’t want regular people running things – we want the smartest people running things.

I’m not thrilled with Martha Coakley; I think the state of Massachusetts could do better. But she’s a much better fit for the state than Scott Brown. Coakley has been battling Brown now with adverts about how he is a Bush/Cheney-like Republican – a low blow, but there is some truth to it: Brown is against gay marriage, against cap-and-trade, uncertain about global warming, for waterboarding, and for regressive tax cuts. Brown said in the most recent debate that he was a fan of the universal coverage Massachusetts has now yet he is against the federal government doing the same. And not only is he against continuing to work for national health insurance reform now, he recently filed a bill in the state to remove some of the coverages that the state currently requires such as infertility treatments and chiropractors. (Now for Coakley to make the leap from removing infertility and chiropractic care to removing mammograms is disingenuous to say the least but she’s fighting fiction with fiction – retaliation for when Brown says that he would be scared if Coakley were elected because of her support for terrorists, for example.)

As for Brown’s line that we should vote for him if we want to decide where we spend our own money, I’m reasonably confident that the amount of my personal discretionary income wouldn’t change one cent if he were elected instead of Coakley. Now if you are among the wealthiest who stand to gain from a regressive tax cut and you are solely concerned about your individual wealth, then I would understand supporting this line of reasoning.

What’s to like about Coakley? Well, not much really. But there’s also not much to dislike. She’ll probably be more moderate than Kennedy was but also much less of a presence in the senate. I would have liked a senator with more fire and passion like Capuano. Sadly the path to electoral success today is not with passion but with measured moderation.

It’s clear that a vote for Brown is a vote against Obama’s plans and policies whereas a vote for Coakley is a vote in support of them. And while I am okay with a vote against the sitting President (I’m not one to consider that unpatriotic!), I don’t think you can vote for Brown and be anything but anti-Obama and a fan of the Bush/Cheney policies. Again, it’s fine if you are. But I believe that there are people who support or voted for Obama who are planning to vote for Brown and may not have thought through the contradictory nature of their planned vote.

For anyone who wants Coakley to win, get out there and vote. It has been shocking to me how many people are vociferously supporting Brown. Even though the polls show that Coakley is ahead, as they say: the only polls that matter are the election results. And there’s a good chance that every Brown supporter is going to vote. Therefore, all the more important that if you are not voting for Brown, you should get out there and vote too!!

For the sake of completeness, although Joe Kennedy may be the nicest, most moderate, and most pragmatic Libertarian to run for office in Massachusetts, he’s still too Libertarian for me.

I know this happened over a week ago, but it was such an absurd statement, I couldn’t let it go. House Minority Leader John Boehner said that the current health care reform proposal is the “greatest threat to freedom I’ve seen in the 19 years since I’ve been in Washington”. Now granted, his audience was the Tea Partiers whose mission is to rail against all things Obama related. So at the time he said it, he may have even known it was empty rhetoric merely giving the crowd what they want. But he still said it with knowledge that cameras were recording him and with reporters other than the Tea Party sponsors Fox News watching. This is exactly the kind of partisan hyperbole that Boehner himself has vehemently opposed. Surely he can think of a few more things that were greater threats to freedom – terrorist attacks come quickly to mind – than providing healthcare to today’s uninsured. So, John Boehner, you need to choose whether you want to be a partisan hack or whether you want to practice what you preach and keep the wild generalizations in check.

The story that wouldn’t die. So who am I to let it before I get my say. There are two sides to the story. And as they say, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Professor Gates says that he had just made his way into his home after returning home from a trip. And shortly after getting into his house with the help of his driver, the police show up accusing him of breaking and entering. He told them that it was his own house and showed them ID and yet the cops arrested him. Well, that side of the story sure does sound pretty damning of the police action.

Officer Crowley states that they got a call about a possible breaking and entering. Now in the 911 call, you can hear the caller say that she’s not sure if it is a breaking and entering or if the man was entering his own home, but that comment didn’t seem to make its way to the officers responding on the scene. All they knew was that there was a possible B&E. And sure enough, when they arrive, they find a house has been broken into. When the cop asks what’s going on, the man starts yelling at him, accusing him of racial profiling and eventually insulting the cops mother. The cop sensing that the man is not going to calm down decides it is best to haul him in for refusing to cooperate with the cop.

Now normally, I’d be on the side of whoever is going against the police. It’s not that I’m anti-authoritarian but it is easy to see what I consider to be police abuse of position. But in this case, putting myself in the cop’s shoes, with what he knew at the time and the reaction he got from Gates when he showed up, that’s about the right reaction. Hell, I know that if I had just broken into a house and a cop showed up to whom I started yelling, even me as an unimposing white guy would be arrested. Most people know that cops don’t respond well to disrespect, even when you know you are right. And while Gates may have known that intellectually, his knowledge of all the racial injustices through the centuries trumped his reason and he started lashing out.

Also, it’s worth noting, that I do believe racial profiling is real. And that a black man is more likely to be arrested for doing something that a white guy isn’t, even in Cambridge, MA, and even in this day and age. However, for this incident, a black cop would have arrested a black man and a white cop would have arrested a white man. Besides, this cop was an instructor in anti-racial profiling. So while racial profiling may exist, this wasn’t it. And I believe that’s why this story has captured the public’s interest. Because although it wasn’t in this case, it could have been and that would have been quite the story indeed.

One more comment: It is remarkable that this is one of only two times when Obama has clearly made a PR/speaking mistake (the other was the aside about the Special Olympics). To call it stupid was reactionary and even though Gates may have been a friend of his, he clearly made things worse for everybody. Once he appreciated the situation, he did eventually respond correctly and the sit-down, mafia-style, at the White House was a good call. Oh, and between the four of them, Crowley clearly has the best taste in beer.

In our President’s farewell speech, he told the press corps that at times they had “misunderestimated” him. I’m not kidding. Take a look at the transcript from Monday’s Press Conference and take a look at the second paragraph.

No, this is not the first time this President has used that word and it probably won’t be the last. But it is the most symbolic considering that after 8 years as our chief executive, he is still using made up words. And what a perfect summation of the Bush Presidency: even when he tries to tell the press that they haven’t given him enough respect, he manages to prove why he didn’t deserve any.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to watch his farewell tonight. It’s a day I’ve been looking forward to for a long time but I kind of just want it to happen and don’t really need any fanfare. We’ll see how far I make it before I decide I’d rather be watching Dr. Phil. (Mercifully, it’s only scheduled for 15 minutes.)

Recent Fox News reports have cited McCain staffers picking on Palin as being remarkably dumb. But an ABC News report dug a little deeper and found that – shocking, I know – Fox News took things out of context. The story describes how the notion that she didn’t know which countries were in North America was twisted from the actual incident where she didn’t know which countries were in NAFTA. Yes, that’s almost as bad for a VP candidate, but that just proves the point that she wasn’t a qualified VP candidate rather than indicating that she was just plain dumb. (And before you say “duh” to which countries are in NAFTA, which countries are in NATO?)

And as for the issue of whether Africa is a country or a continent, that was a simple verbal gaffe. She meant to speak about the continent and accidentally used the word country. That’s a simple error and certainly one we could all imagine Joe Biden making – right after he asked a guy in a wheel chair to stand up for the crowd.