I recently wrote a TRB column arguing that the Republican position on health care has increasingly come to be defined by a belief that the issue is a matter of personal responsibility:
Republican spokesman Michael Goldfarb:
I occasionally accompany my posts about the disarray of the Democratic Party with pictures of Will Rogers, like the one at right. If you don't get the reference, it's because Rogers once joked, "I belong to no organized political party. I'm a Democrat."
Karl Rove has a new memoir revealing his regrets from the Bush administration:
"Verum Serum" has a post accusing yours truly of hypocrisy. I'm going to go through the argument because it reveals a common vein of misinformation that tends to circulate on among conservatives.
On Friday, I pointed out that the American public thinks upper-income earners pay too little in taxes. Why is this hypocritical? Verum Serum explains:
The Democrats’ recent electoral woes have been well-chronicled. Within the last six months, the party has been plagued by high-profile losses (Martha Coakley, Jon Corzine), high-profile retirements (Byron Dorgan, Marion Berry), and, yes, even high-profile deaths (Ted Kennedy, John Murtha). Stack those on top of a faltering economy, a stalled-out Congress, and a pissed-off populace (to name just three bits of bad news), and the first Tuesday in November is looking nasty.
Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad hope to reduce the deficit by establishing a bipartisan commission. Their favorite example of success is the 1982 commission that helped save Social Security. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times gets Robert Ball's unpublished memoir, which shows it really didn't:
... impersonate 'em! That, at least, seems to have been the Connecticut GOP's plan:
Twitter, Inc., shut down 33 fake Twitter accounts created by Republicans using the names of Democratic state representatives. The Republican scheme was to send out posts under the Democrats' names mocking the liberal tax-and-spend bastards.
In a piece largely about next month's congressional election in New York's 23rd district, The Wall Street Journal's Naftali Bendavid echoes and enlarges upon some of the points I made in a blog post about the electoral dangers the tea-party movement could present for the GOP:
In Florida, Republican leaders were elated when popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist agreed to run for the Senate. He has adopted policies such as an aggressive approach to global warming that appeal even to Democrats. Those very policies infuriated conservatives, as did Mr. Crist's decision to campaign with President Barack Obama on behalf of the president's $787 billion stimulus package.... Mr. Crist has drawn a primary challenge from Marco Rubio, a former Florida House speaker, who is aggressively seeking tea-party members' support.
The GOP scored another potential coup when Republican Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk decided to seek Mr. Obama's former Senate seat, now held by Democratic Sen. Roland Burris. Mr. Kirk, however, voted for a Democratic climate-change bill in the House, prompting about 30 people to hold a tea-party protest at his office. Many activists vow never to support him.
In New Hampshire, Republican leaders praise Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte as a new breed of telegenic Republican, even while some conservatives attack her record as state attorney general. Former Rep. Rob Simmons, who is seeking a Senate seat in Connecticut, and Rep. Mike Castle, who just announced his Senate candidacy in Delaware, face similar scorn.
Putting aside for a moment my own longstanding beef with Sheila Johnson, I'm not so sure that she deserves the pillorying she's currently receiving for her mocking of Creigh Deeds.
The August recess began with critics attacking health care reform because of its high price tag. It ended with critics attacking health care reform because of how reformers proposed to reduce that high price tag. The intervening weeks were nightmarish: Instead of using August to showcase what reform could do for the average American, the White House spent most of its time knocking down rumors of death panels for the sick and elderly. And as the right became energized, the left grew disillusioned, as much by the administration’s backroom deals as by its ineffectual messaging. Eventually, the shift showed up in the polls. First people grew more wary of reform. Then they grew more wary of the president. It was if everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Somehow, though, health reform is not dead. Despite all of the setbacks and all of the missed opportunities--despite this train wreck of a month--the situation remains remarkably similar to what it was before the recess. Significant health care legislation is likely to pass, particularly if Obama manages to give a good speech on Wednesday night. And while the possibilities for what that legislation might accomplish have certainly diminished, mostly for worse, it’s not clear how much they have diminished--and to what extent progressives may yet have the power to change that fact.
Here is where the debate stands, based on interviews with about a dozen key players spanning the administration, Congress, and broader reform community:
