Early Post-Mortems on ObamaCare: Don't Forget the Tea Parties!

Folks are already discussing what went wrong with the Obama administration's healthcare agenda. Carrie Budoff Brown's piece at the Politico suggests that President Obama bears the brunt of the blame:

What went wrong? Bearing the brunt of some of the criticism is Obama himself – once viewed as a sure-fire closer, now facing grumbling on the left for letting critical months slip by without a constant, coherent and consistent argument. Think “change” and “hope” from the campaign, catchwords that Obama practically trademarked. In this fight, his key messages have shifted, from fixing health care to fix the economy, to “stability and security” for people who already have insurance.

And this week, he returned to an argument Democratic strategists said shouldn't be part of the pitch this year – trying to convince Americans they have a “moral obligation” to help people without insurance, a discredited argument from the reform effort under President Bill Clinton.

“I don’t think the messaging has been very clear,” said Celinda Lake, a leading Democratic pollster on health care. But more so, she added, “the campaign to disseminate the messaging has not been as relentless and organized as it needs to be.”

This is good, up to a point. At the video, Mitt Romney argues that the administration not only lost the message from the beggining, but outsourced policy to the hardline leftists in the Democratic Congress. Totally abandoning any effort at bipartisanship, Nancy Pelosi's forces have sought a socialized health bill that the public was guaranteed to reject.

What's interesting in both Budoff Brown and Romney's discussion is the complete omission of the effectiveness of grassroots opposition. In "ObamaCare and the Tea Party Effect," I argued that "grassroots conservative activism" was having a significant influence in shifting public opinion against Democratic healthcare proposals. At the time of publication, public opinion surveys rarely asked specific questions on the effect of tea parties and town halls. Polling shows now, however, that right-wing protests have had a dramatic impact in shifting the debate in this country - and in handing the administration a major domestic policy defeat.

See, USA Today, "Poll: Health Care Views Take Sympathetic Tilt."

See also, "Zogby: Obama Hits Record Low in Poll":

President Barack Obama's popularity has plummeted to a record low, with just 45 percent of voters now approving of his performance, according to the latest Zogby International poll.

Asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president's job performance, just 45.3 percent of likely voters say they approve. That compares with 50.5 percent who disapprove of the job Obama is doing.

The results are a strong indication that contentious national debate over healthcare reform has taken a major toll on the president's popularity.

Hat Tip: Hot Air, "Oh My: Obama Down to 45% Approval in New Zogby Poll."

Obama's Waterloo on Health Care Reform

Here's President Obama live from the White House with conservative radio host Michael Smerconish:

See The Hill for details, " 'One Way or Another,' Obama Guarantees Reform." Also, the New York Times, "Obama Still Optimistic on Health Care Overhaul."

Meanwhile, leftists are talking as though a defeat on health care would be Obama's Waterloo. ABC News has this, "Obama Ally: Dem Majority Is History If Health Reform Fails." And Mike Soraghan has this, "Left Flexes Muscles on Healthcare Reform."

Plus, Hammering Jane Hamsher gets ugly in, "If Progressive Members of the House Think We’ll Accept Co-Ops As Public Plan, Think Again." To which, William Jacobson responds, "Left-Wing Attack On Obama's 'Health Care Toenail Clippings'." (Via Memeorandum.)

And although he bugs the hell out of me, I love the title of John Avlon's piece, "The Coming Liberal Suicide":

Liberals are in deep denial about the source of the President’s falling poll numbers during this summer’s healthcare debate. They think the problem—perceptions of arrogant over-reaching liberalism—is the cure. It’s the same self-serving mistake that the extremes always make.

President Obama needs to depolarize the health care debate. He got off-message because he got off-center. Embracing a bipartisan bill that replaces the public-option with a non-profit co-op will not “muddy” the debate but help clarify it. It will not be a retreat but a way forward.

Lyndon Johnson once joked that “the difference between liberals and cannibals is that cannibals don’t eat their friends and family members.” In half-century long history of failed healthcare reforms from Harry Truman on down, liberal cannibalism has been as much to blame for defeats as fear-mongering from the far-right.

Actually, the "fearmongering" is a grassroots political tide of conservative opposition that rightly smells blood. After Obama's health care debacle, look for good things coming on the right of the spectrum. See also, Jay Cost, "Amateur Hour at the White House."

International Officials Launch Gender Inquiry on Caster Semenya

Freaky story from the Los Angeles Times, "Questions Raised About Gender of Winner of Women's 800-Meter Race":

A South African teenager's stunning victory in the women's 800-meter race at the World Championships on Wednesday was only a precursor to the shocking circumstances unveiled afterward.

At least two of the seven runners who lost to Caster Semenya said they are convinced she is not a woman, and track and field's international governing body has launched an investigation into the 18-year-old's gender.

Semenya, a muscular 5 feet 7 inches and 140 pounds, was an unknown before she ran a blistering time at the Africa Junior Championships three weeks ago. She did not speak to media after the race. An interview sheet distributed by the International Assn. of Athletics Federations said "no comment available," and Pierre Weiss, the IAAF's general secretary, appeared in her place at a news conference because officials determined Semenya was unprepared to face a barrage of questions.

Weiss said it could take several weeks to get the results of the investigation, which he said included testing of Semenya in both South Africa and Berlin. Without that evidence, the IAAF could not keep Semenya from running here.

"We entered Caster as a woman and we want to keep it that way," South African team manager Phiwe Mlangeni-Tsholetsane told the Associated Press. "Our conscience is clear in terms of Semenya."

The issue of gender testing is so controversial that the International Olympic Committee suspended widespread gender testing in 1999, reserving the right to do psychological, gynecological and chromosome investigations "if there is a valid suspicion," IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said in an e-mail.

IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said the international federation began to ask questions about Semenya on July 31, when she ran what then was the fastest time in the world this season, 1 minute 56.72 seconds, at the Africa Junior Championships in Mauritius.

She ran even faster Wednesday, winning in 1:55.45, a time bettered by only a dozen women in history. With 150 meters to go, she turned the race into a rout, leaving defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei of Kenya (1:57.90) and Jennifer Meadows of Britain (1:57.93) far back in second and third.

"I've never seen her [Semenya] before today," Meadows said. "She took the race by storm."

Also, KTLA, "Man or Woman? Officials to Test Gender of 800-Meter Runner."

Plus, "South Africa's Track President Defends Gold Medalist Semenya."

Video Hat Tip: Right Fielders.

Frank Rich on Rachel Maddow Show: 'We Have to Worry About Right Wing Political Violence'

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, for her relentless disinformation and fearmongering, deserves as much condemnation as Contessa Brewer and her leftist gang of propagandists and smear merchants. New York Times columnist Frank Rich appeared on Maddow's show last night. Maddow, referencing Rich's weekend op-ed, compares the gun-toting demonstrators at town halls and at Obama appearances to the assassins emerging out of "the political climate of the 1960s."

In response, Nick Gillespie has this piece at Reason, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Still History's Patsy":

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As Matt Welch and Jesse Walker and others at this site have been pointing out, loose analogies between between angry, sputtering citizens at town hall meetings and Nazis street thugs and political assassins are pretty damn lame. As important, they are almost inevitably the result of a strange ideological lesion that precludes inclusion of inconvenient facts. A propos of the above: JFK was not assassinated by a right-wing crank, but by a demonstrably pro-Castro defector to the Soviet Union who tooks shots at a rising right-wing freakazoid not long before shooting the president (yes, Oswald done did it). And, you might remember, that revolutionary (coff, coff) violence that wracked the '60s and early '70s was the result primarily not of out-of-control Barry Goldwaterites but by groups on the left.

Precisely what relevance any of this has to the current moment is far from clear. Maddow seemed most freaked out by a recent Arizona incident in which people toted guns to a rally near where President Obama was speaking. The incident has been revealed (on CNN) as a stunt pulled by radio show host and longtime Libertarian Party activist Ernest Hancock, not the nefarious workings of a secret army of camo-wearing zombies mad over mandatory UNICEF collections ...

More at the link.

Hat Tip: Megan McArdle.

Americans for Limited Government: Heads Should Roll at MSNBC

Americans for Limited Government has issued a demand for the "immediate termination of Contessa Brewer, Toure, Dylan Ratigan" and others involved in the fraudulent August 18 broadcast on the "white racist" threat to President Obama.

Mr. Steve Capus
NBC News
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10112

Dear Mr. Capus:

On Tuesday, August 18, at 10:45 AM, your network -- with a blatantly racist broadcast -- took the falsification of the news to a dangerous new low. I am writing to you today on behalf of the 400,000 members of Americans for Limited Government nationwide to ask that all involved in this nefarious assault on decency be immediately fired from their jobs.

I am referring, of course, to the MSNBC “news” cast on that morning in which your anchors hysterically raised the specter of impending racial violence -- while carefull y cropping the very video upon which they based their duplicitous charges. Leading audiences nationwide to believe that militant whites were mounting violence against a black President, they deliberately covered up the fact that the individual they were framing was himself African-American.

I could go on with a graphic description of the horrendous misrepresentation foisted on the American people by your anchors and those who worked with them on your distorted reportage, but by now, I am sure that you are well aware of the despicable fraud they perpetrated. Even if you, like most Americans, were not watching MSNBC at the time, you undoubtedly have been apprised of the transgression by now.

Therefore, I will not waste your time or mine regurgitating the facts of the blatant abuse of the public trust. Instead, let me simply get to the vital thrust of this letter:

On behalf of the nearly half million members of Americans for Limited Government – and tens of millions of other equally appalled Americans of all races nationwide -- I hereby demand the immediate termination of Contessa Brewer, Toure, Dylan Ratigan and any and all others involved in any way with the fraudulent “news” that ran in the 10:45AM segment of your August 18 broadcast.

Your network has besmirched the dignity and honor of American people. You have endangered the life of the President of the United States. You have purposely fanned racial tensions. And you have deliberately lied to your own audience.

Failure on your part to act will be proof positive that you, your corporation and the corporation that owns you intended this deception. As such, you can no longer claim to be “press” in any sense of the word but will have crossed the line, becoming a political advocacy organization. That, then, becomes a matter for the FCC and the courts to consider the proper punishment for this gross transgression of the rules of a civil society.

Thank you.

William Wilson
President
Americans for Limited Government

cc:

Jeffrey Immelt, President and Chairman, General Electric
Phil Griffin, President MSNBC News

See also, Michael Calderone, "ALG to MSNBC: Fire Brewer, Ratigan, Toure" (via Memeorandum).

Don't Forget Threats Against President Bush

From Zombietime, "Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years" (via Memeorandum):

On Wednesday, August 12, a man holding a sign that said “Death to Obama” at a town hall meeting in Maryland was arrested and turned over to the Secret Service, which is pursuing an investigation into charging him with threatening the president.

As well they should. I fully and absolutely agree with this arrest, since anyone who threatens the president is breaking the law and should be prosecuted ....

But the story of this arrest got me to thinking: Why was no one ever arrested for threatening President Bush at protests, when they displayed signs in public that called for his death?

Many readers may naively think, “The answer is obvious: no protester was ever arrested for threatening Bush at a protest because no one ever threatened him at a protest. Who would be that stupid? I certainly never heard of any such threats.”

Alas, if only it were that simple. Because the bald fact is that people threatened Bush at protests all the time by displaying menacing signs and messages — exactly as the anti-Obama protester just did in Maryland. Yet for reasons that are not entirely clear, not a single one of those Bush-threateners at protests was ever arrested, questioned, or investigated.

More at the link, and here too.

Guy With AR-15 at Obama Rally Was Black Dude: MSBNC Kinda Leaves That Part Out

Newsbusters and Hot Air have the story (via Memeorandum).

But Neptunus Lex really captures the heart of the story, "Shameless":

MSNBC rolls out a video of a weapons carrying citizen outside the president’s address to the VFW in Phoenix, acknowledging the 2nd amendment demonstration but noting the “racial overtones” inherent to a “man of color” in the presidency with “white people showing up with guns strapped to their waist.”

Sounds awful when you say it like that.

Just one problem: The citizen exercising his constitutional right to keep and bear arms was black, a fact conveniently hidden by intentionally tight video framing. Because obviously, the only comprehensible reason to agitate against the president’s policies is because you’re a racist.
You pig!

You know, even in the worst days of Soviet-era airbrushing, I don’t think that even Pravda would have been so abandoned, so profligate in their disinformation campaigns.

There's lots more on this:

AOSHQ, "Oh, My: MSNBC Carefully Crops Shot of Black Man Carrying AR-15 at Health Care Rally to Avoid Skin Color, So They Can Then Rant and Rave About "White People" Showing Up With Guns When a 'Person of Color' is President."

Newsbusters, "MSNBC: ObamaCare Protesters ‘Racist,’ Including Black Gun-Owner."

Democrats Should Think Twice About ObamaCare

From Investor's Business Daily, "The Voters' Option":

Sure, the Democrats could pass a health care bill. They have the votes to do whatever they want. Well, good luck with that. As we all have seen from constituents shouting down their quaking representatives, the public is up in arms about the "reforms" proposed. Democrats would be wise to think twice about trying to ram them down the public's throat.

One new poll shows that Americans, by an overwhelming 59% to 36%, agree Congress shouldn't pass a health care bill with just Democratic support. And a Pew Poll shows that, for the first time in the Obama era, fewer than half of all Americans have a favorable view of the Democrats.

If Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Henry Waxman and the wonks in the White House think they'll get a free political pass on this, they're in for a big surprise.

The problem is that they're so wedded to the idea of a "public option" — the Trojan horse plan that will, by design, inevitably lead to a single-payer system — that they can't see how destructive they're being to their own party.

Both bills now being mulled by Congress would cost $1 trillion, possibly more. Neither covers all of the estimated 45.6 million uninsured. Neither cuts costs. Neither improves the quality of care.

What those bills do isn't pretty. Both involve government in individual health care decisions. Both let bureaucrats, not individuals, decide the value of life in old age. Both inevitably lead to rationing.

Americans don't like any of this.

Our own polling shows that 91.6% of those who are insured are satisfied with their coverage. Under plans contemplated by the Democrats, many would lose that care. The Lewin Group, a respected health consultancy, estimates 119 million of today's 170 million insured would lose private coverage. This is intolerable.

More at the link.

Cartoon Credit: William Warren at Americans for Limited Government.

All Aboard the Tea Party Express

Mark Williams, of the Tea Party Express national bus tour, was interviewed this morning on Fox News, "All Aboard":

Check the website, here.

Pamela Geller and Freedom for Rifqa Bary

I wanted to give Pamela Geller a huge shout out and congratulations on her coverage of Rifqa Bary, the Ohio teenager and Christian who, fearing death, escaped the clutches of her Muslim father. Rifqa Bary believes she'll be murdered by her father for converting to Christianity, in a ritual honor killing.

ABC News has given the Rifqa Bary story mainstream (and questionable) coverage.

See, "Christian Teen Flees Home, Says She Fears Honor Killing by Muslim Father: Rifqa Bary Turned Up in Florida Pastor's Home Weeks After Leaving Ohio Home," and "Muslim Parents Deny Threatening Daughter With Honor Killing Over Christianity: Statement From Lawyer Indicates Rifqa Bary's Parents Blame Pastors for Creating Story."

But check Pamela's piece at Newsmax, "Dad Claims Brainwashing As Muslim Girl Fears He’ll Kill Her":

Rifqa Bary says she ran to Florida to save her life: “I was threatened by my dad.” She says that her father told her, “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you’re dead to me. You’re not my daughter. I will kill you.” But now her father is trying to regain custody of Rifqa, and he and the Islamic Society of Central Florida say she has been “kidnapped” and “brainwashed” by a “cult,” and that she’s a “rebel,” a “troubled teen.”

Well, which is it?

“This is a cult group who kidnapped my daughter and took her away,” claims Mohamed Bary, Rifqa’s father.

She hitchhiked to the bus station and took a Greyhound from Ohio to Florida. How is that a kidnapping?

Brainwashed by a cult? Which is the cult? Is it the group that silently approves of the murder of a daughter who shames her family by not wearing the proper head dress (like Aqsa Parvez), or by wanting live a free life (like Hatin Sürücü), or by dating the wrong boy (like Amina and Sarah Said), or by choosing another religion (like Rifqa Bary)? Or is it the group that offers sanctuary to a poor threatened girl?

Rifqa Bary’s father is also claiming that she was “brainwashed” by the pastor of the Global Revolution church in Orlando. Pastor Blake Lorenz denies that, saying, “she has been a Christian for four years, long before we ever met her.”

Let’s look at the facts.

Read the whole thing, here. See also, Atlas Shrugs, "Rifqa Bary Before her Escape: Beatings, Brutality, Subjugation."

Related: Aqsa Parvez was murdered in December, 2007, for refusing to wear the Muslim hijab. As of July of this year, Muhammad Parvez, who is accused of strangling his daughter, was still awaiting trail. See, Michelle Malkin, "The murder of Aqsa Parvez, and "Whitewashing the murder of Aqsa Parvez …"

Sarah Yaser Said and her sister, Amina Yaser Said, were murdered in 2007. The girls' father, Yaser Abdel Said, is wanted by the FBI for murder. The Dallas Observer ran a big story in June 2008, "American Girls: Crossing between American and Egyptian cultures, he Said girls made one deadly misstep: They fell in love." See also, Andrew Waldron, "Honor Killing in Dallas." As of June 2009, America's Most Wanted has Yaser Abdel Said listed as "one of the nation's most-wanted men."

See also, Atlas Shrugs, "Honor Killing: Islam's Gruesome Gallery."

Michele Bachmann: 'Now Is Not the Time to Take the Pressure Off'

Congresswoman Michele Bachman gave a must-see interview on last night's Sean Hannity. What's especially interesting to me, as one who's supported and defended Bachmann since she broke out as a target of the left last fall, is how increasingly penetrating her observations have become. At about 3:45 minutes, Bachmann notes that the town halls "are a wonderful thing ... we're actually seeing democracy in action, and it will be very difficult for Members of Congress to go back to Washington in September and clearly vote against their constituents' interests. None of them can say now that they didn't realize where the heartbeat of the American public is, and we'll truly see if the liberals in Congress are listenting to regular Americans." This is just gold!

Also, after blowing the lid off the alleged shelving of the public option, Bachmann says "the American people need to realize that they've been extremely effective with Congress ... now is not the time to give up, now is not the time to take the pressure off" because Democrats will move forward with some kind of public option.

Plus, conservative opposition to ObamaCare continues to influence public opinion. See Rasmussen, "Without Public Option, Enthusiasm for Health Care Reform, Especially Among Democrats, Collapses" (via Memeorandum).

Americans for Prosperity Takes Page From Left's Online Playbook

From the Wall Street Journal, "Conservatives Take a Page From Left's Online Playbook":

A group of Republicans, looking to recoup the party's clout, is borrowing a page from liberal Democrats by beefing up Internet efforts to energize the grass roots.

The conservative Americans for Prosperity has further embraced Internet activism to energize its 700,000 members and point them to dozens of town-hall meetings with lawmakers over the past weeks, leaving Democrats on the defensive on a signature issue: overhauling health care.

Americans for Prosperity held their conference Right Online here last weekend. It centered on ramping up the use of Facebook, Twitter and other online megaphones to rally conservative opposition to what they consider ultra-liberal policies -- strategies popularized by organizations such as MoveOn.org and President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign.

That's a shift, these activists say, from recent years of GOP strategy, where the shaping of the party's message has been largely top-down, with the message coming from party leaders. Now, the message is bubbling up more from groups of online activists.

"People are saying we're not hearing encouraging or inspiring messages from our leaders in Washington," said Erik Telford, Americans for Prosperity's director of online strategy. "We need to rebuild from the ground up."

Timothy Phillips, the 45-year-old GOP strategist from South Carolina who leads the six-year-old organization, said his group was only one of many that are urging members to speak out against liberal policies. He said they help channel discontent with Mr. Obama's agenda.

it comes to health care, Mr. Phillips outlined a straightforward strategy: Americans for Prosperity looked at every town hall scheduled by lawmakers across the country. It flagged the group's members within 100 miles of each event, and enlisted local representatives in each area, instead of "some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington," to contact supporters, Mr. Phillips said.

"We have three things: passion, news-talk radio and now online presence. Those three things are building our movement," Mr. Phillips said.

More at the link.

Michelle Malkin was the star of the Right Online conference. See Freedom's Lighthouse, "Michelle Malkin Urges "Extreme Vigilance" at Right Online Conference - Video 8/15/09."

Photo Credit: Americans for Prosperity, "Over 400 People Rally Against Cap-and-Trade on AFP's Hot Air Tour."

Would Roger Ebert Go Before Obama's Death Panels?

I read Roger Ebert's attack on Sarah Palin this morning (see, "'Death Panels.' A Most Excellent Term").

The essay's an amalgam of heart-tugging feel-sorry-for-me anecdote and wickedly selective faux-fisking of Palin's criticism of Team ObamaCare's health-rationing policy.

Ebert's basically dishonest in omitting any mention of Ezekiel Emanuel's published comments on comparative healthcare effectiveness. For a perfect rebuttal to Ebert, see Martin Feldstein's, "ObamaCare Is All About Rationing":

Although administration officials are eager to deny it, rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama's health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report in June explaining the Obama administration's goal of reducing projected health spending by 30% over the next two decades. That reduction would be achieved by eliminating "high cost, low-value treatments," by "implementing a set of performance measures that all providers would adopt," and by "directly targeting individual providers . . . (and other) high-end outliers."

The president has emphasized the importance of limiting services to "health care that works." To identify such care, he provided more than $1 billion in the fiscal stimulus package to jump-start Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) and to finance a federal CER advisory council to implement that idea. That could morph over time into a cost-control mechanism of the sort proposed by former Sen. Tom Daschle, Mr. Obama's original choice for White House health czar. Comparative effectiveness could become the vehicle for deciding whether each method of treatment provides enough of an improvement in health care to justify its cost.

In the British national health service, a government agency approves only those expensive treatments that add at least one Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) per £30,000 (about $49,685) of additional health-care spending. If a treatment costs more per QALY, the health service will not pay for it. The existence of such a program in the United States would not only deny lifesaving care but would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that government experts might reject their discoveries as "too expensive."

One reason the Obama administration is prepared to use rationing to limit health care is to rein in the government's exploding health-care budget. Government now pays for nearly half of all health care in the U.S., primarily through the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The White House predicts that the aging of the population and the current trend in health-care spending per beneficiary would cause government outlays for Medicare and Medicaid to rise to 15% of GDP by 2040 from 6% now. Paying those bills without raising taxes would require cutting other existing social spending programs and shelving the administration's plans for new government transfers and spending programs.

An interesting hypothesis is whether Roger Ebert himself would be a prime candidate for ObamaCare's death panels.

After being diagnosed with thyroid cancer, Ebert underwent agressive medical treatment, including multiple surgeries and a four-week course of radiation therapy to his salivary glands. However, the cancer spread to his lower jaw and he had surgery to remove part of his mandible in 2006 at the age of 64. Unsuccessful follow-up surgeries, to repair surrounding tissue, resulted in "unplanned bleeding" complications. Doctors administered a tracheostomy to Ebert's windpipe to help ease breathing during recovery.

At today's essay, Ebert admits that "I am happy that heroic measures were made to save my life." He also notes that "I had good insurance coverage." But would he have received coverage as good under ObamaCare? Now 69 years-old, Ebert would probably be denied treatment under Ezekiel Emanuel's "Complete Lives System." As Emanuel argued in his paper, "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions":

Although not always recognised as such, youngest-first allocation directs resources to those who have had less of something supremely valuable—life-years ... These justifications explain much of the public preference for allocating scarce life-saving interventions to younger people ...

Allocation systems based on quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) have two parts ... One is an outcome measure that considers the quality of life-years. As an example, the quality-of-life measure used by the UK national Health Service rates moderate mobility impairment as 0·85 times perfect health.66 QALY allocation therefore equates 8·5 years in perfect health to 10 years with moderately impaired mobility. The other part of QALY allocation is a maximising assumption: that justice requires total QALYs to be maximised without consideration of their distribution. QALY allocation initially constituted the basis for Oregon’s Medicaid coverage initiative, and is currently used by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

Also, Emanuel has argued:

Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years ...

But note something important: As Joseph Ashby pointed out last weekend, ObamaCare's death panels are not hypothetical - they already exist:

H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed the Porkulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. The Council is the brain child of former Health and Human Services Secretary Nominee Tom Daschle. Before the Porkulus Bill passed, Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in detail about the Council's purpose ....

Who is on the Council? One of its most prominent members is none other than Dr. Death himself Ezekiel Emanuel. Dr. Emanuel's views on care of the elderly should frighten anyone who is or ever plans on being old.

On average 25-year-olds require very few medical services. If they are to get the lion's share of the treatment, then those 65 and over can expect very little care. Dr. Emanuel's views on saving money on medical care are simple: don't provide any medical care. The loosely worded provisions in H.R 1 give him and his Council increasing power to push such recommendations.

Similarly hazy language will no doubt be used in the health care bill. What may pass as a 1,000 page health care law will explode into perhaps many thousands of pages of regulatory codes. The deliberate vagueness will give regulators tremendous leverage to interpret its provisions. Thus Obama's Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein will play a major role in defining the government's role in controlling medical care.

Roger Ebert received agressive medical treatment for his cancer illness. My sense is that over the course of a few years of extensive and multi-faceted treatment, Ebert's insurance company incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost outlays. It's clear that Ebert was not subject to a "Complete Lives System" in the determination of his eligiblity for care. Ebert lost his voice as a result of therapy and breathing treatment, and today he uses a computerized voice system to speak. In 2008 he underwent additional surgery to repair a fractured hip. Ebert has obviously received outstanding medical care, and in his continued writing he offers a passionate and valuable perspective for his policy positions.

His ability to do so - and in fact, the existential question of Ebert's contributions to the debate - would be seriously compromised under the ObamaCare medical regime, with its death panels seeking to ration medical care for people battling the same life challenges.

Hat Tip: Pundette & Pundette, "This Will Hurt, Especially If You're Old or Disabled."

Did Leftists Plant 'Heil Hitler' Heckler at Vegas Health Care Town Hall?

From William Jacobson, "Was 'Heil Hitler' Confrontation Staged?":

Think Progress, the Democratic policy and media-watch organization, broke the story that someone in the audience at a health care town hall in Las Vegas shouted "Heil Hitler" at an Israeli giving a talk about the Israeli system. Needless to say, the video is being spread to show that health care protesters are crazy/racist/anti-Semitic.But was this real or staged?

I cannot say definitively, but something is wrong here. The video shows the woman who shouted "Heil Hitler," in the screen shot below:

Check William's post for a photo of the same Israel Defense Forces t-shirt the woman is wearing (available at Judaism.com). (See also Memeorandum.)

The ObamaPlants have Astroturfed everything else. I'm partial to William's point that "How convenient that this shout was made only when the Israeli was being interviewed for television."

Robert Novak, 1931-2009: Reactions on the Left

I don't think the demonic response to the death of Robert Novak is as nasty as it was for the Jesse Helms, but the leftist blog commentary is definitely true to form today:

From Crooks and Liars:

* Good Riddance ... To a self-serving coward and traitor to America.

* I suppose it beats ... being hanged by the neck until well and truly dead, as he deserved. Where do mean-spirited traitors who do their betrayals out of nothing more than spiteful vendictiveness go when they die?

* Tonight you dine in hell ... I'll celebrate with a cold beer, and hope there's a hell hot enough to burn your worthless soul.

* Sweet Schadenfreud! ...

It's chicken soup for our not-quite-top-drawer angels. As an atheist I'm unlikely to sit shiva for that recently departed... gentlemen and I'm certainly going to cut loose at some future thread should his name pop up. It is too bad that the ghosts of neo-cons past did not visit him and show him a better way. Yes you can dream. It is a noble one.

* He's Preparing the Way ... Novakula is in hell, arranging accommodations for Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, Kristol, Malkin, Wolfowitz, Limbaugh, Barnes, Coulter, Beck, Hannity, the PNAC crowd and the rest of his pals.

It took him a few minutes to adjust to the lack of light, the screams and the flames, but, hey, he's a trooper.

From Daily Kos, "Robert Novak, 1931-2009":

What respect has been earned?

Seriously. This is a guy who, in truth and in fact outed a CIA agent in order to further his petty political agenda and generally behaved like a rotten scoundrel.

He deserves to be remembered as who he actually was and if people are uncomfortable with that they ought to remember that throughout their lives they are carving into stone the image that they will leave behind of themselves and that no amount of post-mortem hagiography can ultimately erase the impression that they leave, whether it's good or ill.

I don't understand the hushed-tones demands that I not speak ill of someone whose actions are still stinking up the air, just because they themselves are no longer around. If Novak didn't want to be slammed when he wasn't around to defend himself, he should have thought ahead for two god-damned seconds about the indefensible things he was doing while he was doing them.

Now, it's just too damn bad. I feel myself under ZERO obligation to pull punches. Novak betrayed the United States. Now he's dead. Good riddance.

More, at a new thread from Daily Kos:

Robert Novak was no friend of freedom. Yet, he will be eulogized by the wingnuts on the same level as Walter Cronkite -- who they continue to villainize weeks after his burial with snarky posts about the memorial service announced in his honor today. They will make rude comments about how "the media" isn't giving Novak the same honor as Cronkite rightfully received. It won't dawn on them that the reason for that might be Novak concentrated on tearing down while Cronkite focused on building up.

Novak was typical of his fellow travelers. If you can't say something nice about someone -- write a 500-word column and call that person all sorts of vile names. His politics were the politics of the sneer, the innuendo, the half-truth and the outright lie. He was, from all appearances, an angry, bitter man.

I think we need to avoid the trap of speaking ill of the dead with the same kind of 4th grade taunts that the wingers would employ when a pundit from our side of the aisle gives up the ghost. As we discuss this, I would ask folks to remember that he died of the same affliction that Teddy Kennedy is suffering from. Cancer is no respecter of persons... or politics. We can talk about his politics, the harm he has done, the lives destroyed by his words. But let's refrain from the same kind of celebrations we on the left can expect from the thugs on the right when our heros die.

But, in the comments there:

* I Felt a Shudder in The Force ... Like the passing of a dark shadow on a sunny day.

* He wasn't the "Prince of Darkness" ... He was the "Douchebag of Liberty"

* The world is a better place now ... He was a bad, bad man ...

* No fucking loss ... A pox on his rotten soul.

* Shit belongs in the sewer. Robert Novack belongs in Hell.

* Cool ... Seriously, to hell with this false eulogizing of morally corrupt men.

Screw Novak, W.F. Buckley, and whatever evil, dessicated corpse happens to fall next off of the Conservative Establishment bandwagon.

From Joe. My. God.:

* Good. This world would've been better without him.

* It's unkind to say it but I'm going to anyway -- this man was the type that is so mean-spirited (like Lee Atwater) his own brain turned against him and murdered him.

* Some people do reap what they sow. The weight of bile and hatred wearing down on the Earth is lessened today.

* Novak was also known to have notoriously bad hygiene; his body odor the physical manifestation of the mental stink from his bitterness that he was born in the wrong place and the wrong time and, thus, missed out on working for the Third Reich.

* How very sad that this news didn't come years ago.

* Mother always said to speak good of the dead. Robert Novak is dead. Good.

* Ukranian Jew , who converted to Catholicism...what else do you need to know? From stupid religion to stupidest religion. Evil piece of shit. Rot in....well, wherever.

From Lawyers, Guns and Money:

* Fuck Bob Novak sideways ...

* Novak trumpted the conservative refrain against government programs while collecting a check from the corporation for public broadcasting. Hypocrite is the word.

* That resolves the argument about whether Novak or Dick Cheney is the vilest man in America.

* Well, if the public option goes down, I guess I'll have *something* to cheer me up.

From Think Progress:

* Sorry, can't think of anything nice to say.

* good.

* Keeps telling self: "respect the dead. respect the dead. respect the dead. respect the dead."

Wondering why in this case.....

* Hope your Corvette door didn't hit your butt as you fell out...

* Suffering from a deadly disease, no matter how nasty and awful it is, does not clean the slate regarding whatever evil actions he did while he was alive.

His family deserves our best wishes; his corpse does not.

* My sympathies to those who survive him. Other than that...

(spit)

* My only regret is that he died before doing time for his crimes.

* PLENTY of republicans where he's going.

* He didn't really die, he has just retreated to the coffin during the daylight hours.

* Traitor.

On the very first page of his book, he made no mistake about his acid disdain for Joe Wilson, prior to becoming involved in outing Valerie. I'd have liked it had he died in prison.

* Novak was a despicable human being. The world will be a better place with him gone.
* Why not speak ill of a man who caused pain on the living? Death is part of living and his death took too long in coming.

He was a liar and one of the forefathers who torn this nation apart.

Good riddance.

* Joliet, IL rejoices over the loss of it's native son.

The "Prince of Darkness" meets the REAL "Prince of Darkness".

Say "f*** you" to Reagan for me, Novak.

* Now I am waiting for Fatbo to keel over.

* There was a point in Novak's life where he had to choose between good and evil. Novak chose evil.

* Novak was a bigger traitor than Tim McVie. He certianly caused more damage to our country.

* I heard SATAN is having a "welcome home" party tonight!

* Good. Too bad it didn't happen before this despicable bastard had done so much damage. Rot in hell you bastard.

When Senator Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer, conservatives had nothing but kind things to say. See, "On Death and Decency: The Absence of Divine Soul on the Contemporary Left."

For a taste of the conservative reaction to Novak's death, see Robert Stacy McCain, "ROBERT NOVAK, R.I.P. Also, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, "Robert Novak, RIP (1931-2009)." See all the reactions at Memeorandum.

Added: From The Astute Bloggers, "NOVAK VERSUS CRONKITE":

Despite the fact that he wrote more news and news analysis than Cronkite, and did so for more decades ... and despite the fact that he was a cable news pioneer and appeared on TV for cumulatively more hours than Cronkite ... neither Obama or Hillary will speak at his memorial - though they will be speaking at Cronkite's.

Why Obama's Sinking: Americans Will Reject a President Who Imperils Their Future

From Arthur Brooks, "Why Obama's Ratings Are Sinking: Americans Will Put Up With a Lot. But Not With Someone Who Imperils Their Future":

Despite the vote in November, it is clear that when Americans are not in an abject panic, we dislike government fiscal promiscuity. The president's sinking approval ratings are due precisely to his administration's free-spending ways. In a July 2009 Gallup poll, the No. 1 reason for disapproval of the president's economic policies was, literally, "spending too much." In second place was the worry that the president is "leading the nation toward socialism" through government takeovers and bailouts.

What exactly is our problem with government spending? It is not just that we think it is wasteful and ineffective (although most recognize this to be true). Americans actually think the government makes it harder for people to get ahead in life.

In January 2009, the Pew Research Center asked about 2,000 Americans, "Do you think the government does more to help or more to hurt people trying to move up the economic ladder?" Amid the most frightening economic crisis in decades, more Americans still said the government would hurt than the number who thought it would help (50% versus 39%). Independent surveys from roughly the same period found that only one in five Americans believed he or she could trust the government.

Citizens will put up with a lot—but not with anyone who imperils our future. There is practically nothing that lowers American happiness more than taking away our faith in a better tomorrow. Data from the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey in 2004 show that, even if two people have the same income, education, race, sex, family status and political views, a lack of optimism about the future lowers the likelihood by nearly 50% of one saying he or she is "very happy" about the present.

Most Americans see their best future in the free enterprise system when (as a March 2009 Pew Research Center poll found) 70% of respondents agree that, "people are better off in a free market economy, even though there may be severe ups and downs from time to time." There is no evidence that more than a minority of Americans accept the idea that a $17 trillion national debt, greater reliance on government for jobs and health, and hyper-progressive taxation offer the hope they deserve for themselves and their children.

Democrats Face Headaches Heading Into 2010 Midterm Elections

From Gerald Seib, "Midterms' Concrete Yet to Harden":

In a normal political cycle, Democrats would look at the electoral indicators right now and say: Get out the Tylenol, because we're going to have a big headache next year.

Here's how they can console themselves: This isn't a normal political cycle.

Indeed, we're in a period now in which down turns to up, and up to down, at about twice the normal speed. Hence, the next few months may well be more important than were the past few in setting the tone for next year's crucial midterm elections. The outcome of the pitched battle over health care, which right now is ruining many a Democrat's summer vacation, will help determine that tone, of course. But the X factor in this equation is the shape and pace of the economic recovery.

Certainly Democrats have to hope that trend lines are subject to change, because they point distinctly downward for the party right now. That's a particular problem for them, because the coming midterm is going to be an exceptionally important one, determining whether the 2008 victory by Barack Obama was the start of a long-term Democratic wave, or whether that wave will quickly hit the rocks.

The first sobering thought for Democrats is that they will be fighting history in next year's midterms. The first congressional election after a new president takes office normally is a tough one for his party, whichever party that happens to be.

Over the past century, a new president's party has lost an average of 28 seats in the House in his first midterm. Only twice during that century has the president's party managed to gain seats, most recently when George W. Bush and his Republican Party picked up eight seats in 2002, in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Some of my thoughts are here: "The Revolt of August: GOP Sees Revival in Health Care Opposition."

Obama Joker Artist: Firas Alkhateeb

From Don Surber:

Now we know why flag@whitehouse.gov was shut down.

They got their man.

The Los Angeles Times reported Firas Alkhateed, a senior history major at the University of Illinois, photo-shopped the president.

I can finally sleep at night.

Photo and Story Credit: Los Angeles Times, "Obama Joker Artist Unmasked: A Fellow Chicagoan." Alkhateeb only did the photoshopping. The poster-maker hasn't been found.

The Left Goes After Katy Abram

Katy Abram, who has become virtually famous for her tough recent showing at Arlen Specter's town hall, is getting hate mail. (Abram was on Sean Hannity tonight.) Daily Kos is practically stalking her, and I found this idiotic attack on her at White Noise Insanity:

Her life sucks ass now. With a black man in the White House, she just feeling like the Founding Fathers would be livid, because they wanted White Power to the end! See? Glenn Beck says so. And Katy listens. She’s gotta be listening to this sick twisted freak, because, I mean, really, after 8 years of George Bush how can anyone complain about President Obama who is trying to get America back on it’s feet so Katy can use more than 3 pieces of toilet paper at a time! There’s got a be another reason.

*screaming* Katy was just fine with what George Bush did! Okay?!!! Fascism made her proud to her core!!!!! Socialism (basic premise is to come together for the common good) is bad, scary, terrifying, and there’s no secret CIA prisons to be used to torture people in!!!!! She wants better for America.

Here's the top-bar from the Socialist Party USA's website:

It's one thing dealing with really mean and nasty socialists. It's quite another thing dealing with really dumb, mean and nasty socialists. Thankfully, these airheads are becoming even more marginalized. Next up, one-term and out for Nobama and the Obamunists!

God bless Katy Abram! (And check her Facebook fan site here.)

Opposition to ObamaCare Based on 'White Racial Resentment'?

Allahpundit's got a devastating analysis of CNN anchor Don Lemon's total collapse of professional objectivity. Check the video at the post. Lemon berates the gentleman he's interviewing for using the phrase "real Americans." As Allahpundit notes:

All this poor guy meant by “real” is that the people at Obama’s town halls were true grassroots activists who went on their own initiative, not as fronts for the White House or some conservative astroturf operation. After three weeks of being smeared every which way as flakes and phonies by the guardians of tolerance, capped by Madam Speaker calling shouters un-American, who can blame him for stressing the point?

Also, check out this video below, which features Lemon's CNN interview with author Tim Wise, who argues that there's a political background of "white racial resentment" to the public's opposition to ObamaCare:

Be sure to listen to Wise all the way through. He attacks conservatives as telling "lies" and for sending "Sarah Palin out there with a head full of nothing."

What's especially interesting is there's no follow-up commentary on the family interviewed at the beginning of the clip. The mom and boy both show their exasperation at being called "racist." It's to the point that white Americans will forever pay penance for the racial sins of previous generations, even after the U.S. sustained what was essentially a second American revolution on race relations in the 1960s. It's really awful, and this response by the left to grassroots activism on the right will ultimate boomerang in a supreme backlash against both Democratic ideology and policy. (We're already seeing that today in the new survey data that's out finding "conservative" as the most common political identification in all fifty states.)

Wise also attacks the Hitler posters of the Lyndon LaRouche forces, who are Johnny-come-lately entries into the tea party arena - as ginning up this "white racial paranoia." He also selectively cites political science research to support his notion that this is all about race. But as I've pointed out many times over the last couple of years, it's the left that's totally consumed by race, and it's the left that turns every political dispute into an outrageous instance of anti-minority bigotry. And more importantly, I've been on the ground all year participating in and blogging about the tea parties and town halls. The outrage on the right is specifically not about race and all about the economic and culture war that progressive radicals are raining down on this country. Liberty means something important to people, and we're seeing the most substantial grassroots movement in generations precisely at the time that genuinely "real" Americans of everyday background see a tyrannical power grab in the healthcare sector, where the "crisis" is manufactured and "solution" is anti-freedom.

Of course, the radical leftists - including Daily Kos, which is so typically hypocritical - are eating this stuff up (check here and here).

Also, let me remind readers of Matt Welch's recent and essential round-up, "Notes From the Health Care Debate Fascist Race War." The demonization of whites as implacably evil racists is only going to continue. The more dramatic is President Obama's epic failure, the vehement will be the left's allegations of racial bigotry.

A Center-Right America

Today's CNS News features a rather dramatic piece, "Conservatives Now Outnumber Liberals in All 50 States, Says Gallup Poll."

Actually, Gallup reports that respondents identified as conservatives in 47 out of 50 states, with statistical ties in the remaining three:

Despite the Democratic Party's political strength -- seen in its majority representation in Congress and in state houses across the country -- more Americans consider themselves conservative than liberal. While Gallup polling has found this to be true at the national level over many years, and spanning recent Republican as well as Democratic presidential administrations, the present analysis confirms that the pattern also largely holds at the state level. Conservatives outnumber liberals by statistically significant margins in 47 of the 50 states, with the two groups statistically tied in Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

When considered with party identification, these ideology findings highlight the role that political moderates currently play in joining with liberals to give the Democratic Party its numerical advantage.

I wonder if leftists will continue hammering the meme of the "center-right myth." More at Memeorandum.

Jane Hamsher Spreads Public Option Disinformation - Again!

Following-up my earlier post, "More Democratic Disinformation on ObamaCare: Jane Hamsher, MSNBC's David Shuster Tweak Outdated Poll to Claim '76 Percent Want Public Option'.

In Jane Hamsher's latest hissy fit, she again repeats the innacurate and outdated claim that 76 percent of Americans want the public option. See, "Sorry, Can’t Pass Health Care Bill Without A Public Option."

Responding to Senator Kent Conrad's claim that there aren't enough votes in the Senate, Hamsher argues that:

If Conrad could set aside his "More About Me" world view for a moment and do some second grade math, he'd see that there aren't enough votes for a health care bill without a public option in the House ....

... thanks to the progressive members of the House who have pledged to vote against any health care bill that does not have a public plan. They represent 76% of Americans who want a public plan, and coming from heavily Democratic-leaning districts as they do, an even greater percentage of their own constituents ...

Of course, as I showed earlier:

[Hamsher] cites a June NBC/Wall Street Journal survey that found 76 percent agreeing it was important that health care reform include a "choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance" ....

Hamsher's citing two-month old polling data

Subsequent subsequent surveys have rounded out the picture quite a bit, and conservative activism has taken a toll on the administration's popular support.I

I cite a nuber of polls at the post. Since then additional information has become available.

For example, Rasmussen Reports from last Saturday, "54% Say Passing No Healthcare Reform Better Than Passing Congressional Plan."

Also, in generic surveys, see USA Today, "Poll: Americans divided on health care overhaul," and Gallup reported last week, "Constituents Divided, Highly Partisan on Healthcare Reform: Equally split in advising Congress to vote for (35%) or against (36%) a new law."

Hamsher would be better off citing Quinnipiac's recent survey, which found, "62 - 32 percent in favor of giving people the option of a government insurance plan."

However, the same poll also finds that by a "57 - 37 percent margin, voters say health care reform should be dropped if it adds "significantly" to the deficit"; and "By a 72 - 21 percent margin, voters do not believe that President Barack Obama will keep his promise to overhaul the health care system without adding to the deficit ..." And, "Only 21 percent of voters say the plan will improve the quality of care they receive, while 36 percent say it will hurt their quality of care and 39 percent say it will make no difference."

Maybe that's why Hamsher doesn't cite Quinnipiac.

Obama on Public Option: Two Steps Forward One Step Back

From Michelle Malkin, "White House Public Option Ploy: A Trial Balloon, Not a White Flag":

Do you believe the Sunday spin on the White House’s alleged “retreat” from the Obamacare public option? ....

The real Obama is a declared proponent of single-payer and universal health care Trojan Horses. All else is political theater.

From Wikipedia, on the phrase, "Two steps forward one step back":

Two steps forward one step back ..." is a catchprase reflecting on an anecdote about a frog trying to climb out of a water well; for every two steps the frog climbs, it falls back by one step, making its progress arduous.

The phrase is sometimes cynically rearranged to "One step forward, two steps back..." to reflect a situation where, seemingly for every attempt to make progress in a task, an actual retrograde performance is achieved.

The most infamous "cynical rearrangment" is Vladimir Lenin's, and his Communist Party tract, ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK (THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY:

One step forward, two steps back. . . . It happens in the lives of individuals, and it happens in the history of nations and in the development of parties. It would be the most criminal cowardice to doubt even for a moment the inevitable and complete triumph of the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy, of proletarian organisation and Party discipline. We have already won a great deal, and we must go on fighting, undismayed by reverses, fighting steadfastly, scorning the philistine methods of circle wrangling, doing our very utmost to preserve the hard-won single Party tie linking all Russian Social-Democrats, and striving by dint of persistent and systematic work to give all Party members, and the workers in particular, a full and conscious understanding of the duties of Party members, of the struggle at the Second Party Congress, of all the causes and all the stages of our divergence, and of the utter disastrousness of opportunism, which, in the sphere of organisation as in the sphere of our programme and our tactics, helplessly surrenders to the bourgeois psychology, uncritically adopts the point of view of bourgeois democracy, and blunts the weapon of the class struggle of the proletariat.

In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organisation. Disunited by the rule of anarchic competition in the bourgeois world, ground down by forced labour for capital, constantly thrust back to the "lower depths" of utter destitution, savagery, and degeneration, the proletariat can, and inevitably will, become an invincible force only through its ideological unification on the principles of Marxism being reinforced by the material unity of organisation, which welds millions of toilers into an army of the working class. Neither the senile rule of the Russian autocracy nor the senescent rule of international capital will be able to withstand this army. It will more and more firmly close its ranks, in spite of all zigzags and backward steps, in spite of the opportunist phrase-mongering of the Girondists of present-day Social-Democracy, in spite of the self-satisfied exaltation of the retrograde circle spirit, and in spite of the tinsel and fuss of intellectualist anarchism.

Note: This post is simply making comparisons. Barack Obama's ideological program is modeled along Leninist lines, as I have noted previously. See, "Should Revolutionaries Feel Good About Obama?"

See also, Andrew Waldron, "What Barack Obama Learned From the Communist Party."

Plus, at Memeorandum, Mark Ambinder, "Administration Official: 'Sebelius Misspoke'."

Related: Lee Cary, "The Array of WH ObamaCare Tactics Grows."