Incoming House Speaker John Boehner -- already famous for his crying stints -- let the waterworks flow Wednesday as he assumed the Speaker's chair from outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
ABC News reports that Boehner broke out in tears no fewer than three times during the ceremony on Capitol Hill -- once as he walked down the aisle to applause, again as Pelosi read her introduction, and finally as he took the podium.
And Boehner was apparently not alone -- his relatives teared up too, AP reports.
It is known to bug Boehner that he can't keep it together at big moments, but apparently it runs in the family. At the moment Pelosi transferred power to her successor, at least six hankies had been deployed by Boehner's proudly weeping family members watching from the gallery overhead.
For her part, Pelosi took a jab at Boehner for requesting an oversized gavel for his role as Speaker.
"I now pass this gavel, which is larger than most gavels here, but the gavel of choice of Speaker Boehner, I now pass this gavel -- and the sacred trust that goes with it -- to the new Speaker," Pelosi said.
The speakership caps a remarkable rise for Boehner, whose office regularly peppers reporters with accounts of his hardscrabble early life as the second of 12 children in a working-class family from Ohio -- 10 of whom watched from the House visitors' gallery as he took the oath of office.
Boehner has led House Republicans in lockstep opposition to Obama's policies, notably his signature overhaul of US health care, which the new speaker has vowed to target with a symbolic repeal vote on January 12.
As speaker, and backed by Republican committee chairs, he will enjoy vast powers to shape the agenda in Washington and hamstring the White House through to Obama's reelection campaign in 2012.
But with Democrats still in control of the Senate, and Obama still holding a veto, the Ohio lawmaker will have to harness his considerable deal-making powers to enact key parts of the Republican platform.
Republicans have vowed to slash spending, scrap "job-killing" government regulations, overhaul the tax code, crack down on undocumented immigration, cut diplomatic and foreign aid funds, and investigate the administration.
Obama and his Democratic allies, meanwhile, have attacked the dapper, perpetually tan-looking golf enthusiast as a consummate political insider and key architect of the economic policies that fostered the painful recession.
During an early September visit to Boehner's home state, Obama blasted the lawmaker as having "no new policies" and "no new ideas" and peddling "the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place."
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
WASHINGTON — Companies spend millions of dollars each year complaining to Congress about burdensome laws and regulations, pressing their concerns in public campaigns and in private meetings. They rarely wait for invitations.
Last month a senior House Republican, Representative Darrell Issa of California, nevertheless dispatched letters to 150 companies, trade groups and research organizations asking them to identify federal regulations that are restraining economic recovery and job growth.
Mr. Issa, incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the concerns of businesses had been ignored by the Obama administration as it pursued what he described as an unprecedented regulatory expansion.
The responses have been predictable but, in asking, Mr. Issa also is underscoring the commitment of the new House majority to help business by curtailing government.
“A lot of people have felt shut out of the process the last few years, and they have welcomed the opportunity to give input,” said Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Mr. Issa.
The rejoinder from Democrats perhaps also was predictable.
“This is even more evidence that House Republicans are in the business of protecting corporate special interests instead of creating middle-income jobs,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a statement.
Others were harsher: “Rather than providing a platform for presentation of a corporate wish list, Representative Issa should be subjecting corporate claims to the withering scrutiny he promises for the Obama administration,” the consumer group Public Citizen said in a statement.” It’s time we ended the Kabuki theater of corporate whining, and got on with the serious business of creating jobs and making America safer and cleaner.”
The Obama administration has indeed significantly expanded federal oversight in areas including finance, health care and food production, and it has increased enforcement of existing regulations in a wider range of areas. The effort has been hailed by consumer groups as a necessary corrective to years of regulatory leniency. But business groups have countered that the measures will reduce profits, impede innovation and limit job creation.
Respondents to Mr. Issa’s letter said they generally focused on their own industries. Financial companies cited price controls on debit card transactions. Manufacturers highlighted new oversight of emissions.
But several groups said they saw an important opportunity to focus attention on the cumulative impact of all those regulations.
Rosario A. Palmieri, vice president of regulatory policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, said the weight of regulation had reached an unprecedented level. He noted that Mr. Issa’s committee had a broad mandate to turn its investigative resources on almost any subject, providing a rare opportunity for a wide-angle focus.
“We need to look governmentwide at the cost of regulation and its impact on industry. Few take so broad a look at regulation. Mostly they review the individual agencies or program areas. So this particular review could be very promising because of its ability to look at the cumulative burden of regulation,” Mr. Palmieri said.
In the letters, Mr. Issa said that federal agencies promulgated 43 “major” regulations in the last fiscal year, which he said would impose a cost on business of $28 billion. He described that as the largest increase in federal regulation in a single year.
He asked recipients to identify “existing and proposed regulations that negatively impact the economy and jobs.” The existence of the letters was first reported by Politico.
Mr. Bardella said that Mr. Issa reached out regularly to industry and other groups. He said that the responses to these letters would be compiled and shared with the public, but that it was impossible to say what other action might be taken.
Reed D. Rubinstein, a regulatory counsel at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that the group hoped the letters were an indication that Congress was taking more seriously its responsibility to oversee the work of regulatory agencies.
“What’s heartening to me at least, is that Congress is beginning to pay attention again to vetting regulation,” Mr. Rubinstein said. “You have a very activist administration and you have statutes that are very broad, allowing agencies to do what they see fit, and it’s really a perfect storm. It’s really unprecedented.”
Mr. Issa’s interest in regulatory burden is part of a broader agenda for his committee that he began to describe in greater detail this week. In a series of Twitter posts, he listed topics including corruption in Afghanistan, the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the handling of food and drug recalls.
In the posts, Mr. Issa described those topics as an “initial oversight investigations lineup,” but Mr. Bardella said Tuesday that those areas would not necessarily become the subjects of investigations. He said they were simply topics of interest.
Other subjects on the list include WikiLeaks and the performance of the commission appointed by Congress to write a history of the financial crisis.
Democrats are gearing up too, passing over two more senior members to select Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, regarded as a more effective foil to Mr. Issa’s ambitions, as the new ranking member of the oversight committee.
Mr. Cummings, in turn, hired as his staff director David Rapallo, a veteran Congressional investigator with previous experience working for the committee when Democrats were in the minority.
He was most recently an official on the National Security Council.
Charlie Eisenhood
Yesterday, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) spoke to the GOP Youth Convention in Washington. One attendee asked Bachmann about what the Republicans will do if they win back the House: QUESTION: I might be putting the cart before the horse here, but assuming the Republicans win the House back this next cycle, how do you feel about the chances for a little oversight and a little accountability now that the Republicans would have the subpoena power? How aggressive do you think?
BACHMANN: Well I think that’s all we should do. I think all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another and expose all the nonsense that has gone on. And it’s very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership, because the American people’s patience is about this big. [...]
And this is the year, this is it. All of our chips are on November. If we don’t get it back and then starve the beast, the House – we have the power of the purse – so we can starve Obamacare, we don’t have to fund any of these
programs . And that’s exactly what we need to do: defund all of this nonsense and then unwind it.
Listen:
Bachmann’s comments echo those of many of her GOP colleagues calling for more investigations of the Obama Administration and a defunding or outright repeal of the new health care law. And considering that some in the Republican Party are afraid to put forth an agenda, fearing that their policies could hurt them in November, Bachmann’s remarks follow naturally. There’s no time for meaningful policy discussion if the GOP spends all its time having “one hearing after another” investigating fabricated controversies and attempting a highly unlikely defunding of
By
One of the main lines of attack that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have deployed against Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court is her clerkship under under Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice. They have had no qualms about blasting the civil rights legend, with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) attacking Kagan’s
But today, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) went further than merely criticizing Marshall, telling ABC’s Top Line that he has “no idea” whether he would have voted to confirm Marshall, even while knowing his “entire record as a justice”:
KARL: How would you have voted, knowing all that you know — I mean, now you know his entire record as a justice — would you have voted no on a Thurgood Marshall nomination?
COBURN: I have no idea. I don’t know his writings. I think that’s an important part of her history, but not as important the two things that I just mentioned
Watch it:
Coburn joins fellow Judiciary Committee member Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who said yesterday that it was “hard to say” whether he would have supported Marshall. As Salon’s Steve Kornacki noted, “That’s a rather stunning statement when you consider the dynamics of Marshall’s 1967 confirmation.” Only 11 senators voted against Marshall, and their opposition “had everything to do with race — and, more specifically, with lingering white Southern resentment of the court’s 1954 school desegregation ruling (in which Marshall, as the NAACP’s chief counsel, had played a leading role).” All 11 were White and Southern, and most had signed the “Southern Manifesto,” a pro-segregation document drafted by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond.
Moreover, Republicans can’t seem to provide any evidence to support their claim that Marshall was an “activist” judge. Talking Points Memo asked Coburn, Hatch, and Sessions which of Marshall’s opinions best exemplified his activism — “none of them could name a single case.” As the National Urban League’s Stephanie Jones wrote in today’s Washington Post, “Unlike many of his detractors, past and present, Marshall showed the utmost reverence for the Constitution” by defending equal rights for all Americans.
Commenting on the absurdity of Republicans’ attacks on Marshall, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote, “With Kagan’s confirmation hearings expected to last most of the week, Republicans may still have time to make cases against Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Gandhi.”
From Media Matters:
Appearing on Fox & Friends, purported business expert Stuart Varney made extensive revisions to U.S. economic history, among them: the false suggestion that President Obama has not cut taxes; the false suggestion that President Bush presided over strong job growth; and the false claim that after President Clinton took office, the economy did not improve until Republicans took control of Congress.
Erasing $288 billion in tax relief, Varney falsely suggests Obama has not cut taxes
Varney: When Reagan took office, "he cut taxes"; when Obama took office, "he raises taxes." From the June 10 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
VARNEY: Yes, well look. What happened when President Reagan took office in January 1981? We had double-digit unemployment. He cut taxes, set off a growth of prosperity for a generation. Now we've got President Obama in; he inherits a nasty recession, he raises taxes and raises spending. He has not cut unemployment. There's a difference in reaction to a nasty situation. One works, one doesn't work. I'm very partisan. I'm very clearly partisan. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen.
In fact, Recovery Act included significant tax relief for individuals, families, and businesses. As Media Matters for America has noted, the Recovery Act contained $288 billion in tax relief, including the Making Work Pay tax credit, which is a two-year annual credit of $400 per individual or $800 for families. In addition, the Recovery Act included a temporary increase in the earned income tax credit, a temporary increase in the refundable portion of the child tax credit, an increase in the first-time homebuyer tax credit, and tax incentives for businesses.
Bruce Bartlett: "[F]ederal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president." Bruce Bartlett, former adviser to President Reagan and a Treasury Department economist under President George H.W. Bush, wrote on March 19 that "federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president. And given the economic circumstances, it's hard to imagine that a tax increase would have been enacted last year":
As noted earlier, federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president. And given the economic circumstances, it's hard to imagine that a tax increase would have been enacted last year. In fact, 40% of Obama's stimulus package involved tax cuts. These include the Making Work Pay Credit, which reduces federal taxes for all taxpayers with incomes below $75,000 by between $400 and $800.
According to the JCT, last year's $787 billion stimulus bill, enacted with no Republican support, reduced federal taxes by almost $100 billion in 2009 and another $222 billion this year. The Tax Policy Center, a private research group, estimates that close to 90% of all taxpayers got a tax cut last year and almost 100% of those in the $50,000 income range. For those making between $40,000 and $50,000, the average tax cut was $472; for those making between $50,000 and $75,000, the tax cut averaged $522. No taxpayer anywhere in the country had his or her taxes increased as a consequence of Obama's policies.
AP: "Americans are paying lower taxes this year." The Associated Press reported on April 14, "You wouldn't know it by the Tax Day rhetoric, but Americans are paying lower taxes this year, even with increases passed by many states to balance their budgets." While noting that in future years some taxes may increase for some Americans, the article said that "Tax Day rhetoric," i.e. complaints by some of being overtaxed, does not match the reality of Americans' current tax burdens. From the article:
Congress cut individuals' federal taxes for this year by about $173 billion shortly after President Barack Obama took office, dwarfing the $28.6 billion in increases by states.
[...]
The massive economic recovery package enacted last year included about $300 billion in tax cuts over 10 years. About $232 billion was in cuts for individuals, nearly all in the first two years.
The most generous was Obama's Making Work Pay credit, which gives individuals up to $400 and couples up to $800 for 2009 and 2010. The $1,000 child tax credit was expanded to more families, and the working poor can qualify for as much as $5,657 from the Earned Income Tax Credit.
There were also credits for qualified families who buy new homes or make energy improvements to existing ones, as well as tax breaks to help pay college tuition or buy new cars.
Tax-cut amnesia is News Corp.-wide phenomenon. In response to Obama's State of the Union assertion that "we cut taxes," Fox Forum columnist Peter Roff wrote, "We cut taxes? How did I miss that?" Fox News contributor S.E. Cupp similarly wrote, "Cut taxes?! WHAT?" The New York Post also asked if Obama was in "Opposite Land" when he "claimed to have cut taxes and saved 'millions' of jobs." In July 2009, Stephen Moore said on Fox News that "[t]he one thing this administration won't do is cut taxes," when, in fact, it already had cut taxes.
CBS: "Poll Reveals Most Americans Don't Know They Got a Tax Cut." A February 5-10 New York Times/CBS News poll found that only 12 percent of respondents "think the Obama Administration has ... decreased taxes for most Americans." CBS wrote that "[o]f people who support the grassroots, 'Tea Party' movement, only 2 percent think taxes have been decreased, 46 percent say taxes are the same, and a whopping 44 percent say they believe taxes have gone up."
Accusing Dem of "cherry-picking," Varney does just that to claim "Bush created 8 million new jobs"
Varney: From "2003 to 2007, George Bush created 8 million new jobs." From the June 10 edition of Fox & Friends:
VARNEY: What you're quoting there is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Democrat, who said on my show on FBN, she said, look, you take the first four months of this year, extrapolate out, and we've created more jobs in that year than Bush did in his eight years. Well, you're cherry-picking time frames. You're making a prediction of a trend, which simply isn't there, and you're ignoring reality. The reality is that in the middle of Bush years, and you've spoken about this, Brian [Kilmeade], 2003 to 2007, George Bush created 8 million new jobs. And that's ignored here.
By cherry-picking just four years of Bush's administration, Varney erased two recessions; in fact, only 1 million new jobs were created during Bush presidency. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of nonfarm jobs increased from 132.5 million in January 2001 to 133.5 million in January 2009, an increase of only 1 million jobs. By contrast, employment increased by 22.7 million under Clinton, 16.1 million under Reagan, 10.3 million under Jimmy Carter, and 2.6 under George H.W. Bush.
By including only data from 2003 to 2007, Varney erased the job impact of the recessions that began in 2001 and in 2007. The Washington Post reported in January 2009 that "economists, including some former advisers to Bush" say the expansion during the period Varney highlighted "was driven to a large degree by the interrelated booms in the housing market, consumer spending and financial markets," which "have proved unsustainable."
employmenthours
Bush employment growth worst of all post-WWII administrations. The New York Times reported on January 23, 2009, that during the Bush administration, "Employment grew at a compound annual rate of only 0.3 percent, half the 0.6 percent rate that his father had recorded in what had previously been the worst post-World War II performance."
Fox & Friends makes misleading, apples-to-oranges comparison of unemployment rates
Doocy: "Obama is in a bad spot." From the June 10 edition of Fox & Friends:
DOOCY: We're looking at U.S. unemployment over the last 12 years -- 12 months, that is to say. But when you look over the last number of decades, Obama is in a bad spot because when you look at, starting with LBJ, he had unemployment at 4 percent. Ike was under 5, Nixon 5, Clinton 5, Bush 43 5, JFK 6, Bush 41 -- and just read along. Obama's at the bottom with over 9 percent.
Fox compared unemployment rate of Obama's first year-and-a-half, which came during the midst of a deep recession, to the average unemployment rates of past presidents. In two on-screen graphics, Fox & Friends prematurely compared the average unemployment rate over less than 1.5 years under Obama -- who took office in the midst of a deep recession -- to the average unemployment rates over the full presidencies of Bush and other former presidents. Fox & Friends listed the average unemployment rate under Bush as 5.3 percent. When Bush left office in January 2009, the unemployment rate was 7.7 percent and had been increasing for more than a year.
unemploymentchyron
unemploymentchart
Varney falsely claims that after Clinton took office, "economy was not stimulated" until "the Republicans swept in"
From the June 10 edition of Fox & Friends:
VARNEY: Look, when George Bush cut taxes in 2001, 2002, that was in a recession. It got us out of the recession --
BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): Fifty-one consecutive months of growth --
VARNEY: And gave us 51 consecutive months of economic growth. That was the direct result of tax cuts, which stimulated the economy. Now, I know you're gonna refer to President Clinton. First thing he did when he comes into office, he raises taxes on the top 1 percent of income earners. The immediate result of that was not to stimulate the economy. No, the economy was not stimulated until 1994, when the Republicans swept in, put a collar on government spending, and made sure that we were fiscally sound. Then the economy took off, and revenues took off.
Clinton's 1993 budget plan also included spending cuts, as well as expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, Head Start, and other programs. Varney stated: "First thing [Clinton] did when he comes into office, he raises taxes on the top 1 percent of income earners. The immediate result of that was not to stimulate the economy." According to the Brookings Institution, the 1993 package also "included significant spending reductions" and "concentrated the tax increases on upper-income taxpayers, while substantially expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, Head Start, and other government programs aimed at lower earners."
Economy was recovering before Republicans took control of Congress. Contrary to Varney's claim that "the economy was not stimulated until 1994, when the Republicans swept in, put a collar on government spending, and made sure that we were fiscally sound," the economy had, in fact, been recovering before that point. According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP increased 4.1 percent in 1994, before the Republicans controlled Congress, and had been recovering since 1991, when GDP fell .2 percent. The economy continued to grow throughout the 1990s.
realgdp
Varney falsely claimed "we had double-digit unemployment" when "Reagan took office in January 1981"
From the June 10 edition of Fox & Friends:
VARNEY: Yes, well look. What happened when President Reagan took office in January 1981? We had double-digit unemployment. He cut taxes, set off a growth of prosperity for a generation.
In fact, unemployment reached double digits 20 months into Reagan's term. According to BLS data, the unemployment rate was 7.5 in January 1981, when Reagan took office. The unemployment rate increased steadily over 20 months and passed 10 percent in September 1982.
By
Last month a Republican urologist in Florida posted a sign on his office door telling his patients that if they voted for President Obama, they should “seek urologic care elsewhere.” Despite later admitting that he knew little about the new law, the sign added: “Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years.” The Daily Caller reports that another doctor has pulled a similar stunt. Arizona dermatologist Joseph Scherzer put a sign outside his office warning his patients that he will be closing his doors because of the new law. “If you voted for Obamacare, be aware these doors will close before it goes into effect,” the sign reads. Scherzer — a self-described conservative — claims that the “stress” the law will supposedly impose will cause him to close up shop:
“I’m absolutely serious [about stopping practicing] and it’s not just because I’ll be nearing 65,” Scherzer said. “The stress is what would push me out the door.” [...]
Scherzer said the bill’s emphasis on punitive measures for physicians not following government-prescribed treatment methods under Medicare would increase his anxiety level to the point he would no longer be able to practice medicine.
“Doctors have actually committed suicide over these things,” Scherzer said. But it’s unclear what punitive measures Scherzer is referring to. One possibility is comparative effectiveness research (CER) into which treatments work most effectively. Indeed, conservatives have been using this provision in their attacks on health care reform to claim it would ration care, impose standards and prevent certain kinds of treatment. But as the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky noted, “CER is a recommendation, not a mandate.”
Or perhaps Scherzer is referring to basic Medicare billing fraud. But presumably he had to provide proper documentation for Medicare services provided before the President signed the bill into law. The new law simply strengthens these accountability measures to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.
Like the Florida urologist, Scherzer may not be aware of what’s actually in the law. In fact, if he stays in business, Scherzer has the opportunity to perhaps reduce his anxiety level with added benefits such as an “increase in Medicaid payment rates.” Moreover, the American Medical Association has an extensive list of benefits for physicians that will come from the Affordable Care Act, including bonus payments and geographic payment differentials.
By
Last week, the Orlando Sentinel reported that a Republican urologist in Florida, Dr. Jack Cassell, posted a sign on his business door reading: “If you voted for Obama…seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years.” On Friday evening, Alan Colmes interviewed Cassell, who basically admitted that he didn’t know the facts of the new health care reform law: COLMES: Do you really think the government wants people dead?
CASSELL: Well I think that they’re cutting all supportive care, like nursing homes, ambulance services –
COLMES: What do you mean they’re cutting nursing homes?
CASSELL: They’re cutting nursing home reimbursements.
COLMES: Isn’t what they’re cutting under the Medicare plan what was really double dipping; they were getting credits and they were getting to deduct them at the same time.
CASSELL: Well you know, I can’t tell you exactly what the deal is.
COLMES: If you can’t tell us exactly what the deal is, why are you opposing it and fighting against it?
CASSELL: I’m not the guy who wrote the plan.
COLMES: But if you don’t know what the deal is why are you speaking out against something you don’t know what the deal is?
CASSELL: What I get online, just like any other American. What I’m supposed to understand about the bill should be available to me.
COLMES: It is; it’s been online for a long time; it’s also been all over the media.
Listen here:
A local TV station in Florida spoke to one of Cassell’s patients, who said that while the doctor’s care has been “wonderful,” he’s never going back after this political stunt. “Keep politics out,” said patient Steve Berger. “I mean, he can have his opinion, but what’s the next sign saying? If you’re Catholic, you can’t come? Or you’re an Arab, you can’t come in, or you’re a Jew? It has to stop somewhere.”
It’s not surprising that Cassell doesn’t have the full facts on the health care law. While he wasn’t even aware that the Affordable Care Act could be accessed online, he “keeps Republican materials in the waiting room” for his patients to read. As Colmes pointed out, the National Association of Home Care and Hospice actually praised the new law.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) has said that he is helping a constituent who was affected by Cassell’s sign file a complaint. In response to this news, Cassell said, “I think he [Grayson] really seriously needs to see a psychiatrist, number one, because he needs to be on some kind of medicine.”
Cassell insists that he’s not actually turning patients away, but as of this morning, he told Fox and Friends that his sign is still up.
The Washington Post picked the wrong week to run a lengthy op-ed excoriating liberals for being condescending to conservatives. Not that there would have been a good week to run University of Virginia professor Gerard Alexander's screed, which was filled with more holes than a donut shop.
Alexander began by asserting that "liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives" are condescending -- a claim about the relative quantity of condescension on each side that he never even attempted to support with anything beyond his own assertions that he is correct.
He then moved on to providing examples of liberal condescension that, well, aren't. Like President Obama's statement that some opponents of health care reform are peddling fear of a "Bolshevik plot." That is happening, and Alexander made no effort to explain why pointing it out constitutes condescension. Instead, he moved on to his next example: Obama's statement that he and his allies need to do a better job of "speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are" -- the kind of utterly unremarkable comment politicians of all stripes make whenever the political winds seem to shift against them. And those two examples -- neither of which is actually an example of condescension -- are the ones Alexander chooses to lead off his argument. That is not a good sign.
It was, however, representative of Alexander's argument, which consisted largely of identifying "four major narratives" liberals promote about conservatives -- narratives that Alexander seems to think are condescending, but which are not. Like this:
The first is the "vast right-wing conspiracy," a narrative made famous by Hillary Rodham Clinton but hardly limited to her. This vision maintains that conservatives win elections and policy debates not because they triumph in the open battle of ideas but because they deploy brilliant and sinister campaign tactics.
Yeah ... that isn't condescension. Neither is this: "It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants." (And if Alexander is going to convince anyone that is a condescending belief for liberals to hold, he might want to have a few words with Ken Mehlman, who -- as chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2005 -- admitted the GOP had exploited "racial polarization" for decades.)
In short, Alexander offers a series of liberal criticisms of conservatives, which he mistakes for condescension. Those criticisms can, of course, be made in ways that are condescending. But that isn't what Alexander argues -- he argues that they are inherently condescending. They aren't -- not unless we want to rob the word of all meaning.
And all the while, Alexander pretends that conservatives only rarely make condescending statements -- and even then, the statements tend to come from the movement's fringes. It's as though he's never heard the patronizing, mocking comments about "community organizers" and effete coastal elites -- or he thinks his readers haven't. As though he's never heard Rudy Giuliani give a speech. Or Sarah Palin. Or Karl Rove. Or seen Bill O'Reilly dismiss liberals as "pinheads."
So running Alexander's poorly-considered piece -- which, it should be noted, the Washington Post solicited -- would have been a mistake at any time. What makes this week, in particular, so bad? Well, it certainly doesn't help that it ran the morning after Sarah Palin's speech at the Tea Party convention in Nashville, in which she mockingly asked the 69 million Americans who voted for Barack Obama, "How's that hopey, changey stuff working out?" Now, that's condescending.
But the bigger problem is that Alexander's piece ran at the beginning of a week in which the conservative media did everything it could to justify every drop of condescension liberals can possibly muster. Some arguments are so brazenly stupid that to treat them as though they have merit is to participate in the dumbing-down of public discourse to an extent that can only lead to ruin.
And that's what the right-wing media narrative that a few days of snow in February disproves global warming is -- brazenly and willfully stupid. Not because it contradicts the overwhelming scientific consensus, but because of the way in which it does so. It pretends short-term weather is more meaningful than long-term climate changes. It privileges small sample sizes over large. It's like using a single baseball game to argue that Mark Whiten is the best hitter in the history of the game -- he had 4 home runs and 12 RBIs! Or pointing to the fact that Bill Gates doesn't have any money in his left jacket pocket as evidence that he's poor. Or flipping a coin, seeing that it comes up heads, and concluding that flipped coins always land heads-up. It's absolute nonsense.
And conservatives have been gleefully peddling this quackery all week.
Among the culprits: Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, The Washington Times, Sean Hannity, Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, Glenn Beck, and Human Events. Not to mention other conservative leaders like Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Jim DeMint, and Newt Gingrich.
Now, I'm sure that Gerard Alexander would try to argue that Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, the Washington Times, the Senate Republican Leader, and Newt Gingrich are not representative of the conservative movement. That's essentially what he did during a Washington Post online Q&A whenever anyone brought up examples of condescending conservatives: He stipulated to the examples, but asserted they weren't representative, often asserting by way of evidence that National Review doesn't engage in the tactics in question. So, apparently National Review is the only example he'll accept for his rigged little game. Fine by me. National Review's Deroy Murdock, Tom Gross, and Greg Pollowitz (again and again and again) have all dabbled in cold-weather-disproves-global-warming nuttiness.
The next time the Washington Post wants to promote an inane column asking "Why are liberals so condescending?" (and, sadly, I'm sure there will be a "next time") they should try it in a week in which the nation's leading conservative media voices aren't quite so busy demonstrating why liberals have reason to be more condescending.
“If they somehow manage to get the votes and get enough Democrats to walk the plank and commit suicide, in the next Congress, I’ll be chairman Joe Barton of the Energy and Commerce committee, and we’ll repeal it,” ranking House Energy chairman Rep. Joe Barton said.
Analysts say that Republicans don’t have much of a chance at retaking the House. Fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver put the odds of a House GOP takeover at somewhere between 25 and 33 percent.
The Energy and Commerce Committee was among the three in the House that had their hand in crafting healthcare reform. Republicans have grown increasingly intransigent in compromising with Democrats’ proposals, seeing a potential political windfall in public concern over the healthcare debate.
“Take the current bill and just tweak the public option and call it a ‘deal’ — you put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” Barton quipped. “I think this bill’s dead on arrival.”
Our seniors are saying, look don’t diminish Medicare. We have been paying into Medicare. That is pre-paid for us. It’s been coming out of our paycheck for 40 years. And they don’t want that Medicare to be diminished.
Watch it:
Of course, it’s ironic that conservatives who have long argued for killing Medicare are now proclaiming to be the protectors of it. “Nobody is talking about cutting Medicare benefits. I just want to make that absolutely clear,” President Obama has said. The health reform bill would not “diminish” Medicare benefits. “To the contrary, reform would simply eliminate waste and unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies.” In addition, The Gavel notes several provisions in the House bill that strengthen Medicare:
Phases in completely filling in the “donut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug benefit (where drug costs are not reimbursed at certain levels), potentially savings seniors thousands of dollars a year.
Eliminates co-payments and deductibles for preventive services under Medicare.
Limits cost-sharing requirements in Medicare Advantage plans to the amount charged for the same services in traditional Medicare coverage.
Improves the low-income subsidy programs in Medicare, such as by increasing asset limits for programs that help Medicare beneficiaries pay premiums and cost-sharing.
