Every sane liberal and Democratic activist and analyst who has a brain knows that co-ops are a worthless concept only put out there so Max Baucus and his bi partisan jelly fish can help rip off the American people and pad the pockets of the health care industrial complex. Welcome to our liberal elite.

ALTER: Well, there has to be some kind of cooperative, maybe what they call a souped-up cooperative, one that can actually withstand pressure from insurance companies which in the past have taken something like BlueCross, which is originally nonprofit and turned it into just another insurance company. So, the problem with the co-op idea is that it-they have been putty in the hands of the insurance company. But there still is room for compromise there. They could design a new kind of co-op that could provide some real competition.

OLBERMANN: Yes.

ALTER: It could be essentially a public-private option that satisfies enough people to get something through. So, I don't think liberals should go, you know, public option or bust. There are other alternatives and you have to remember that there are many, many important things in this bill that have become almost non-controversial that two years ago, if you'd been told they're going to-they're going to end discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, they're going to insure another 30 million Americans, we say, "Great, where do we sign up?" And now, some progressives are-maybe a little bit too wed to the public option. Even though, my favorite, too, but we shouldn't go down with the ship, with the public option.

Listen, Jonathan. There is no room for compromise with co-ops. Jay Rockefeller already disproved them in detail, if you were keeping track of these things. It's a con game cooked up to fool people like you into thinking Kent Conrad and Chuck Grassley would actually design a new kind of SUPER CO-OP that will save the day. Are you that daft or just sucking it up for the David Broder-bipartisan coalition?

We were promised real health-care reform, not some sad sack of a plan that includes ginned-up co-ops that have all been panned by the "serious people" who write about health care. As usual we're the dirty f*&king hippies who better live without our public option. Obama was only elected with a clear mandate to reform health care and we should be thankful for what we get.

Bob Shrum jumped in with the same lame argument and he said on Hardball that if co ops are included that provide competition then the bill is just fine too.

SHRUM: I certainly think he should do that. reconciliation was...

MATTHEWS: No, he doesn't have to. SHRUM: ... used by Reagan. It was used by Bush.

MATTHEWS: No, but what's the-if he has to choose between a bill that comes out of that bipartisan panel in the Senate, Finance Committee, and going with a much more liberal bill, what would you do?

SHRUM: I would-I would look-I'd judge it by what's in that bill. If there's a co-op that effectively does provide competition with the insurance industry, then I think you can move forward. By the way, in other respects, that bill is not a vastly scaled-down bill. It's $100 billion less over 10 years out of a program that costs $1 trillion over 10 years.

What data does he have to suggest that co ops can bring that to the table? None.

(h/t Heather)
Orrin Hatch was whining about bipartisanship on Face The Nation Sunday. Are you ready for another David Broder article criticizing the Democrats for not including the teabaggers? Rangel slaps little Orrin for lying about the parameters of the House bill. It's of course the House of Lords that is mucking up the works. The House has delivered a bill the the CBO likes.

HATCH: But it’s become so political. The House bill’s a total partisan bill. The health committee in the Senate, the Senate bill, is a total partisan bill. And our only hope, maybe, is to have Senator Baucus be able to put something together on the Finance Committee in the Senate.

RANGEL: We’ve been dealing with this bill for -- for over six months. And we’ve had hours of hearings. And the fact that it’s not bipartisan is not because we Democrats don’t want to have a bipartisan bill. We don’t have any Republican answers. It’s easy to say what you don’t like about this bill. But it would be far more constructive if we had something to work on. So I’m depending on my friend Orrin Hatch to... (LAUGHTER) ... at least in the Senate, to try to see, is there a Republican bill in the Senate? There certainly isn’t in the House. And it’s just wrong to say that this is a tax on small businesses. We exempt small business from a lot of the penalties. We give tax credits so that they’re able to hire and get people health care in small businesses. This is a tax on less than 1 percent of the wealthiest people in the United States of America. And so to say that this is a penalty on small business just isn’t so. Sure, we wish we had more time.

Hatch is lying again since Sen. Grassley has said he's been working with Baucus on a bill. Maybe he should confer with his own party in the Senate instead of going on TV and crying about being left out. He's a Senator, for the love of God. Maybe he could write another song for us?

Continue reading »

(h/t Heather)

The Villagers were up in arms Sunday morning over on the set of ABC's This Week about the possibility that Eric Holder might appoint a special someone to look into the Bush/Cheney torture practices. Watch in awe and see how the Villagers feel about trying to get accountability from the Bush years.

Why, an investigation would just trash the place. Oh, the bitterness in D.C. would be too much to handle, all because those other people (that is, non-Villagers) would like to get to the truth.

Bob Woodward, who's trying to be the next David Broder by living off his long-degraded rep as the man who uncovered Watergate, wonders how we will ever be able to keep secrets again if there is some inspection. Um, isn't that what the Bob Woodwardses are supposed to do? Uncover stuff? Nope, not anymore. He's appalled that there might be a frakking investigation.

And he was all a-giggle with the thought that the CIA could actually lie. What a joke. I didn't hear him open his mouth when Newt Gingrich went all whiggy on Nancy Pelosi.

Cokie goes "Cokie" on us for a while and then after much trepidation comes down on the rule of law. Good for her, but she better take some R&R if it happens.

ROBERTS: I must say, I have very mixed minds about this. Because on the one hand, the whole idea of a prosecution gets Washington into that kind of horrible slog where everybody hates each other and the poison just gets very thick.

DONALDSON: Unlike at the moment, right?

ROBERTS: Well, no, it hasn’t been as bad lately as it was in the last 16 years.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And it seems like they’re trying to avoid at least in the design of this, criminalizing of policy.

ROBERTS: And just the whole atmosphere of getting that way again. On the other hand, the rule of law is terribly important. And we have to have it -- you know, we cannot operate in this country without the rule of law.

DONALDSON: So which hand do you come down on?

ROBERTS: I’d probably come down on the rule of law.

Digby writes much more:

Stephanopoulos reported on This Week that the possible Holder investigation is going to be very narrow and will not pursue policy makers or anyone who took orders directly from the policymakers. He's going after "rogue interrogators" who inflicted more torture than was strictly allowed.

The Village roundtable all gasped in horror anyway because who knows where such an investigation might lead and as Cokie complained, it would mean that the whole town would be mad at each other again and nobody wants that! "Everybody hates each other and the poison gets very thick." She did finally come down on the side of following the rule of law even though it would make her uncomfortable at cocktail parties, but it was a close thing.

Bob Woodward was very upset at the idea that the government can't keep secrets because "we need them!" Besides, Holder shouldn't be like Janet Reno and just initiate investigations willy nilly. (He seems to think that Reno authorizing independent counsels to investigate her own president for trivial political reasons is the same thing as investigating whether the previous administration tortured prisoners.) They all chuckled at the notion that Holder was really independent and if he is, that means he's a rogue interrogator himself.

George Will thought it was all just a bunch of balderdash because nothing bad ever happened during the Bush administration. Sam Donaldson said that reporters should probably pursue stories and Donna Brazile added that these things were coming out anyway so they might as well be investigated.

They all snorted and giggled and laughed throughout the whole segment about how silly it was to be upset that the CIA lied because well, that's what it does. And they all thought it was a ripping good joke that Cheney kept everything secret because well, everyone knows that's what he does. Hahahahaha.

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

David Broder in the Washington (Republican Propaganda) Post:

The saga of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his Argentine romance has been such ripe fodder for the gossip mills that the essential governmental question has almost been forgotten.

Whether Sanford can resolve the mess he has made of his personal life is of little concern to anyone but the people involved.

But when he disappeared for five days, telling no one in his administration or even his security detail where he had gone, he did something totally irresponsible. Had any kind of emergency occurred, South Carolina would have been leaderless.

At the moment Sanford abandoned his duties in secret pursuit of private pleasure, he in effect tendered his resignation.

The Legislature should insist he follow through on it.

Now while I agree with the sentiment that Sanford abandoned his job to follow his little brain, er...heart to Argentina, I'm struck by the difference in Broder's tone from his coverage of Bill Clinton's infidelities:

One of the most revealing statements Broder -- or, perhaps, any political journalist -- has ever made came in 1998. In November 1998, after nearly a year of public opinion polls showing, basically, that people liked Bill Clinton and wanted the Lewinsky investigation to just go away, and of the Washington journalist/pundit crowd vehemently disagreeing, the Post published an article by Sally Quinn attempting to explain the disconnect (which lives on to this day).

Quinn famously quoted Broder explaining why the "Washington Establishment" -- which under anybody's definition includes both Broder and Quinn -- was so angry at Clinton: "He came in here and he trashed the place ... and it's not his place."

Broder's implication -- that Washington was his place, not the president's -- is arrogant enough. But Broder's other comment speaks volumes: "The judgment is harsher in Washington. We don't like being lied to."

What a difference ten years can make. Of course, it has nothing to do with Sanford being a Republican, does it, Dean Broder?

I just loved this little tidbit from Paul Krugman this morning:

David Broder has a column this morning calling for bipartisanship. I know, you’re shocked. But what struck me was this bit about Al Franken:

Franken, the loud-mouthed former comedian, will be the 60th member of the Senate Democratic caucus …

Two points.

First, implicit in this characterization of Franken is the notion of the Senate as a decorous gentlemen’s club. I doubt that club ever existed in reality; but in any case, these days the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body is, not to put too fine a point on it, chock full o’ nuts. James Inhofe: I rest my case.

Second, Al Franken’s dirty secret is that … he’s a big policy wonk.

I used to go on Franken’s radio show, all ready to be jocular — and what he wanted to talk about was the arithmetic of Social Security, or the structure of Medicare Part D.

In fact, the only elected official I know who’s wonkier than Al Franken is Rush Holt, my congressman — and he used to be the assistant director of Princeton’s plasma physics lab. (The campaign’s bumper stickers read, “My Congressman IS a rocket scientist.”)

So what will Franken do to the level of Senate discourse? He’ll raise it.

The Washington Post is dead to me:

(T)he Washington Post has terminated its relationship with liberal columnist/blogger Dan Froomkin. Froomkin authored the "White House Watch" blog and was told today that the blog had essentially run its course.

Washington Post Media Communications Director Kris Coratti tells POLITICO that "our editors and research teams are constantly reviewing our columns, blogs and other content to make sure we're giving readers the most value when they are on our site while balancing the need to make the most of our resources. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes features must be eliminated, and this time it was the blog that Dan Froomkin freelanced for washingtonpost.com."

"Run its course"???? WTF? But David Broder, who has been at WaPo since God was a little boy and whose never been in a coffeeshop he couldn't find some colorful local to confirm his preconceived (and generally wrong) notions, is still relevant? Bill Kristol, for whom the Washington Post had to issue not one or two, but THREE retractions for direct misinformation he tried to squeeze into his typical hack op-ed, is still worth holding on to. Charles farkin' Krauthammer, who has no business opining anywhere he has gotten so much wrong, is still collecting a WaPo paycheck.

But Dan Froomkin, whom Andrew Sullivan calls the "best blogger" at the paper and who is the author of 3 of the 10 most linked to articles at WaPo, is not someone worth keeping on staff?

Glenn Greenwald suspects that Froomkin was on the losing end of some internal power struggles:

Notably, Froomkin just recently had a somewhat acrimonious exchange with the oh-so-oppressed Krauthammer over torture, after Froomkin criticized Krauthammer's explicit endorsement of torture and Krauthammer responded by calling Froomkin's criticisms "stupid." And now -- weeks later -- Froomkin is fired by the Post while the persecuted Krauthammer, comparing himself to endangered journalists in Venezuela, remains at the Post, along with countless others there who think and write just like he does: i.e., standard neoconservative pablum. Froomkin was previously criticized for being "highly opinionated and liberal" by Post ombudsman Deborah Howell (even as she refused to criticize blatant right-wing journalists).

Seriously? Does the Washington Post not realize that all these neo-cons they give endless column inches to are what's ruining this country? Steven Benen:

If Froomkin is leaving the Post, it’s a real loss. Froomkin has been a great writer with keen instincts, often picking up on a burgeoning story before it’s gained traction elsewhere. Froomkin was one of the media’s most important critics of the Bush White House, and conservative bashing notwithstanding, was poised to be just as valuable holding the Obama White House accountable for its decisions.

If you like to share your opinion of the Washington Post's hiring choices, you can contact Ombudsman Andrew Alexander at ombudsman@washpost.com. Me, personally? I'm just deleting the bookmark. If I wanted neo-con and fact free tripe from Will, Kagan, Kristol and Broder, I'll just watch Fox News.

It's a brave new world. More than thirty-five years ago, Timothy Crouse wrote the seminal Boys On The Bus, detailing for the first time how the press--specifically types like Robert Novak and David Broder, among others--operated as a kind of hive mind, which Crouse coined as "pack journalism":

(R)ight at the outset Crouse identifies the "womblike conditions" of the bus and/or plane as giving rise to "the notorious phenomenon called 'pack journalism,' " and goes on: "They all fed off the same pool report, the same daily handout, the same speech by the candidate; the whole pack was isolated in the same mobile village. After a while, they began to believe the same rumors, subscribe to the same theories, and write the same stories."

At a precociously early age, Crouse understood some essential but little-known truths about journalists and journalism: that journalists are deathly afraid of being "wrong" and thus tend to stay within parameters set by the pack; that journalists want "to be on the Winner's Bus" because "a campaign reporter's career is linked to the fortunes of his candidate" and they don't "like to dwell on signs that their Winner [is] losing, any more than a soup manufacturer likes to admit that there is botulism in the vichyssoise"; that "journalism is probably the slowest-moving, most tradition-bound profession in America," refusing "to budge until it is shoved into the future by some irresistible external force."

Well, look out, boys, because as Media Matters Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert chronicles in his new book, Bloggers on the Bus, there is a whole new group of people on that bus, and they won't be swayed by the hive mind of the old media. In fact, they thrive on being the outsider. And to the horror and consternation of those boys so comfortably entrenched within the Beltway Bubble, these upstarts are actually grabbing their audiences....and doing their job better than the old guard.

The liberal blogosphere was birthed from the outrage of the offenses of the Bush administration and the search for sanity amid the crazy-making and incestuous relationship between the White House and the press corps. Vastly varied backgrounds and unlikely histories coalesced into a formidable force that not only cowered the administration and Congress at times, but helped carry our first African-American president into office. But not without some bumps along the way.

For every triumph like getting a clearly shaken Chris Matthews to apologize for his misogynistic statements about Hillary Clinton, or a nervous John McCain to refuse the endorsement of Rev. Hagee, or empowering Sen. Christopher Dodd to agree to filibuster retroactive immunity in the FISA bill, we've had lows like the intense bifurcation of the blogosphere over the Democratic Primary, and the disappointing arm's-length distance the Obama White House has kept his liberal supporters.

During this time, we've developed a brand new roster of go-to people for information: John Amato, Digby, Susie Madrak, Arianna Huffington, Jane Hamsher, Markos Moulitsas, Josh Marshall, Howie Klein, Marcy Wheeler, all of whom play prominent roles in Bloggers on the Bus (is it at this time that I mention the glaring omission of my work from Bloggers on the Bus? ;-P) We've adapted our approaches and focus, we've spent hours pouring over arcane and wonky reports, we've connected dots between different sources and we've uncovered a narrative that in drips and drops has been proven correct.

In Bloggers on the Bus, Eric Boehlert has talked to these new guards and chronicled the liberal blogosphere's growing pains and victories. As someone who was right in the middle of all this, blogging my little heart out, it's fascinating to read a bird's-eye view accounting of everything that was happening. Eric is here to talk about his book and take your questions.

Please join me in welcoming Eric to C&L.

Reading the planted story in the Washington Post to somehow try and draw a little sympathy for Judge Jay Bybee is practically an admission that he believes the memo he's credited with writing wasn't sound legal analysis at all, and in fact he does believe that the argument he used to try to absolve these interrogation techniques of their criminal nature was in reality a ruse. Either his "how-to guide" for CIA agents to avoid violating the Geneva Conventions was a lie or he never wrote it in the first place and just signed off to make it official. In the Washington Post piece, friends and anonymous sources are sprinkled in to try and make us like the judge. He's just a man who never wanted to work at the OLC anyway and he's full of regret.

"On the primary memo, that legitimated and defined torture, he just felt it got away from him," said the fellow scholar. "What I understand that to mean is, any lawyer, when he or she is writing about something very complicated, very layered, sometimes you can get it all out there and if you're not careful, you end up in a place you never intended to go. I think for someone like Jay, who's a formalist and a textualist, that's a particular danger."

Tuan Samahon, a former clerk who recalled Bybee's remarks at the reunion dinner, said in an e-mail that the judge defended the legal reasoning behind the memos but not the policy decision. Bybee was disappointed by what was done to prisoners, saying that "the spirit of liberty has left the republic," Samahon said

.
That is his alibi and I'm sure David Broder's eyes welled up with tears after he finished reading the piece. A man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, wait ... wait ... wait ... he was at the right place at the wrong time in history because what he really wanted was to be on the 9th Circuit Court and just took the gig at the OLC because Alberto had nothing for him. Well, his loyalty paid off because now he's a sitting judge with a lifetime appointment on the bench he longed for.

"The whole idea that the Constitution is based on a kind of wariness of mankind's tendency to grab power, that is an idea I got from Jay," McAffee said. "So the whole idea of uninhibited executive power, from him, does seem passing strange."

Continue reading »

Here's one of the reasons we have such a low opinion of the Beltway weenies, or The Villagers.

David Broder today, on whether there should be an investigation of the Bush years:

“I understand the reluctance to open a wide-ranging probe of past practices. It seems to me we are better off focusing on cleaning up the policies and practices for the future than trying to settle scores for past actions.”

David Broder, famously, as Clinton’s administration wound down:

“He came in here and he trashed the place, and it’s not his place.”

The disparity in outrage is really amazing. The above Broder quote comes from an infamous 1998 piece in The Washington Post by Sally Quinn in which many D.C. establishment figures expressed raw shock about how Bill Clinton had despoiled what Quinn called their “town.” In that piece, Chris Matthews summed up the emotional reaction of the townies by saying: “I resent deeply being constantly lied to.”

By any measure, there hasn’t been anything close to this level of emotion or recrimination about the past administration during this transition. Why not? There’s the argument that D.C. has been wired for Republican rule for a long time. There’s the argument that this town is more easily outraged by sexual indiscretions than legal ones..read on.

President Bush helped destroy our economy, lied us into a war with Iraq, implemented a national policy of torture, wiretapped American citizens, and took a host of other hideous actions on his watch that are too many to list here. But Broder just wants to look forward. It might be nice to to get it out in the open and then put in safeguards against the reign of an incompetent leader. Oh, and I bet Broder's 401K and stock portfolio got crushed too.

(Sorry for the light posting on my part. I've been a bit under the weather the last few days and also was trying to keep an eye on the site updates. A big h/t to Jamie, our webmaster.)

David Broder, appearing on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC program this morning, wants the public to know that "bipartisanship" is all the rage inside the Beltway these days -- as indeed it has been for as long as we can remember. What does "bipartisanship" mean? It means believing right-wing nonsense and treating it as credible:

Mitchell: I've read a lot, and talked to a lot of people, and heard a lot of debate about the stimulus package, and reasonable people on both sides -- conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, economists -- aren't really sure what's gonna work and how it's gonna work. What are the risks here in taking it all on? I mean, Alice Rivlin, who created the Congressional Budget Office, has written, importantly, that she would separate out what is job-creating, what is stimulus, and look at the bigger-ticket items down the road. Um, how do they know? How does the president know what he's getting into here?

Broder: Ah, nobody knows, because this is uncharted territory. There are plenty of smart people who purport to understand the dynamics of the economy, but as we know, the first effort at stimulus did not achieve the expected results. So this is a gamble. It's a big gamble for the country, it's much better off if it includes the best thinking that's available in both parties, not just one party.

As dday astutely retorts:

Um, sir, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE FIRST STIMULUS WAS? It was a 100% tax rebate along the lines of the sum total of the thinking of one party. In fact, the "best thinking" of those people now is to weight the stimulus down with - wait for it - tax cuts, which would cost three times as much as the current plan because they want the tax cuts to be permanent, which is an even worse stimulus (There's also the point that the Republicans would push more people onto the Alternative Minimum Tax and actually RAISE taxes for the middle class while dropping them for the rich, but that's normal and besides the point I'm trying to make).

So, according to Broder, because a 100% tax rebate didn't work, we have to come up with a "bipartisan" approach that includes the ideas of those who prefer what amounts to a... 100% tax rebate.

This is idiocy, and suggests one of two things: either most of the Beltway is trying to protect the assets of the rich, or they actually don't know the meaning of the word "stimulus." And we are seeing this kind of confusion all over the media. If it's the latter, that's at least partially the fault of the Administration, who isn't doing the best job of explaining why exactly we need fiscal spending to make up the shortfall caused by plummeting consumer spending and private investment.

I can't wait for Broder to start pontificating, as he always does, about how he listens regularly to "ordinary taxpayers." Uh-huh. Sure.

Broder's just repeating the right-wing talking-point du jour, a skill he's perfected over the years. It's vintage Villagespeak: "bipartisanship" means "pretending we're neutral while advancing right-wing tropes."

After all, why shouldn't we incorporate the wisdom inherent in the right-wing geniuses who made this mess? When it comes to the Republican Party, the "best thinking available" -- that is, the thinking enforced by party poobahs and pundits -- can be found from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist.

Maybe David Broder can remind us again exactly why we should listen to them.

Obama's money advantage really has the Beltway Villagers very upset. David Broder comes out and blasts Obama in behalf of his pal John McCain in his new column. Chris Cillizza thinks Broder is EF Hutton so you'd all better listen.

The Dean of the political press corps, Broder has been setting conventional wisdom in campaigns for longer than The Fix has been on earth.

Broder relishes his role of setting the political agenda for our country because to the media----David Broder is their sage, their medicine man---the wise man of all wise men---the clairvoyant that must be heard and obeyed.

David Broder:

"McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes," writes Broder. "His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura. Obama is much newer to most voters, less familiar and more dependent on the impressions he is only now creating."

McCain's aura hasn't been damaged because the beltway gasbags protect their hero. It's that simple. Did Broder talk about McCain's campaign financing problems? Do they report on all his many flip flops in endless loops that wind up dominating the Sunday Talk Shows? Nope, so how will people know what's actually going on if the media puts up their Star Trek force field around their man?

Many of you know I was completely against the idea that Obama should meet McCain in a series of Town Halls. For one thing the TH's can only help McCain. There is no upside for Obama. He can fumble an answer and get looped on the media for days and days.

(Check out the above video to understand why McCain wants to do a series of Town Halls.) Also, the two are so strikingly different that it would water down the stark contrasts between them when the all important presidential debates play out. Then the polls will really be interesting. So---as a winning strategy it would be a mistake for Obama to agree to them. Broder disagrees:

Continue reading »