Golden Tongue President With A Tin Ear!

I often get a lot of responses to what I write from fellow memo readers. I do not post them all but here are a few of recent vintage.

With respect to the response to my friend from his friend about 'clunkers' I would pose: If the "clunker" program is so good why not have the government fund more citizen comforts. We could start with kitchen equipment and appliances that are more energy efficient and lord (Obama) only knows where that could lead. Our economy could be humming with full employment.

And as I recently wrote, Constitutionally speaking, we have a right to demand the government to buy us arms to protect us from the government! (See 1 below.)

Then, is there an actual Constitutional issue regarding health care reform? (See 1a below.)

Outstanding article on Russia and why it is the way it is. A Must read by Richard Pipes! (See 2 below.)

Explanation of 'town hall meetings' and why the public anger. (See 3 below.)

Explaining Arlen Specter's role in supporting Obamascare - he wants to defeat any primary challenge. Being the good political prostitute Specter is, he willingly has aligned himself with Obamascare. (See 3a below.)

An 11 point Obamascare rebuttal by a doctor. You guessed right - we not only don't need it but would also suffer mightily from it. (See 4 below.)

Obama sucks eggs as Ramadam begins. Brothers in arms? (See 5 below.)

Our golden tongue president has a tin ear and The White House - home of the Obama whoppers. No not a baseball team either. (See 6 below.)

Black on black - Bob Herbert, a black op ed writer for the New York Times, goes after Obama. (See 7 below.)

A Blue Dog - Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla. - gets barked at. (See 8 below.)

Excerpt from an article extolling why small is beautiful and beware of bigness. (See 9 below.)



Dick




1) It's quite amazing - but earlier today, with re to today's parsha, I wrote almost exactly the same things you said in the beginning of your last night's comments. Moses tells the people that if they want a king once they're in the promised land, well, it's OK - but make sure the king doesn't amass wealth; instead he should spend time every day copying the LAW, the TORAH! Imagine that! If our leaders spent time copying our Constitution and Declaration, they might actually learn something! they'd have less time and money of ours to waste! they might learn to be succinct! they might learn that the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, & Bill of Rights say it all, in fewer words than any bill passed in the past 50? 100? years.

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Oh yeah! He’s at it again. Turning the Office of the President into an opportunity to travel the globe on a 4-year vacation spree!


Let’s see…this week he was at the Grand Canyon and now he is in Martha’s Vineyard . And I thought we traveled a lot?


Obama bin Travelin’
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We the people are coming

The following letter is rapidly circulating around the country. Americans everywhere identify with this 53-year-old woman. She has given us a voice.



I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represented my views or worked to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.



Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.



Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there?

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello!!! Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why -- what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try -- please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for.. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now. Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the businesss of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same - all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making.



We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington . Our president often knows all the right buzzwords is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work, pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you.



You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured.



They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have canceled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you.



You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired, and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are.



If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep, and we will replace the whole damn Congress if need be, one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

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Cash for Clunkers" hits the trifecta: bad economics, bad science, and bad government.
A....


I couldn't disagree more vehemently, A.....

The above concept is the epitome of conservative, right wing bullshit.

The C4C program has been a huge success. I have a good friend who runs three car dealerships. He has sold more cars in the past two months than he has sold in a year. Most other auto dealers (except Hummer, Jeep, GMC, et al.) have expressed the same situations. The auto industry has hired back thousands of workers to keep up with the demand, their suppliers have hired back hundreds of workers and the finance companies are lending money out. The government has been so overwhelmed by the response that they have had to hire three times as many people to handle the demand and Congress allocated another two billion to keep things going until Monday.

Obama has only been in office for seven months, yet our auto industry has received a booster shot, States have received hundreds of millions for road projects which puts many construction workers back in the field, existing housing sales have had four months of growth (not seen since 2004), our soldiers in Iraq will soon be out of that mire, and there are other situations where progress has clearly been made.

But I do not wear rose colored glasses as there are other situations, Israel and illegal immigrants for example, where things are not quite so clear to me as to whether these situations will turn out to be in this country ' s best interests. Regardless, unbelievable accomplishments by any measure, in such a short period of time for an administration, given the burden and the mess inherited from the previous administration.

Yet although I am still on the sidelines on Obama as you know, because I want to give him a year to see what falls out, conservatives are already calling for his head. How fucked up!

Let's get back to a UNITED States and stop this divisiveness and hatred, which only benefits our enemies. If the conservatives succeed in their mission and our country becomes divided and falls, they will undoubtedly put the blame on Obama instead of looking at their own actions. Congress and citizenry need to act in a sense of brotherhood and take appropriate actions to let the world know that we are still the greatest country in the world... or that phrase will tragically cease to apply.

M......

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then there is: alankeyes.wmv(9318kb)

1a) Illegal Health Reform
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey

President Obama has called for a serious and reasoned debate about his plans to overhaul the health-care system. Any such debate must include the question of whether it is constitutional for the federal government to adopt and implement the president's proposals. Consider one element known as the "individual mandate," which would require every American to have health insurance, if not through an employer then by individual purchase. This requirement would particularly affect young adults, who often choose to save the expense and go without coverage. Without the young to subsidize the old, a comprehensive national health system will not work. But can Congress require every American to buy health insurance?

In short, no. The Constitution assigns only limited, enumerated powers to Congress and none, including the power to regulate interstate commerce or to impose taxes, would support a federal mandate requiring anyone who is otherwise without health insurance to buy it.


Although the Supreme Court has interpreted Congress's commerce power expansively, this type of mandate would not pass muster even under the most aggressive commerce clause cases. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the court upheld a federal law regulating the national wheat markets. The law was drawn so broadly that wheat grown for consumption on individual farms also was regulated. Even though this rule reached purely local (rather than interstate) activity, the court reasoned that the consumption of homegrown wheat by individual farms would, in the aggregate, have a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and so was within Congress's reach.

The court reaffirmed this rationale in 2005 in Gonzales v. Raich, when it validated Congress's authority to regulate the home cultivation of marijuana for personal use. In doing so, however, the justices emphasized that -- as in the wheat case -- "the activities regulated by the [Controlled Substances Act] are quintessentially economic." That simply would not be true with regard to an individual health insurance mandate.

The otherwise uninsured would be required to buy coverage, not because they were even tangentially engaged in the "production, distribution or consumption of commodities," but for no other reason than that people without health insurance exist. The federal government does not have the power to regulate Americans simply because they are there. Significantly, in two key cases, United States v. Lopez (1995) and United States v. Morrison (2000), the Supreme Court specifically rejected the proposition that the commerce clause allowed Congress to regulate noneconomic activities merely because, through a chain of causal effects, they might have an economic impact. These decisions reflect judicial recognition that the commerce clause is not infinitely elastic and that, by enumerating its powers, the framers denied Congress the type of general police power that is freely exercised by the states.

This leaves mandate supporters with few palatable options. Congress could attempt to condition some federal benefit on the acquisition of insurance. States, for example, usually condition issuance of a car registration on proof of automobile insurance, or on a sizable payment into an uninsured motorist fund. Even this, however, cannot achieve universal health coverage. No federal program or entitlement applies to the entire population, and it is difficult to conceive of a "benefit" that some part of the population would not choose to eschew.

The other obvious alternative is to use Congress's power to tax and spend. In an effort, perhaps, to anchor this mandate in that power, the Senate version of the individual mandate envisions that failure to comply would be met with a penalty, to be collected by the IRS. This arrangement, however, is not constitutional either.

Like the commerce power, the power to tax gives the federal government vast authority over the public, and it is well settled that Congress can impose a tax for regulatory rather than purely revenue-raising purposes. Yet Congress cannot use its power to tax solely as a means of controlling conduct that it could not otherwise reach through the commerce clause or any other constitutional provision. In the 1922 case Bailey v. Drexel Furniture, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not impose a "tax" to penalize conduct (the utilization of child labor) it could not also regulate under the commerce clause. Although the court's interpretation of the commerce power's breadth has changed since that time, it has not repudiated the fundamental principle that Congress cannot use a tax to regulate conduct that is otherwise indisputably beyond its regulatory power.

Of course, these constitutional impediments can be avoided if Congress is willing to raise corporate and/or income taxes enough to fund fully a new national health system. Absent this politically dangerous -- and therefore unlikely -- scenario, advocates of universal health coverage must accept that Congress's power, like that of the other branches, has limits. These limits apply regardless of how important the issue may be, and neither Congress nor the president can take constitutional short cuts. The genius of our system is that, no matter how convinced our elected officials may be that certain measures are in the public interest, their goals can be accomplished only in accord with the powers and processes the Constitution mandates, processes that inevitably make them accountable to the American people.

The writers are partners in the D.C. office of Baker Hostetler LLP and served in the Justice Department under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.



2)Pride and Power: Russia is caught between continents and haunted by its past. Richard Pipes on the need to convince a nation to dial back its aggressive tendencies and join the West.
By RICHARD PIPES



Russia is obsessed with being recognized as a "Great Power." She has felt as one since the 17th century, after having conquered Siberia, but especially since her victory in World War II over Germany and the success in sending the first human into space. It costs nothing to defer to her claims to such exalted status, to show her respect, to listen to her wishes. From this point of view, the recent remarks about Russia by Vice President Joe Biden in an interview with this newspaper were both gratuitous and harmful. "Russia has to make some very difficult calculated decisions," he said. "They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years."


These remarks are not inaccurate but stating them publicly serves no purpose other than to humiliate Russia. The trends the vice president described will likely make Russia more open to cooperating with the West, Mr. Biden suggested. It is significant that when our secretary of state tried promptly to repair the damage which Mr. Biden's words had caused, Izvestiia, a leading Russian daily, proudly announced in a headline, "Hillary Clinton acknowledges Russia as a Great Power."

Russia's influence on world affairs derives not from her economic power or cultural authority but her unique geopolitical location. She is not only the world's largest state with the world's longest frontier, but she dominates the Eurasian land mass, touching directly on three major regions: Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. This situation enables her to exploit to her advantage crises that occur in the most populous and strategic areas of the globe. For this reason, she is and will remain a major player in world politics.

Opinion polls indicate that most Russians regret the passing of the Soviet Union and feel nostalgia for Stalin. Of course, they miss not the repression of human rights which occurred under Communism nor the miserable standards of living but the status of their country as a force to be reckoned with: a country to be respected and feared. Under present conditions, the easiest way for them to achieve this objective is to say "no" to the one undeniable superpower, the United States. This accounts for their refusal to deal more effectively with Iran, for example, or their outrage at America's proposal to install rocket defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Their media delight in reporting any negative news about the United States, especially the dollar, which they predict will soon be worthless (even as their central bank holds $120 billion or 30% of its reserves in dollar-denominated U.S. securities).

One unfortunate consequence of the obsession with "great power" status is that it leads Russians to neglect the internal conditions in their country. And here there is much to be done. To begin with: the economy. The Russian aggression against Georgia has cost it dearly in terms of capital flight. Due to the decline in the global prices of energy, which constitute around 70% of Russian exports, exports in the first half of 2009 have fallen by 47%. The stock market, which suffered a disastrous decline in 2008, has recovered, and the ruble has held steady, but the hard currency reserves are melting and the future does not look promising: The latest statistics indicate that Russia's GDP this year will fall by 7%. It is this that has prompted President Dmitry Medvedev recently to demand that Russia carry out a major restructuring of her economy and end her heavy reliance on energy exports. "Russia needs to move forward," he told a gathering of parliamentary party leaders, "and this movement so far does not exist. We are marking time and this was clearly demonstrated by the crisis... as soon as the crisis occurred, we collapsed. And we collapsed more than many other countries."

One of the major obstacles to conducting business in Russia is the all-pervasive corruption. Because the government plays such an immense role in the country's economy, controlling some of its most important sectors, little can be done without bribing officials. A recent survey by Russia's Ministry of the Interior revealed, without any apparent embarrassment, that the average amount of a bribe this year has nearly tripled compared to the previous year, amounting to more than 27,000 rubles or nearly $1,000. To make matters worse, businesses cannot rely on courts to settle their claims and disputes, and in extreme cases resort to arbitration.

The political situation may appear to a foreigner inculcated with Western values as incomprehensible. Democratic institutions, while not totally suppressed, play little role in the conduct of affairs defined by the leading ideologist of the regime as "sovereign democracy." Indeed, President Medvedev has publicly declared his opposition to "parliamentary democracy" on the grounds that it would destroy Russia.

A single party, One Russia, virtually monopolizes power, assisted by the Communists and a couple of minor affiliates. Parliamentary bodies duly pass all bills presented to them by the government. Television, the main source of news for the vast country, is monopolized by the state. One lonely radio station and a few low-circulation newspapers are allowed freedom of expression in order to silence dissident intellectuals. And yet, the population at large seems not to mind this political arrangement—an acquiescence which runs contrary to the Western belief that all people crave the right to choose and direct their government.

The solution of the puzzle lies in the fact that during their 1,000-year old history of statehood, the Russians have virtually never been given the opportunity to elect their government or to influence its actions. As a result of this experience, they have become thoroughly depoliticized. They do not see what positive influence the government can have on their lives: They believe that they have to fend for themselves. Yes, they will gladly accept social services if offered, as they had been under the Soviet government, but they do not expect them. They hardly feel themselves to be citizens of a great state, but confine their loyalties to their immediate families and friends and the locality which they inhabit. From opinion polls it emerges that they believe democracy everywhere to be a sham, that all governments are run by crooks who use their power to enrich themselves. What they demand of the authorities is that they maintain order: when asked what is more important to them—"order" or "freedom"—the inhabitants of the province of Voronezh overwhelmingly expressed preference for "order." Indeed, they identify political freedom, i.e., democracy, with anarchy and crime. Which explains why the population at large, except for the well-educated, urban minority, expresses no dismay at the repression of its political rights.

One aspect of the "great power" syndrome is imperialism. In 1991, Russia lost her empire, the last remaining in the world, as all her colonies, previously disguised as "union republics" separated themselves to form sovereign states. This imperial collapse was a traumatic experience to which most Russians still cannot adjust themselves. The reason for this lies in their history. England, France, Spain and the other European imperial powers formed their empires overseas and did so after creating national states: As a result, they never confused their imperial possessions with the mother country. Hence, the departure of the colonies was for them relatively easy to bear. Not so in the case of Russia. Here, the conquest of the empire occurred concurrently with the formation of the nation-state: Furthermore, there was no ocean to separate the colonies. As a result, the loss of empire caused confusion in the Russians' sense of national identity. They have great difficulty acknowledging that the Ukraine, the cradle of their state, is now a sovereign republic and fantasize about the day when it will reunite with Mother Russia. They find it only slightly less difficult to acknowledge the sovereign status of Georgia, a small state that has been Russian for over two centuries. The imperial complex underpins much of Russia's foreign policy.

These imperial ambitions have received fresh expression from a bill which President Medvedev has submitted in mid-August to parliament. It would revise the existing Law of Defense which authorizes the Russian military to act only in response to foreign aggression. The new law would allow them to act also "to return or prevent aggression against another state" and "to protect citizens of the Russian Federation abroad." It is easy to see how incidents could be provoked under this law that would allow Russian forces to intervene outside their borders.

How does one deal with such a difficult yet weighty neighbor, a neighbor who can cause no end of mischief if it becomes truly obstreperous? It seems to me that foreign powers ought to treat Russia on two distinct levels: one, which takes into consideration her sensitivities; the other, which responds to her aggressiveness.

We are right in objecting strenuously to Russia treating her one-time colonial possessions not as sovereign countries but dependencies lying in her "privileged zone of influence." Even so, we should be aware of their sensitivity to introducing Western military forces so close to her borders. The Russian government and the majority of its citizens regard NATO as a hostile alliance. One should, therefore, be exceedingly careful in avoiding any measures that would convey the impression that we are trying militarily to "encircle" the Russian Federation. After all, we Americans, with our Monroe Doctrine and violent reaction to Russian military penetration into Cuba or any other region of the American continent, should well understand Moscow's reaction to NATO initiatives along its borders.


.This said, a line must be drawn between gentle manners and the hard realities of politics. We should not acquiesce in Russia treating the countries of her "near abroad" as satellites and we acted correctly in protesting last year's invasion of Georgia. We should not allow Moscow a veto over the projected installation of our anti-rocket defenses in Poland the Czech Republic, done with the consent of their governments and meant to protect us against a future Iranian threat. These interceptors and radar systems present not the slightest threat to Russia, as confirmed publicly by Russian general Vladimir Dvorkin, an officer with long service in his country's strategic forces. The only reason Moscow objects to them is that it considers Poland and the Czech Republic to lie within its "sphere of influence."

Today's Russians are disoriented: they do not quite know who they are and where they belong. They are not European: This is attested to by Russian citizens who, when asked. "Do you feel European?" by a majority of 56% to 12% respond "practically never." Since they are clearly not Asian either, they find themselves in a psychological limbo, isolated from the rest of the world and uncertain what model to adopt for themselves. They try to make up for this confusion with tough talk and tough actions. For this reason, it is incumbent on the Western powers patiently to convince Russians that they belong to the West and should adopt Western institutions and values: democracy, multi-party system, rule of law, freedom of speech and press, respect for private property. This will be a painful process, especially if the Russian government refuses to cooperate. But, in the long run, it is the only way to curb Russia's aggressiveness and integrate her into the global community.

Richard Pipes is Frank B. Baird Jr. professor of history, emeritus, at Harvard University. In 1981 and 1982 he served as Director of East European and Soviet Affairs in President Reagan's National Security Council.

3) Explaining the Town-Hall Protests: Our 1.1 million signers include cancer survivors, seniors, and others who are very well informed
By JOHN C. GOODMAN

‘They’re un-American,” says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “They’re spreading lies and distortions,” says senior White House adviser David Axelrod. They are “being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies,” says the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

"They," as you probably guessed, are the concerned citizens who've shown up at town-hall meetings across the country to express their displeasure over what President Barack Obama and the Democrats are about to do to our health-care system. But who are they really? What motivates them? And why are they so angry?

I believe my colleagues and I are in an excellent position to answer those questions. For the past two months the National Center for Policy Analysis (the think tank I run) and Salem Communications (which employees such talk-show hosts as Mike Gallagher, Bill Bennett and Michael Medved) have been sponsoring an online petition at www.freeourhealthcarenow.com for those who wish to express their opposition to nationalized health care. In the process we've collected more than 1.1 million signatures and we're in email communication with many on a weekly basis.

These are a very diverse group of people. Some of them are part of a 40,000-person network of former Obama supporters who are experiencing buyer's remorse. Others are part of various disease networks, including patients concerned about the future of cancer care. There are networks of senior citizens worried about cuts in Medicare and the possible closing of their private Medicare insurance plans. There are Christian conservatives worried about taxpayer-funded abortions and subsidies for euthanasia. And there are an enormous number of people who are simply concerned about their health care.

For the most part, these individuals are not funded or organized by anybody. They really are grass roots. Sure, there may be a few top-down "astroturf" groups and some special-interest groups that are secretly gleeful. But there is no way the kind of spontaneous outpouring we've witnessed could be bought or organized by anyone.

Why are they so angry? The reasons are manifold, but the single biggest reason is the arrogance of our elected officials in Washington. Think about it. For the past seven months a small group of politicians has been meeting behind-closed-doors with powerful special interests to decide whether you will be able to keep your current insurance, where you will be directed to get new insurance and at what price, what fines you and your employer will have to pay if you don't conform, and how they're going to get your doctor to change the way he or she practices medicine. In the process, they never asked you what you thought about anything. If you are not mad about this, odds are you don't understand the situation.

Remember, according to a Fox News poll conducted last month, 84% of Americans rate the quality of their insurance as "excellent" or "good." When they voted for Mr. Obama for president, they thought "universal care" meant helping some unfortunate Americans obtain insurance they cannot otherwise afford. Not once did candidate Obama say he was going to make changes that affected them and their health care. In fact, he promised the opposite.

Nevertheless, the Obama administration is pulling out all the stops for its "public option." While the mainstream media generally fail to cover it, at least once a week a message on health care goes out from the president, his staff, or someone from the DNC to 13 million Americans. These messages convey talking points defending the bills in Congress, attacking points aimed at critics, and suggested "to dos" for the faithful.

To counteract that, my colleagues and I have used talk radio and the Internet to send out counter messages, using material that has previously been posted at John Goodman's Health Policy Blog—where everything is vetted in the clear light of day by policy wonks on the left and the right. We pride ourselves on being accurate and believe we're far more accurate than the White House on the issues.

Indeed, most opponents of ObamaCare are much better informed than is commonly believed. At a typical town-hall meeting, the citizens are usually better versed on the Obama plan than the member of Congress. Some have actually read the 1,000-plus page House bill (HR3200), which most representatives have definitely not read. In my opinion, Mr. Obama is losing the health-care debate because his critics are better informed than his defenders.

He is also losing because of the off-handed way he discusses matters that are deeply personal and very important. For example, it was Mr. Obama—not the critics—who first brought up the issue of giving people less health care. It was the president who mused on whether his grandmother really needed a hip replacement. It was the president who casually said that sometimes "you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the pain killer."

Before the American Medical Association, he told the doctors we have too many tests, too many exams, too much of everything. In an off-the-cuff answer to a question on ABC's nationally televised White House infomercial, the president said we're only talking about people giving up care that is "unnecessary." Yet no patient, no doctor, not even the most liberal person in the country thinks the government can pull that off without a glitch.

In truth, there is a deadly serious issue here: How do you get rid of waste and inefficiency without denying people care they really need? The answer is not easy. No other country has found it. And if the president wants to tackle this challenge he, not his opponents, bears the burden of proof to show how that will work.

Yet far from accepting this responsibility, the White House is ducking the issue. For example, they have chosen to scapegoat the insurance industry, making them out to be the villains in the health-care debate. These are the very same companies that have been negotiating with the administration behind closed doors in good faith, and are even spending millions of dollars on television ads supporting health reform.

The new tactics it is employing show the White House is completely out of touch with the American people. Those who attend town-hall meetings know they are not being organized or funded by anyone. And when the administration attacks their character and their motives and intentionally distorts the truth, it only adds to the anger people already feel.

Mr. Goodman is president of the National Center for Policy Analysis.

3a)Arlen Specter's Dilemma: How the former GOP senator became a salesman for ObamaCare
By KEVIN FERRIS


I'm out there fighting for President Obama's health-care plan, and nobody in the Democratic caucus has been out there with four town-hall meetings. I put my neck on the line. —Sen. Arlen Specter

Pugnacious and aggressive, Arlen Specter has an approach to town-hall meetings that makes for interesting video highlights. One clip on the Web shows him going toe to toe with a constituent who warns him that some day he'll have to account for his decisions in front of God. Voters can also watch him being booed after admitting he doesn't read every page of legislation he votes for and desperately pushing back against a tide of anger by telling jeering constituents to "hold on."

But the line he delivered nearly two weeks ago about defending the president's health-care plans is the most revealing. The senator isn't so much out of touch as he is intent on grabbing hold of health-care reform in hopes of winning his Democratic primary next year.

The next several months will determine whether he is right to believe that close association with an issue popular with core Democrats will save him. But the tide of public opinion has been shifting of late, which poses a potentially dangerous dilemma for the five-term senator in the 2010 general election.

Mr. Specter switched parties in April when polls showed he'd lose the GOP primary to Pat Toomey, a former congressman and president of the Club for Growth. And now conservatives in his former party, upset over Mr. Specter's support of the $787 billion stimulus package and his general agreement with Washington's big spending, have been energetically organizing to take their revenge.

Mr. Toomey's challenge initially caused some angst among Republicans. When he announced in April his plans to run, the GOP was still reeling from November losses and worrying about being too conservative. Mr. Specter was one of the few Republicans still in power northeast of the Mason-Dixon line. Yet in a few short months, polls, fund raising and endorsements have turned in Mr. Toomey's favor. The issues most on voters' minds—spending, taxes, the economy and health care—play to his strengths as well.

Even before the town halls began, Jane Peronteau, a 44-year-old Republican in East Vincent Township, Pa., had "high hopes" for Mr. Toomey. Mr. Specter was a "big disappointment," she told me. "I wasn't a fan of his before, but I voted party." Now she has no plans "whatsoever" to support him.

I interviewed her last month at a picnic sponsored by the Chester County Young Republicans. She and about 80 others turned out to hear Mr. Toomey. Her comments foreshadowed what would be heard in this month's town halls. "I'd like to see a push on economic issues right now," she said. As a libertarian, Ms. Peronteau would also prefer conservatives to ease up on social issues—a common refrain among Republicans outside Philadelphia, including party leaders.

Bob Asher, a national committeeman from southeast Pennsylvania, agrees. He told me, "The party has to moderate to the point where we appeal to people in the suburbs—and we were harmed all over the country, not just in the Philadelphia suburbs."

At the picnic, Mr. Toomey railed against government bailouts and spending on a "breathtaking scale." He warned of coming tax increases, a pending government takeover of health care, and of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow unions to organize employees without secret-ballot elections. He also said that while the Obama agenda is cause for despair for conservatives, it also opens a door for Republicans.

"This lurch to the left is unacceptable to voters, including lots of Democrats and an overwhelming number of independents," he told the crowd. "This wildly ambitious agenda is their Achilles' heel—and our opportunity."

Indeed, what is different this time is that Democrats in Congress are going out of their way to provide grist for Mr. Toomey's mill—cooking up thousand-page, trillion-dollar helpings of reform and bailouts, and pushing health-care legislation that's driving independents into the GOP camp.

The most recent Rasmussen poll shows Mr. Toomey leading Mr. Specter, 48%-36% among likely voters. Just two months ago, Mr. Specter was up, 50%-39%. The same poll has Mr. Toomey beating Mr. Specter's Democratic primary opponent, Congressman Joe Sestak of the 7th district in suburban Philadelphia, in a general election matchup, 43%-35%. In June, Mr. Sestak led Mr. Toomey 41%-35%.

In the second quarter of this year, Mr. Toomey raised $1.6 million, just shy of the $1.73 million raised by Mr. Specter. GOP leaders have taken notice. Last month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee endorsed Mr. Toomey, a switch from its early stand-offishness. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and others encouraged Tom Ridge, the former governor and first director of the federal Department of Homeland Security, to run for the seat. But Mr. Ridge took a pass, and no other serious candidate emerged.

The GOP unity is in part due to Mr. Toomey, who has spent months building bridges within the party, and in part due to the political environment. In 2005, state legislators rammed through a pay raise for themselves that unleashed a torrent of voter hostility, costing some lawmakers their seats in 2006. Now no Republican wants to be on the wrong side of a tax-and-spend issue—which is one reason state senate Republicans killed a Democratic income tax hike this summer.

All of this presents Mr. Specter with a dilemma. To be on the ballot in November, he has to first win over Democratic primary voters who have doubts about his loyalties. He's apparently decided that the best way to burnish his liberal bona fides is to become the face of ObamaCare in the state, in order to win the affection of core liberal Democrats.

What this means, at least for now, is that Messrs. Specter and Sestak will go on pushing each other to the left to win their primary election. Meanwhile, Mr. Toomey is free to focus on his general election campaign by working to unite his party and win over Democrats and independents who are wondering whether all the "change" they are seeing coming out of Washington is good for their pocketbooks, or the nation's economic future.

Mr. Ferris is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

4) Obamacare-Point and Counterpoint
By Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D.

Mr. Obama has gone back on the campaign trail to try to sell his health care reform to the nation. Mostly hand-picked, sympathetic attendees have been showing up to his town hall meetings. He continues to make the same points regarding health care reform, which need to be addressed specifically. I hope to address more in future articles.

1. We need health care reform.
We do not need health care reform. We have the best health care system in the world. We need health insurance reform.


2. Free market health insurance has caused our current problem.
It is the government that has caused the current problem. We have not had free market health insurance in this country since 1965. It is not possible to consider our system of medical payment free market when the government controls $.60 of every dollar spent on health care.


3. The evil and greedy health insurance companies have caused prices to skyrocket.
Again, it's the government that has caused prices to skyrocket. Medicare and Medicaid are the 800 pound gorilla and insurance companies are the fleas on the gorilla. Nothing can be done by the private insurance companies that has not been done by Medicare and Medicaid. The federal government opens the door and the private insurance companies follow. It is the government manipulation of the free market that has caused our current health insurance problem. The out of control medical costs in Britain and Canada, as well as in Massachusetts and other states that have tried government health care prove this point.


4. Nearly 50 million Americans are without health care.
Nearly 13 million Americans are without health insurance. No one in the United States is without health care. Government regulations prohibit patients from being turned away from hospitals, which must provide medical care to anyone. The huge number that the Obama administration has used is highly inflated.


5. A government option will lower costs and improve quality of care.
A government option will increase costs and reduce quality of care. In every instance so far government involvement in medical services has caused prices to increase. Medicare spending has increased at a rate greater than 10 times that which was projected. Medicare and Medicaid will be broke in less than nine years. Adding another entitlement program will cause economic disaster. The Congressional Office of Management and Budget has stated that the president's plan is unaffordable. Further, the necessary rationing in order to even begin the program will reduce quality of care.


6. If you like your insurance and your doctor you can keep them.
The same things were said at the inception of Medicare. Medicare was supposed to be a supplemental insurance plan for retired people. It now covers the disabled as well and those over the age of 65, who are now ineligible for any other type of primary medical insurance. The government option will become the only option. Therefore, it's not an option and in the end hospitals, doctors, and all health care companies will be working directly and only for the government.


7. Government medical insurance is more cost efficient.
Government medical insurance is less efficient. The government, by force of law, transfers administrative costs to the private sector. Hospitals and doctors' offices must assume the burden of administration under threat of criminal penalty. This unfunded administrative burden transferred to private individuals and private insurance is then added to the cost of the supposedly free-market healthcare system.


8. The government option is necessary in order to prevent loss of insurance by individuals with medical problems.
Government regulations make it mandatory for hospitals to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay. The government can certainly pass a simple regulation making it illegal for medical insurance plans to be canceled due to illness on the part of the insured. This would be a simple solution but of course would not increase government control over our lives.


9. The government option would ensure treatment for sick individuals who would otherwise have lost health care insurance. It would prevent lifetime limits on medical care.
This is blatantly untrue. There are definitive limits to Medicare that are not being publicized. For example, a review of Medicare regulations shows it will pay up to a maximum of 90 days in the hospital for each medical incident. After that, a patient must be in a rehabilitation facility for 60 days in a row in order for Medicare to begin another cycle of payment. Similarly, there are limits on most other Medicare services. While private medical insurance may have a total lifetime limit on the amount that can be spent, there is almost never a limit on the number of days in the hospital.


10. A government option will not result in rationing.
The major government options already in existence employ rationing every day. Prohibitively difficult preauthorization, statements of medical necessity, convoluted and complicated paperwork, and often impossible to meet requirements result in rationing on a huge scale. Furthermore, delay in payment, denial of payment for services already rendered and other tactics reduce access to medical care on a widespread basis. The government may not call this rationing but it is an insidious form of rationing that will be an integral part of any government plan. Medicare misuses and abuses its funding and is guilty of literally stealing from hospitals and physicians.


As an example of this thievery, due to a change in the corporate status of my practice I was required to apply for a new national provider identification number (NPI) in March of this year. Within several weeks, without exception, all of the private insurance companies had registered the number and were paying on claims. After five months and exhaustive work of over 140 hours by my office staff Medicare and Medicaid had still not paid on a single claim. Finally, on August 14, Medicare made their first payment on claims that were five months old. Yet, if we do not bill Medicare within three months of the date of service, Medicare will not pay us at all. Government regulation and control permeates the entire medical system.


11. A government option will simplify the payment for medical services.
The government has always made things more complicated and expensive. This is part of their rationing system. The government has a habit of requiring new provider numbers every couple of years that must be used for all claims, including private insurance claims. When these are instituted, payment can be delayed for as long as six months. To see how "simple" the federal government makes medical claims, what follows are my required identification numbers.


UPIN #G16766


OMAP#079496


Medicare#R0000BLCGY (PTAN) OLD


Medicare # R147304


(PTAN) **NEW** R147303


Railroad Medicare#110162014


NEW Tax ID # 264520277


OLD Tax ID# 911768627


DEA # BRxxxxxxx (Hidden to prevent use)


Clia# 38D0933946


NPI# 1306924691 (individual)


NPI Group # 1235371485


Every point the president has made regarding his health plan is either a gross misrepresentation or an outright lie. The purpose of this plan is to ensure dependence on government and a financial windfall for his cronies, including trial lawyers, and has nothing to do with concern about the cost of medical care or about the health or lives of American citizens.

5)Obama marks beginning of Ramadan: US president records video message promising to forge new relationship between US and Muslims

President Barack Obama on Friday paid homage to the Muslim Ramadan and cast US military efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of his drive to forge a new relationship between America and the Muslim world.


Defense establishment to ease restrictions on West Bank population during month of Ramadan, which begins Saturday. Troops instructed to refrain from eating, drinking and smoking in public



In a video message to Muslims getting ready for the Islamic holy month, Obama said US efforts to end the war in Iraq and to isolate extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan are in keeping with America's responsibility to build a more peaceful and secure world.



He said that also includes US support for a two-state solution recognizing the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security.



"All of these efforts are part of America's commitment to engage Muslims and Muslim-majority nations on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect," Obama said in the message posted on the White House Web site. "And at this time of renewal, I want to reiterate my commitment to a new beginning between America and Muslims around the world."



Ramadan, a monthlong period of prayer, reflection and sunrise-to-sunset fasts, begins Saturday in most of the Islamic world.



Obama said Ramadan's rituals are a reminder of the principles Muslims and Christians have in common, including advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.



Obama has made a special effort since taking office to repair U.S. relations with the world's Muslims, including visits to Turkey and Cairo. Obama's visit to the Egyptian capital in June fulfilled his promise to deliver a speech in a major Muslim city.



In that speech, as well as in one to another important Muslim audience, in Turkey, Obama said: "America is not, and never will be, at war with Islam."

6) Death of a Salesman: The more Obama talks about health care, the lower his approval rating goes.
By Fred Barnes


Between July 20 and July 30, President Obama was a busy man, barely out of the public eye while campaigning furiously for his health care initiative. He did four town hall events, spoke at two hospitals, delivered a radio address, was interviewed on two network TV news shows, and held a prime time press conference--all devoted to promoting his health care plan. On this issue as on no other, Obama personally took his case to the people.

Something else occurred during that time frame. The president's job approval rating fell 9 points, from 61 percent to 52 percent in the Gallup Poll. This was an unusually precipitous decline from which Obama hasn't recovered. In mid-August, after more weeks of barnstorming for his health care program, his approval rating remained in the low 50s. Only Bill Clinton among recent presidents had a lower approval after seven months in office.

For Obama, there's still worse news. Not only has he lost ground, but public support for his health care proposal has collapsed to the point that a majority of Americans prefer no reform at all to his plan. And the more he stumps for it, the less support it attracts. Rather than a peripheral phenomenon, the noisy opposition in congressional town hall meetings turns out to be a reflection of the deep national suspicion of Obamacare.

Two conclusions are inescapable. The first is that Obama is not Mr. Persuasive, a compelling orator like FDR, swaying public opinion with his words. Quite the contrary, he has failed to sustain public backing for his economic stimulus package, his decision to shut down Guantánamo, his proposed spending, the takeover of General Motors, bailouts in general, and now health care reform.

Health care is the big one for Obama, his signature program, the one that's most far-reaching and politically important. It's the real test of Obama. If he can't persuade the country to back it--and so far he's failed miserably--then he's not the spellbinding speaker or the master politician he's been cracked up to be. Yet the media won't acknowledge his failures. In the Washington Post on August 15, reporter Michael D. Shear wrote that Obama's "popularity and powers of persuasion may well make him the reform effort's most effective spokesman." If Shear is correct, then Obamacare is dead.

There's a corollary. The impulse at the White House to rely on Obama as salesman-in-chief, to put him on the road, is surely mistaken. For him, the bully pulpit has limited utility. In fact, presidential scholar George C. Edwards III argued in his book On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit that presidential speechmaking no longer moves public sentiment.

The second conclusion to draw is that Obama has been dragged down by his health care policy. The more he's identified himself with it, the less the public likes him. There's nothing irrational about this. Why should people without a partisan allegiance to Obama hang with him when they dislike his signature policy? There's no good reason.

Besides, it shows the public is paying serious attention to a national issue. This doesn't happen often. Democrats and Obamaphiles may not like the drift of the debate over health care, but it was Obama who prompted it. Now it's exposed his lack of persuasiveness.

What's wrong with Obama's rhetoric on health care? For one thing, he's lost control of his own message. He's all over the lot, one day zinging health insurers, the next blaming Republicans for impeding his plan, a day later suggesting that God wants his health care bill to pass Congress. More often than not, he plays defense, responding to what he says are false notions about his plan.

Yet his basic pitch is stale and uninteresting. You could argue this isn't true for the people at his town halls far from Washington. But you'd be wrong. He's been on TV so much that the folks who came to see him in New Hampshire, Montana, and Colorado--states he visited in mid-August--had already heard his spiel, probably more than once. Even some in the press won't stand for it anymore. They've finally begun to take note of the dubious assertions he repeats over and over and over.

He's suffering from a hardy perennial of presidential ailments: overexposure. Obama had four prime time press conferences in his first six months. George W. Bush had four in eight years. FDR, who actually was a great communicator, delivered fireside chats on radio every five or six months.

In our televised age, the public quickly grows tired of political leaders. When Obama spent a half inning in the broadcast booth at the baseball All-Star game in St. Louis on July 14, he was pressing his luck. Americans routinely boo politicians when they're introduced at sports events, where they don't belong. This is a healthy habit that Obama and his entourage may be unaware of.

Being president isn't easy. A candidate can get away with speeches that are glib and vague. A president can't. "It's easy to sell ice cream," says Don Stewart, the spokesman for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. "It's hard to sell rum raisin ice cream." Obama's problem is he hasn't learned the difference.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

6a) Obama's Health Care Whopper is Bigger
By Robert Robb

Health care reform supporters claim they are losing public support because of lies and distortions told by opponents designed to scare people.

There's some of that going on. But the most consequential misrepresentation in the health care debate is actually being told by President Barack Obama and other supporters.

The lie supporters most resent, and with good reason, is that the health care reform bills have death panels or provisions to encourage euthanasia for the old and infirmed. Instead, there was a provision to provide end-of-life counseling services.

There's reason to doubt that government should be paying for or involved in such services, but the country needs to continue to have a grown-up discussion about end-of-life issues. The hospice movement is one of the most blessed developments of our time, allowing people to die with dignity in their own homes rather than in an impersonal, and expensive, hospital bed.

The old and infirmed have reason for worry about health care reform, however. One of the premises of the effort is that the amount of overall health care expenditures in this country is a concern for the federal government. Virtually all the countries that are supposedly our betters in containing health care costs limit access to some medical procedures on the basis of age and infirmity.

There are not explicit provisions for such rationing in the current health care reform bills. But there are the mechanisms put in place - government panels to determine benefit packages and medical cost-effectiveness - for such. Moreover, the bills don't fundamentally change the economic incentives driving costs - third-party payers for even routine expenses - so rationing is the only practical way cost-containment will happen.

The alleged distortion that most concerns supporters is that the Obama reform constitutes "government-run" health care. Obama protests that's not true. He has a point, but not much of one.

The heart of the Obama reform, supported by virtually all congressional Democrats, is to treat health insurance companies as national public utilities. The federal government would determine the benefit packages they could offer. Pricing decisions would be strictly limited and profits capped.

An essential element of the reform is also a mandate that people purchase health insurance. If the federal government is requiring people to purchase health insurance, you can bet that politicians and bureaucrats will increasingly treat health insurance companies as federal subsidiaries, feeling free, even obligated, to meddle in every aspect of what they do.

And then there is the public option, which would be government-run health care. The notion that such an entity can exist without the government showing such favoritism that private competitors eventually die out defies logic and history.

So, the accurate way to frame the opposition point is that the Democrats are proposing extensive government control of health care, which may lead to government-run health care.

The most consequential misrepresentation in the health care debate is when Obama and other supporters claim that if people like their doctor and their insurance plan, they will get to keep them. The reason for the heavy stress on that reassurance is the belief that health care reform that jeopardizes what people currently have isn't going anywhere.

The promise is false, however, even by the terms of the committee bills. Existing plans are grandfathered in, but only for five years. After that, they have to meet the new federal mandates, whatever they turn out to be. In the interim, they can accept no new enrollees.

More fundamentally, the Obama reforms completely scramble the health care market. There will be new governmental mandates, huge new individual subsidies and different tax treatments. What employers will offer after everything is scrambled up and resettles is entirely unknowable.

Simply put, the health care coverage people currently have would be subject to considerable change. An honest health care debate would acknowledge that.

7) Voices of Anxiety
By BOB HERBERT


Barack Obama is a guy who is easy to underestimate. Six years ago hardly anyone outside of Illinois had ever heard of him. Now he’s America’s first Zen-master president.

On Thursday, he made a jocular reference to the tendency of pundits and others to declare periodically that he’s off his game and headed for disaster. He noted that in August 2008, with his poll numbers wavering and the Republicans energized by the addition of Sarah Palin to the national ticket, a lot of people were convinced that, as he put it, “Obama’s lost his mojo.”

“You remember all that?” he asked, smiling. “There is something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up.”

Wee-weed up? I don’t know what that means, but the president seemed pretty relaxed when he said it. This was the same day that he went on a radio program and did his Joe Namath routine, guaranteeing that health care reform would get done.

The president may be sanguine, but the same cannot be said of the general public, including some of Mr. Obama’s most ardent supporters. The American people are worried sick over the economy, which may be sprouting green shoots from Ben Bernanke’s lofty perspective but not from the humble standpoint of the many millions who are unemployed, or those who are still working but barely able to pay their bills and hold onto their homes.

This is the reality that underlies the anxiety over the president’s ragged effort to achieve health care reform. Forget the certifiables who are scrawling Hitler mustaches on pictures of the president. Many sane and intelligent people who voted for Mr. Obama and sincerely want him to succeed have legitimate concerns about the timing of this health reform initiative and the way it is unfolding.

The president has not made it clear to the general public why health care reform is his top domestic priority when the biggest issue on the minds of most Americans is the economy. Men and women who once felt themselves to be securely rooted in the middle or upper middle classes are now struggling with pay cuts, job losses and home foreclosures — and they don’t feel, despite the rhetoric about the recession winding down, that their prospects are good.

People worried about holding on to their standard of living need to be assured, unambiguously, that an expensive new government program is in their — and the country’s — best interest. They need to know exactly how the program will work, and they need to be confident that it’s affordable.

Mr. Obama, who has a command of the English language like few others, has been remarkably opaque about his intentions regarding health care. He left it up to Congress to draft a plan and he has not gotten behind any specific legislation. He has seemed to waffle on the public option and has not been at all clear about how the reform that is coming will rein in runaway costs. At times it has seemed as though any old “reform” would be all right with him.

It’s still early, but people are starting to lose faith in the president. I hear almost daily from men and women who voted enthusiastically for Mr. Obama but are feeling disappointed. They feel that the banks made out like bandits in the bailouts, and that the health care initiative could become a boondoggle. Their biggest worry is that Mr. Obama is soft, that he is unwilling or incapable of fighting hard enough to counter the forces responsible for the sorry state the country is in.

More and more the president is being seen by his own supporters as someone who would like to please everybody, who is naïve about the prospects for bipartisanship, who believes that his strongest supporters will stay with him because they have nowhere else to go, and who will retreat whenever the Republicans and the corporate crowd come after him.

People want more from Mr. Obama. They want him to be their champion. But they don’t feel that he is speaking to them in a language that they understand. He is seen as more comfortable speaking the Wall Street lingo. People don’t feel that the voices of anxiety are being heard.

Maybe they’re wrong. Maybe the economy really is turning around. Maybe Mr. Obama is working on a bipartisan deal that will take us a few small steps down the road to real health care reform.

It’s possible that we’ve been without mature leadership for so long that it’s difficult to recognize it when we see it. Mr. Obama has proved the naysayers wrong time and again. But if it turns out that this time he’s wrong, hold onto your hats. Because right now there is no Plan B.

8) I'venever seen anything like this'
By: Jonathan Martin



Rep Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) is a skilled politician who has pretty much seen it all — a Deep South Democrat who’s managed to dispatch all opponents in his conservative-leaning Panhandle district since winning election in 1996.

But as he fended off gnats buzzing through the August humidity after a morning fending off angry constituents at a town hall meeting here, Boyd confided that the depth of the unease spurred by the health care debate had caught him by surprise.

“They may be in a minority, but they are a larger minority than we’ve seen in the 20-plus years that I’ve been doing this,” said Boyd of the standing-room-only crowds who have been showing up to shout, boo, mutter and, in one case, hand him an actual stack of pink slips since he returned home for recess. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The overhyped and in many cases fraudulent sense of grass-roots fervor during an August Democrats would like to forget is easy to minimize. But for all the cries of Astroturf fakery and ginned-up crowds, a ground zero view in a district like Boyd’s underlines that a very real sense of anger and frustration is bubbling over as summer wanes.

A visit to Florida’s 2nd District also is a bracing case study in the mounting political peril some Blue Dogs like Boyd may be facing. Boyd acknowledged that after coasting to victory in a string of elections, including when a popular President George W. Bush was on top of the ticket in 2004 and national Republicans actively plotted his ouster, he may face a real threat next year at the polls.

And his candor is borne out of his own up-close view from the past three weeks. While some of his colleagues took refuge in constituent-free codels and undisclosed private meetings, Boyd plunged headlong into a series of public forums throughout his district and discovered the sort of public unrest that doesn’t come around very often.

“People are scared,” Boyd said twice, trying to explain what would drive his constituents away from home and work and out into the broiling Florida sun in the middle of the week to see their congressman.

It’s health care that has spurred the now-familiar images of conservatives protesting and interrupting town hall meetings during this summer of discontent. But two days of witnessing town hall meetings in north Florida small towns also made clear that the issue is only the spark behind a host of resentments and anxieties.

The disquiet among conservatives and some independents began with the collapse of the economy and subsequent bailouts last fall. It increased with the election of President Barack Obama and then spiked after he took office. The shorthand, heard here repeatedly and always in disgust, usually includes references to: stimulus, more bailouts, bonuses, cap and trade and now health care.

John Webb, a retiree from the small village of Woods, said after a Boyd town hall meeting in the county seat town of Bristol that he thought the country is headed in the wrong direction — and he wasn’t alone.

“I go to church. I hear it at church. They’re just afraid. They don’t trust this administration,” Webb said.

Exactly why is tougher to pin down, but it often returns to the same litany, a mix of conservative and populist frustrations. Webb cited the stimulus before wondering in his next breath: “I don’t understand how a company can fail and then the head of that company gets a $3 or $4 million bonus.”


Observed Randy Mackey, a former Democratic state legislator from nearby Lake City who came to Boyd’s Bristol meeting: “They think, ‘I didn’t get a stimulus package, nobody bailed me out.’ ”

While Boyd’s district includes the student and state worker-filled city of Tallahassee — a Democratic enclave — much of it is rural and deeply conservative, indistinguishable from nearby south Georgia and Alabama. This is the Florida where pine trees meet palms, the convenience stores sell live bait and sweet tea is always an option.

Add in Republican-leaning retirees and locals in Gulf towns such as Panama City, and it makes for tough terrain for a Democrat who is more moderate than his national party.

Boyd has made his standing more difficult by voting for the stimulus and the energy bill — or as one local derided the latter at the town hall in Marianna: “tap-and-crap.”

Now he’s faced with what may be one of the most consequential votes of his congressional career. On the left, Boyd faces a primary challenge from an African-American state senator from Tallahassee who is already calling health care a top issue.

And on the right he’s staring at the likes of Francis Kellison of Marianna, a Republican who said he had previously supported Boyd.

But Kellison — who thinks Obama is a “radical” — said now he may vote against the incumbent.

“I don’t like health care, I don’t like cap and trade, I didn’t approve of the bailout bills,” he explained after the meeting in his hometown.

Boyd, a farmer and former state senator, is the picture of the charming Southern pol, quick to place his hand on a shoulder and faster still to repeat the first name of the person he’s talking to.

He has used these skills to keep his town hall meetings, though spirited, free of the sort of vitriolic rancor that has taken place elsewhere.

“People in north Florida are polite and courteous,” he said by way of reminder at the start of the Marianna meeting. “We're going to show the rest of the country a little bit about Southern hospitality and Southern manners.”

Just in case playing on regional sensibilities didn’t work, Boyd also took the precautionary step of having his questioners walk to the front of the room, introduce themselves and then stand next to him both for their questions and his answers all while he held the microphone like a genial game show host.

“One of the things I’ve learned in life is if I get up close to you and know you better, I’m less likely to yell at you,” he shared afterward about his strategy.

And in a district with a significant population of seniors, retired military and state workers, Boyd also slyly reminded many of his constituents that they were already dependent on the dreaded state for their health care coverage. He did this by asking every questioner what their health care plan was until one man in Marianna wised up to the technique and pre-emptively said it wasn’t any of the congressman’s business.

So Boyd prevented any YouTube moments, but the civility was often strained. He frequently had to hold his finger to his lip to hush the crowds as scowling sheriff's deputies and police officers looked on.

At events in Bristol and Marianna, the crowds were overwhelmingly composed of those opposed to health care reform and wary of government in general. And in a district that is more than 20 percent African-American, the audiences were also overwhelmingly white.


Veteran politician that he is, Boyd had answers at the ready for all the familiar questions.

No, he said when it was brought up four separate times in Bristol, illegal immigrants won’t get government health care in the new legislation.

On the stimulus, he noted the infusion of local dollars to bolster school budgets and pay for infrastructure ($24 million alone for Marianna’s Jackson County).

As for the energy bill, he recalled last summer’s soaring gas prices to make the point that something has to be done before segueing into the benefits the legislation would have for rural electric co-ops (Boyd’s own father, he made sure to point out, offered up a right of way on their family farm to help electrify their county).

These answers didn’t allay the restive crowds, nor did his response on health care. Boyd repeatedly cited four principles on health care — choice, reduce overall costs, offer access to the uninsured and deficit neutrality — but wouldn’t go much further.

But he did reflect the increasing unease of moderate Democrats with the issue, in Marianna holding up hefty H.R. 3200 — the primary bill in the House — and proclaiming to applause that he would not support it as is.

He also told crowds that the public option was probably unlikely, that he would prefer the process to slow down and was open to a more incremental approach.

And in an effort at reassurance in Marianna, he urged the audience to pay attention to the Senate Finance Committee, the only relevant committee in either chamber that has yet to move a bill and the one that is most inclined toward a centrist approach.

“Wherever we end up will be more like what they're doing, anyway,” Boyd said.

While eyebrow-raising to a visitor from Washington, such comments mattered little to a crowd that included the likes of Jim Peacock, a retired Secret Service agent from Grand Ridge.

“We don’t want the government in our health care, period,” Peacock said, before allowing that he was OK with Medicare and Medicaid only to take care of the elderly.

There were proponents of reform, including Louis Hatos, a retired technology worker for the state whose monthly premiums have soared to $1,127 a month — over half the amount of his pension.

“I want to know what in the world they’re going to do about reining in the cost of health insurance,” Hatos complained on his way out of the Bristol meeting, where his raised hand never got Boyd’s attention.

With a mix of frustration and resignation, Hatos shook his head when asked about fellow citizens who were more interested in illegal immigrants getting access than their own struggles with coverage.

“Ignorance,” was his explanation. “They’re on Medicare, they’re at the VA.”

But the voices of Hatos were, often literally, drowned out by opponents, some of whom who came to vent.

“They want to take over our life,” insisted Elaine Thompson just minutes before she shoved a stack of signed pink slips and a copy of the Constitution in Boyd’s hands.

Wearing a shirt that read “Concerned American Patriots” on the front and “Wake Up America” on the back, Thompson, of Marianna, said the White House was being run using “Chicago terrorism.”

“Saul Salinsky is their mentor,” she replied when asked to explain what she meant, misstating the name of leftist community organizer Saul Alinsky, who is often cited by talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. “They are controlling what’s happening in this country.”

After his summer recess, Allen Boyd may disagree.

9) Beware blind faith in bigness
By Christopher Caldwell


If there is a slogan or catchphrase that sums up the way the world’s mind has changed in the past year, it is “too big to fail”. When governments rushed to the aid of failing financial institutions last autumn, everyone sensed there was something wrong with the way our societies and economies were organised. For a while, the world appeared to have rediscovered a lot of age-old wisdom about hubris and excess. Yet we have lost the sense that big institutions can be a problem even when they are not failing. Managing bigness is always a problem because big companies, big organisations, big political units, tend to narrow the individual initiative of those who belong to them.

Montesquieu thought about the ideal size of countries, Tolstoy championed handicrafts over the mechanisation of the railway age, and the American jurist Louis Brandeis identified a “curse of bigness” in the finance industry that seems eternal and insoluble. But the thinker whose name is most often linked to these matters was probably E.F. Schumacher, who in 1973 published the classic work on the size of institutions, Small Is Beautiful.