Right Wing Nut House

Yes, it’s way too early to make any predictions, but then, pollsters and pundits wouldn’t have anything to write about which means they’d be out of a job for a year or so.

Actually, the value of predictions today is relevant to the current political debate over health care. Leading analysts who gauge the mood of the public on a month to month, even week to week basis, see outliers that may - or may not - be indicative of trends.

Trends represent long term outlooks rather than the “snapshot” that polls generally give us. Get enough snapshots of how people are thinking, and you can trace how people are feeling about an issue on a graph. That’s the essence of strategic polling and politicians - even this far out from the 2010 election - ignore the information at their own peril.

So when several of the best analysts in the industry examine the trendlines, as well as the 50-60 congressional districts where vulnerable members from both parties are fighting to remain in office, they put two and two together and come up with scenarios for the election based on science, their own experience, and hunches born out of their insights gleaned over many years of watching politics.

What these pollsters are seeing does not bode well for the Democrats as explained by Josh Kraushaar of Politico:

After an August recess marked by raucous town halls, troubling polling data and widespread anecdotal evidence of a volatile electorate, the small universe of political analysts who closely follow House races is predicting moderate to heavy Democratic losses in 2010.

Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House - not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.

Nate Silver, an unconventional but deadly accurate pollster who runs the must read site 538.com - and a Democratic consultant - managed to scare the beejeebees out of liberals at the recently concluded Netroots convention:

At the mid-August Netroots Nation convention, Nate Silver, a Democratic analyst whose uncannily accurate, stat-driven predictions have made his website 538.com a must read among political junkies, predicted that Republicans will win between 20 and 50 seats next year. He further alarmed an audience of progressive activists by arguing that the GOP has between a 25 and 33 percent chance of winning back control of the House.

“A lot of Democratic freshmen and sophomores will be running in a much tougher environment than in 2006 and 2008 and some will adapt to it, but a lot of others will inevitably freak out and end up losing,” Silver told POLITICO. “Complacency is another factor: We have volunteers who worked really hard in 2006 and in 2008 for Obama but it’s less compelling [for them] to preserve the majority.”

Is Silver being an alarmist or is there really a 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 chance that the GOP can pull off a shocker?

If history is any guide, Nate may have something there. Opposition gains in off year elections are a tradition in American politics with the party out of power winning back seats in 10 of the last 12 such elections. (The average gain has been about 13 seats).

But realistically, there would have to be a huge backlash - even bigger than 1994 - for Republicans to regain control of the House. The re-election rate for modern gerrymandered congressional districts tops 98% and the GOP would have to knock that percentage down to 90% in order to gain back the House.

A tall order, that. But the Democrats did it in 2006. And given the volatility of the current political climate, it is not beyond imagining, although Silver’s estimate of Republican chances to regain control is not shared by other seasoned pros.

I think that Nate is being deliberately provocative. The stars would have to align just right for a GOP takeover of the House to materialize. A perfect storm of failed health care reform, a double dip recession, and perhaps higher than expected inflation could combine to cause the kind of collapse in the political fortunes of Democrats that would give the GOP control of the House. I would place the chances of this occurring somewhere between “Impossible” and “Highly Improbable” - say, from zero to 5%.

If the economy improves faster and better than expected, that would alter the trends and Democratic losses may be held to a minimum. There are a lot of variables there as well, but I would put the chances of that happening slightly higher than a GOP takeover; say, 5-10%.

But most analysts - even Democratic ones - see the possibility 14 months from election day, that Republican gains could top the average of 13 seats by as much as a factor of 2. That seems reasonable to me - especially given the number of very vulnerable Democrats who won in 2006 and 2008 in districts normally carried by Republican presidential candidates.

Another factor that is an unknown will be congressional retirements. The GOP had 29 members leave office more or less voluntarily in 2006 (4 members declined to run because of ethics problems), and the Democrats captured all of them. We’ll have a better idea of who might be leaving after the first of the year.

As for the senate, I would say GOP chances of a takeover are even less than the House; say, between a “Cosmic Impossibility” and “When Hell Freezes Over.” And that’s being optimistic.

Seriously, the Republicans have too many seats to defend and not enough vulnerable Democrats to have a chance for an upset. Even if the Perfect Storm Scenario laid out above plays out, winning 11 seats is just too steep a hill to climb. If the GOP can gain 3-4 seats - still a tall order - they could consider the election a success.

But if the current trends showing double digit gains for Republicans in the House and those modest gains in the Senate play out, it would put the GOP in position to make a realistic run for control in 2012 when a winning president’s coattails can make the difference.

It would still be a long shot - I’m thinking that the first real chance for the GOP to regain control is in 2014 if Obama is re-elected and 2016 if a Republican wins in 2012 - but given the eye-popping deficits Obama will be running, anything is possible.

As my regular readers know, I have written in the past that I believe the actions of the Bush Administration in authorizing torture broke American and international law and some accounting is necessary in order for us to confront what the government did in our name.

I will not rehash the arguments for and against torture. Suffice it to say, I reject the notion that the ends justifies the means for a variety of reasons, and that I believe those who are sincere in their support of Dick Cheney’s rationale for “enhanced interrogation techniques” have lost sight of one of the things that makes us an exceptional nation; our respect and reverence for the rule of law.

That said, I have also rejected the idea of torture prosecutions - not because I believe the guilty should get off scott free but because any reasonable and fair minded person looking at the matter knows that the administration believed they were acting in the best interests of the nation, and that they honestly believed they had finessed the treaties and statutes by their stretched, and ultimately legally incorrect justifications for torture. Was it wrong for the Bushies to try to extend a fig leaf of legality over what turned out to be serious violations of domestic law and international agreements? I believe they felt they had little choice. To my mind, that doesn’t make it right, nor am I convinced (nor are interrogation experts) that non-torture techniques couldn’t have elicited the same information.

Yes, torture was probably responsible for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed spilling some secrets. But what we’ll never know is if the professional interrogators would have been able to break him down using legal methods. Rejecting the “ticking bomb scenario” as unrealistic, I and many others - including many in the military and intelligence communities who interrogate for a living - have come to the conclusion that the plots broken up because of our waterboarding KSM would probably have been foiled using perfectly legal means of interrogation.

But this doesn’t answer the question about prosecuting or not prosecuting offenders - including high level officials who ordered underlings to break the law. Fred Hiatt, writing in WaPo today, has a thoughtful, but ultimately flawed analysis and recommendation:

On the one hand, this is a nation of laws. If torture violates U.S. law — and it does — and if Americans engaged in torture — and they did — that cannot be ignored, forgotten, swept away. When other nations violate human rights, the United States objects and insists on some accounting. It can’t ask less of itself.

Yet this is also a nation where two political parties compete civilly and alternate power peacefully. Regimes do not seek vengeance, through the courts or otherwise, as they succeed each other. Were Obama to criminally investigate his predecessor for what George W. Bush believed to be decisions made in the national interest, it could trigger a debilitating, unending cycle.

By attempting to navigate between these two principles, Obama has satisfied neither. Last week his administration took another step down a path of investigation and recrimination, without coming any closer to truth-telling or justice as most Americans would understand it.

Even with the best of intentions - and I do not grant the Obama administration that desire based on the rank partisanship they have demonstrated from top to bottom - any prosecution would necessarily be perceived as being politically motivated. The same holds true for any congressional hearings. The idea that the Democrats could conduct anything approaching non-partisan, or at least fair hearings on this issue, involving the Bushies, is laughable. The pressure on Democrats in Congress to turn the hearings into an inquisition from their rabid, partisan base would be overwhelming.

Hiatt suggests a presidential commission:

There is a better, though not perfect, solution, one that the administration reportedly considered, rejected and should consider again: a high-level, respected commission to examine the choices made in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, and their consequences.

Such a commission would investigate not just the Bush administration but the government, including Congress. It would give former vice president Dick Cheney a forum to make his case on the necessity of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” It would examine the efficacy of such techniques, if any, and the question of whether, even if they work, waterboarding and other methods long considered torture ever can be justified.

Some on the left would object because the goal would not be prosecution and punishment; as in South Africa, amnesty might be promised in exchange for truth-telling. Some on the right, and some in government now, would worry about damaging national security with public airing and rehashing of past misdeeds.

Hiatt bases the idea for this commission on what he believes is a pre-requisite for such a body to be effectve: that “the two political parties compete civilly…” I don’t know where Mr. Hiatt has been spending his days these last couple of decades but it certainly hasn’t been in Washington if he truly believes what he wrote.

There is no civility between the parties. It is all out partisan warefare on any and every issue of consequence - and usually on trivialities as well. Both sides blame the other for this state of affairs, which would be amusing in any other context. The parties are locked in a death grip, driven to hold on with bulldog tenacity by their rabid, uncompromising, unforgiving bases of support whose influence is all out of proportion to their numbers.

But these hysterical party men are also their most reliable voters, as well as being a significant source of volunteer campaign help, and a wellspring of donations for the member’s re-election. It doesn’t take much for the base to turn against a member and given how organized they have become, can turn out a primary candidate to challenge the member on a whim.

For civility to return to politics, there must be a basic recognition by both sides that the other side has the best interests of America at heart. This does not seem possible when the leadership of both parties toss around epithets like “evil mongers” or “culture of death” to describe the other side.

A presidential commission of the kind suggested by Hiatt might succeed in gathering relatively non-partisan members, but couldn’t help being caught up in the vortex of partisan wrangling. Every finding, every witness, every statement made would be filtered through the unique prism found in the base of both parties. It would be marginally different than a select congressional committee and much better than prosecutions. But it would ultimately fail to satisfy either side because it’s mandate would not be to score political points but to find some elusive “truth.” Rather than serve to illuminate what happened and heal the nation, such a commission would eventually be seen by both sides as favoring the opposition.

We live in a different country than existed at the time of the 9/11 Commission. The undisguised hatred of President Bush and the virulent reaction of his supporters to defend him by trashing the opposition over the last 8 years has made the atmosphere in Washington worse than it was in 2002.

It may be that Hiatt’s idea will turn out to be the best option in a universe of bad choices. But it is not a solution as long as neither side trusts each other enough to put aside the massive distrust each holds for the other and see the wisdom of trying to come to grips with this unique, and to my mind, tragic interlude in our nation’s history.

Some would go farther and say that the memorandum from Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB that was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR, outlining a secret proposal made by Senator Ted Kennedy to the Soviets to help them “understand Reagan” in return for their help in making him president, constitutes treason.

It’s not a word to throw around lightly and the reason I refrain from using it is because I am unsure Kennedy’s actions meet the definition. Kennedy was not in direct contact with Andropov, using his good friend John Tunney, former senator from California, as a messenger boy to deliver the proposal to the Soviets. And he wasn’t proposing to betray any secrets.

At the time this memo was first released (1992), it was completely ignored by the American press. But I vividly recall reading about it when Paul Kengor published his book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. There was a brief firestorm on the internet with Kennedy supporters pointing out that it was possible that Tunney - a notorious loose cannon - could have concocted the whole thing without Kennedy’s knowledge.

Kennedy office issued a statement saying that the interpretation of the memo was “way off the mark,” but didn’t deny its authenticity. This Peter Robinson piece in Forbes details what Kennedy was asking:

Kennedy’s message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. “The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations,” the memorandum stated. “These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.”

Kennedy made Andropov a couple of specific offers.

First he offered to visit Moscow. “The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA.” Kennedy would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda.

Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. “A direct appeal … to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. … If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. …

And then there is this tidbit about Teddy wanting to run for president in 1988 and wanting Soviet help in boosting his campaign:

Kennedy’s motives? “Like other rational people,” the memorandum explained, “[Kennedy] is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations.” But that high-minded concern represented only one of Kennedy’s motives.

“Tunney remarked that the senator wants to run for president in 1988,” the memorandum continued. “Kennedy does not discount that during the 1984 campaign, the Democratic Party may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans and elect their candidate president.”

This is one area of the memo that makes the interpretation of Tunney’s remarks suspect. Kennedy had determined by 1982 that the presidency was out of reach - according to numerous friends and family members - and that he had set his mind to making a good career in the senate. This sounds like Tunney wishful thinking. As a Kennedy insider, he and the rest were desperate to “get back” to the White House. But Kennedy always kept his own counsel about his presidential ambitions and it is unlikely Tunney would have been privy to them.

The memo, while compelling, is a single source document. And while it is believable, it would never stand up in court, and the rigorous standards of evidence applied in treason cases. It is also well to remember that the KGB was sometimes overly enthusiastic in reporting that some Americans were willing to work with them. Also contained in that million page document dump after the fall of communism were memos that “proved” that FDR’s closest advisor, Harry Hopkins, was a soviet agent and that Marilyn Monroe worked for the commies too. The KGB routinely lied to their leaders in this manner and it is impossible without corroborating evidence to determine if the interpretation of the KGB chief of Tunney’s overture is accurate.

There were supposedly other memos about Tunney-Kennedy from 1978 and 1980 that Izvestia ferreted out. But no one has ever seen those memos and their provenance is impossible to determine.

That said, no major media outlet ever pursued the story which is significant in and of itself. Obviously, they were afraid of what they might find if they dug too deeply. Or they found it easy to dismiss because of the reasons I mention above.

It is also significant that not one major media obituary on Kennedy even mentioned it. Protecting the reputation - even after death - of a liberal icon appears to have trumped honest journalism once again.

Maybe she phrased it wrong. Maybe liberal blogger Melissa Lafsky writing in Huffpo this morning had a brain cramp and wrote something she didn’t want to.

Maybe aliens made her do it.

Somehow, some explanation must be given for this kind of incredible, tone deaf, idiocy:

We don’t know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she’d have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don’t know, as always, could fill a Metrodome.

Still, ignorance doesn’t preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn’t automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted’s death, and what she’d have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.

Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.

I’m sure the 29 year old woman was comforted by the fact as she was gasping out her last breaths in that air pocket that formed when the drunken sot of a senator steered his car into the tidal pool and left her to die a terrifying death, that her passing would launch “the most successful senate career in history.” Kopechne was, after all, a good liberal - civil rights worker, RFK volunteer, and the kind of dedicated young person who would gladly sacrifice their life for the cause.

Except that liberals (despite what some of my righty colleagues may think) are people too. I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that Mary Jo Kopechne, when she realized that no help would arrive in time to save her, was, if she was thinking about anything except the dwindling supply of oxygen and screaming and shaking and crying as her lungs began to burn from the excess CO2 in that tiny space, may have cursed the living daylights out of Kennedy for being responsible for her impending death.

And if, by some miracle granted by God, she had been able to see the future, what would have been her reaction to Kennedy’s story of what happened that night? The attempts to get his cousin Joe Gargan to lie for him and back his bogus claim that Kopechne was alone in the car? What would she have thought about the fact that after extricating himself, he went back to the party he had just left? What would she have thought of Kennedy going back to his hotel, complaining to the manager that he couldn’t sleep because of a noisy party, and then having the balls to say at the inquest, “I almost tossed and turned and walked around that room…?”

Almost describes everything Kennedy did that night - except he was mostly drunk and tried to concoct a plan that would have absolved him of any responsibility for Kopechne’s death.

I think it much more appropriate to ask what Mary Jo Kopechne would have thought about that, rather than her views on Senator Kennedy’s glorious senate career.

I don’t know about you, but I sure would rather be alive and kicking than being the “catalyst” for the notion that Kennedy could never be president because of my death and this was somehow a good thing because of all the good my killer did during the rest of his life, being forced to abandon his presidential aspirations and serve in the senate.

Mary Jo Kopechne - Martyr to Kennedy’s failed ambition.

Of all the millions of words, tens of thousands of articles, blog posts, and other scribblings by liberals over the death of Ted Kennedy, this may be the most amazingly shallow, myopic, and ultimately self centered sentence that has been written. To write, to hint that Kopechne would have somehow preferred to be dead rather than alive in any circumstance, for any cause, or for any person in her life at that time is ghoulish, and bespeaks an extraordinary callousness toward life that calls to mind the absolute worst that ideologues of either the left or right are capable.

I do not wish to generalize, and indeed, I know there are many liberals who are shocked by this as well.   But it does highlight the mindset of some liberals quite well, don’t you think? To left wing fanatics like Lafsky, human life does not belong to the individual, but to the higher cause of the collective good. For Lafsky, of course Kopechne would, if she had a crystal ball and been able to see the future, have sacrificed herself on the altar of social “progress” rather than live a full life filled with friends, family, kids, and a fulfilling career.

What a despicable thing to write.

Liberals are licking their chops at the prospect of using the death of Ted Kennedy to unite the party and get a health care reform bill passed.

Is exploiting the death of Kennedy a rotten, shameless, despicable thing to do? In politics, nothing is rotten or shameless - unless you’re on the other side taking advantage of an obvious political gambit. The only consideration is if something works or not. And baby, the Dems are going to milk the death of Kennedy until they wring every last ounce of political capital they can manage from his rotund carcass.

They are going to bend every effort to tie the emotional attachment with the late senator sincerely felt by the vast majority of Democrats directly to the health care bill with the hope that it will give some of the Blue Dogs, and liberals the cover they need to come to an agreement. In short, using the memory of Kennedy and good feelings elicited when appealing to his ghost, the Democratic leadership hopes it makes party members more willing to compromise to achieve the goal of creating KennedyKare.

I would fully expect the Republicans to do the exact same thing in similar circumstances. Of course, that would be an impossibility at the moment since no Republican living, dead, or in between has that kind of pull with the party, nor is there an issue that Republicans could rally around even if such a mythical beast existed. The appeals to Reagan’s memory may engender fond feelings of nostalgia, but the wellspring of actual political power that the Ghost of the Gipper can wield is just about dry.

So the question isn’t should the Democrats exploit Kennedy’s death, but rather what is the best way to go about doing it to achieve success?

Renaming the bill in honor of Kennedy won’t do much. Nice symbolism but hardly enough to break, what most media reports have said, is a titanic log jam of proposals on reform where several committees and individuals are working at cross purposes. Getting a bill out of this mish mash is going to take a lot more than simply calling the monstrosity something else.

In order to rally the Congress, more substantive and public demonstrations of both real and manufactured emotionalism will have to be employed for the gambit to work. Kennedy is going to have to first be beautified, and then named as a civic saint - a party icon that can be invoked with such reverence that “What would Teddy want?” becomes a rallying cry for reform leaders.

It starts today with a “carefully orchestrated” procession from the Kennedy’s beloved Hyannis Port, through the streets of Boston where the political and emotional symbolism will fairly drip from old imitation gas streetlights in the city’s historic North End:

A procession will leave Hyannis Port at 1 p.m. today, accompanying Kennedy’s body to Boston for a final journey through a city indelibly marked by his family.

At about 2:15, the procession is expected to wind its way through downtown, first passing through the North End, where his mother was born, then crossing the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway on its way to the State House, and ultimately passing the Bowdoin Street residence of President Kennedy when he first ran for Congress and the federal building that bears his name.

Crowds are encouraged to gather on Hanover Street along the Greenway, on City Hall Plaza, and on the Boston Common in front of the State House.

The procession will end at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, where Kennedy will lie in repose and visitors will be invited to pay their respects today and tomorrow.

There will be a massive outpouring of people who will want to view the remains, reminding members of Kennedy’s enormous popularity not only in the party, but with the average working American as well. TV images of the procession passing these Democratic touchstones will also serve to connect Ted to his martyred brothers thus making a direct appeal to generations of Democrats.

This is powerful stuff, and the news nets will milk coverage was well, seeing that events such as these will bring millions of eyeballs to their broadcasts who might not normally be watching.

Same thing happened when Reagan died, and for the same reasons. National tragedy is the honey that attracts millions of extra viewers and there’s no reason to complain about it.

There will apparently be no less than 3 memorial services; an invitation only event tomorrow night at the library (no word on whether it will be televised, although I can’t imagine it not). Then, the actual funeral mass at a Basilica on Mission Hill. Here, there will be “limited press access” which is probably short hand for pool reporting.

From there, more symbolism will be used as another procession will form, taking the casket to Logan Airport for the trip to Washington and a late afternoon burial at Arlington Cemetery.

President Obama is scheduled to give the eulogy on Saturday and will no doubt give it his usual best effort. How hard will he hit the meme of passing health care reform in Kennedy’s name? Hopefully, the guy isn’t completely tone deaf and will refrain from hammering the world wide audience over the head with references to it. However, it would be perfectly legitimate for Obama to specifically tout reform since Kennedy himself is quoted as saying the issue was central to his public life. Republicans will complain no matter what but the president must still strike a solemn balance between honoring Kennedy and taking care of politics.

A couple of interesting side notes. First, why no lying in state in the rotunda of the Capitol? It could be because they would then have to move the funeral mass to Washington, D.C. as protocol would dictate that any lying in state be conducted before the funeral rites. Plus, the funeral would have to be moved to a Sunday which, while permissible, is atypical in the Catholic church.

Secondly, there has been no announced Wellstone-style Congressional memorial service. It may not have been planned yet. Or, Democrats might be a little hesitant considering the grief they got following the tribute to Wellstone after his death from a plane crash in 2002.

Surely Al Franken is being disingenuous at best when he writes in HuffPo about that Wellstone tribute:

A pained Limbaugh asked his audience the day after the memorial: “Where was the grief? Where were the tears? Where was the memorial service? There wasn’t any of this!”

This was a lie. I was there. Along with everyone else, I cried, I laughed, I cheered. It was, to my mind, a beautiful four-hour memorial.

I didn’t boo. Neither did 22,800 of the some 23,000 people there. This has been a much discussed, much lied about aspect of the memorial. A number of Republicans, like Peggy Noonan and Weekly Standard writer Chris Caldwell claimed that 20,000 people had booed Trent Lott. (Caldwell claimed that 20,000 people booed a whole litany of people who weren’t booed at all.) We’ll never get an actual count - but I’d say about two hundred people booed Trent Lott when his face came on the Jumbotron. This was about a minute after 23,000 people cheered for Bill Clinton when his face appeared on the Jumbotron.

How does that square with an account from someone a little less partisan, William Saletan of Slate?

But the solemnity of death and the grace of Midwestern humor are overshadowed tonight by the angry piety of populism. Most of the event feels like a rally. The touching recollections are followed by sharply political speeches urging Wellstone’s supporters to channel their grief into electoral victory. The crowd repeatedly stands, stomps, and whoops. The roars escalate each time Walter Mondale, the former vice president who will replace Wellstone on the ballot, appears on the giant screens suspended above the stage. “Fritz! Fritz!” the assembly chants.

“Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning,” Wellstone declares in a videotaped speech shown on the overhead screens. “Politics is about improving people’s lives.” But as the evening’s speakers proceed, it becomes clear that to them, honoring Wellstone’s legacy is all about winning the election. Repeating the words of Wellstone’s son, the assembly shouts, “We will win! We will win!” Rick Kahn, a friend of Wellstone’s, urges everyone to “set aside the partisan bickering,” but in the next breath he challenges several Republican senators in attendance to “honor your friend” by helping to “win this election for Paul Wellstone.” What can he be thinking?

Franken is right. I watched the entire memorial service (I admired and liked Paul Wellstone even though I vehemently disagreed with him on almost everything he stood for.) It is true that 20,000 people did not boo Trent Lott. But unless those 200 phantom booers mentioned by Franken were right next to a microphone and had their numbers seem inflated, my guess would be more like 5,000 booed Lott, with even louder boos for Jesse Ventura, then governor. I seem to recall Denny Hastert also receiving a healthy round of boos but am not sure he was even there.

At any rate, Saletan’s description of the “Memorial Service” is spot on. Numerous speakers trashed Republicans - not just the two he mentioned. It could very well be that Franken - as rabid a partisan who has ever served in the senate - has an entirely different idea what partisan speechmaking is all about than normal people like you and me.

Whether it was planned to be a pep rally is not the point. That’s what it became and Democrats would do well to recall the reaction to press reports - including those bastions of right wing lying, the New York Times, and Time Magazine that led to at least a mini-backlash that could have cost Mondale the election.

But such an event might be a topper to what Democrats obviously hope will be an emotional outpouring in memory of Senator Kennedy which might translate into the political muscle necessary to ram through KennedyKare. In fact, one might expect the Democrats to try and stampede the issue into passing once Congress is back from their recess after Labor Day.

Would it work? The stampede, probably not. But I don’t see how the death of Ted Kennedy and the Democrat’s exploiting the emotional context of remembrance and history that will be on display, can do anything except help President Obama and the Congressional leadership realize some kind of health care bill before Thanksgiving.

We will let the New York Times and liberal blogs lionize the man. I assure you there will be enough of that for anyone’s tastes.

Here, I will try to give the unvarnished truth about a person who was indeed, the “liberal lion of the Senate” (take from that what you will), as well as representing the absolute worst of wealth and privilege in the United States.

Ted Kennedy, the rogue son of a rogue family has died of brain cancer at age 77. Oftentimes, liberals like to compare the Kennedy family to that other famous political family that featured presidents, and legislators of note; the Adams family.

Pardon me if my outrage can’t quite be held in check. The man who fought longer and harder for American independence than anyone of his time - John Adams - had it all over Teddy as far as personal moral behavior and principled, pragmatic leadership. His son, John Quincy Adams, took stands against slavery that made any “political courage” shown by Kennedy to be minuscule by comparison.

Suffice it to say, that the difference between the two families couldn’t be more pronounced and referring to the Kennedy’s in the same breath as the Adams’s is a travesty.

No doubt Kennedy the man was a despicable cad, a notorious roue, and, until late in life, a certified drunk. As most conservative blogs are reporting this morning, “Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.” ‘Nuff said about Kennedy the man.

But history is a relentless bitch of a mistress, holding us to standards of truth and accuracy so that even one so vile as Kennedy must be examined not only in the context of his personal peccadilloes but also for his contributions to his times.

And those contributions were awesome.

There is no doubt that the average Joe working American lives a better life today because of Teddy Kennedy. He is safer on the job, his wages are higher (even non-union workers), his children have more educational opportunities, he is healthier, and wealthier than any working American of any other generation in history. We can certainly criticize liberal excesses in much of the legislation that this master parliamentarian guided through the labyrinthine maze of Congress. But no honest appraisal of Kennedy’s career would be complete without referring to the gigantic impact he had on ordinary, blue collar America.

He was at the center of every major legislative initiative that created much of the welfare state, as well as shepherding through Congress important legislation regarding voting rights, health care, labor law, and education. Conservatives like Barry Goldwater and Orrin Hatch found him not only to be a tough enemy but also someone with whom they could negotiate their concerns. He earned the respect of his opponents by having the issues associated with any legislation he was pushing down absolutely stone cold. And his mastery of Roberts Rules of Order made him a formidable presence in any senate debate.

Even historians not enamored of his far left liberalism — a liberalism that seemed to get farther left the older he got — compare him to Henry Clay or John C. Calhoun as far as his impact on the senate. That may be unfair to Clay who sacrificed his chance at the presidency to bring about compromises on the slavery issue. I did not sense such self abnegation in Teddy Kennedy, who viewed his senate seat as something of a patrimony from God. The wealth and privilege he enjoyed that allowed him to escape justice in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, and his family to get out of scrape after scrape with the law highlighted the fact that this was a family not above the law but beyond it. Their money, power, and influence had far too much impact on our national life than is healthy in a republic. And perhaps that’s the key to Kennedy’s psyche.

I believe the guilt of possessing great wealth drove him to compensate for his privileged position by pushing legislation that he believed exonerated him of his family sins. This is not unusual in American history, with industry titans from Astor to Rockefeller giving away much of their fortune prior to their death. But what drove Kennedy was also perhaps the nagging belief that he really wasn’t up to the Kennedy mystique, that he was a fraud compared to his martyred brothers.

The truth is, John Kennedy was no liberal at all (just ask Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.), and Robert Kennedy’s liberalism was far more muscular and more out of the classic school of left wing thought than the New Left activists who tried to adopt him in 1968. Robert’s liberalism was informed by both his Catholicism, and his own personal demons of trying to live up to the heroic image he carried of his brother John.

It took Ted a few years after Robert’s death to be convinced that “carrying on the legacy” of RFK actually meant going beyond his brother’s concerns that welfare was creating a permanent underclass to embracing the welfare state and the left wing agenda that went with it. Perhaps he saw this as the quickest way to the White House, not even able to fathom the damage done to his presidential aspirations by being responsible for Mary Jo Kopechne’s death. Or perhaps, it was indeed guilt that drove him on. Historians will have a field day with his motivations, that’s for sure.

The last of the “original” Kennedy brothers is dead. An age has now passed into history where for “one, brief, shining moment” one American family stood at the apex of power, largely bought for them by their immensely wealthy father. His two brothers who preceded him in death were known for what “might have been,” having been cut down before they could make any lasting impact on the country.

Not so the third Kennedy brother. His legacy will live on in the lives he made better, the lives he made worse - and the life he was responsible for ending.

I haven’t been screamed at by conservatives in a while so I thought I’d put that headline out there to see if any of them will take the bait.

The trap set, I would urge those of you inclined to be hip shooters to read the following in its entirety before you ride me out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered, drummed out of what’s left of the conservative movement for being such a jackass.

Frankly, I don’t need an excuse to be a jackass. Just ask my Zsu-Zsu whose legendary patience has been tried many times during the course of our 6 year relationship. It is a constant wonder to me that one so beautiful, generous, and smart would hook up with jackass like me.

It’s a physical thing, really.

It has been a constant refrain on blogs, at tea party protests, at health care town halls, and everywhere conservatives gather that Obamacare (and, by extension, the Obama presidency) means “The End of America as We Know It.”

Yes, but how well do you really “know” America? I say that because it isn’t the first time this refrain has been heard in American history and I daresay - hopefully - it won’t be the last.

Part of what makes America special is this fantastic ability we possess to re-invent ourselves to meet the challenges of a changing world. From Thomas Jefferson warning during the election of 1800 that re-electing Adams and the Federalists would result in the institution of a monarchy (”changing America as we know it”) through Andy Jackson’s populist revolution that “changed America as we know it,” through the the southerner’s warning that electing Abe Lincoln would “change America as we know it…”

I could go on and on. Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Reagan - all of them “changed America as we knew it” at that time. The question, then, isn’t whether or not Obama is “changing America as we know it,” but rather what kind of America is likely to emerge after those changes have been made.

Each of those presidents mentioned above were responsible for great changes in the America they found when they entered office. But I would argue that every one of them were cognizant of, and adhered to, America’s First Principles (some to a greater degree than others) when re-inventing their America.

Even radical changes like those initiated by Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, made in reaction to the times in which they lived - made reluctantly as they were pulled and pushed by history’s tidal forces that were beyond their control - were tied to tradition, and America’s past. Can anyone doubt Lincoln’s belief in the Declaration of Independence when he redefined freedom in America with the Gettysburg Address? Or FDR’s devotion to the founding principles of America being a shared community where individual rights are respected?

America stands still for no one. We are a nation that wears size 20 boots, striding purposefully into the future with a cocky arrogance that steamrolls the past, stomping on those who stand in the way as we blithely and deliberately proceed to our date with destiny. For conservatives, it has always been a rearguard action to preserve tradition and fight for change that is based on those traditions and our First Principles rather than accept change that destroys the connection to our cherished past.

We lose some of these battles - but we win many more. Big changes may mean the “end of America as we know it,” but they also mean that essential truths gleaned through the centuries of American progress are nurtured and kept safe by those of us who value liberty, and the individual rights granted by the Constitution. There may have been an erosion of some of those rights in recent decades. But the core values that make us who we are and define the American experiment are intact, if not now constantly under attack by an overweening, overreaching, gargantuan government.

No one except some addle brained liberals believe that big government is not a threat to individual liberty, not to mention being at odds with the very first principle espoused by the Founders; that America should be a land of free men who govern themselves under a Constitution that clearly defines and limits the role of the federal government.

I don’t necessarily begrudge President Obama his efforts to “remake America” - if those efforts were carried out with a respect for that first principle uppermost in his mind. I would probably still oppose most of what he would do, but after all, elections have consequences and the president has a perfect right to try and change America if he finds it wanting in some respects.

But President Obama has no right to fundamentally alter the relationship between the governed and the government as defined in the Constitution. If he feels so strongly about having the federal government gradually taking over 1/6 of the American economy by being able to dictate to free men what kind of health care they will receive and their families will receive, then he should do it in the Constitutionally approved manner of amending our founding document to reflect that change.

The same can be said about takeovers of the auto industry, the financial services sector, and any other buy out by the government of private companies. The Constitution is a very supple document in that while changing it is difficult (as it is meant to be), just about anything can be amended that was unforeseen at the time it was written. If the temperance movement could get an amendment passed to ban liquor, just about anything can be shoehorned into our Basic Law that the people genuinely want.

Barack Obama is not playing by the rules. Whether through ignorance, or more likely a lack of interest, he has proposed changes to government that are in direct conflict with the basic principles by which we have governed ourselves for 221 years. He has replaced those size 20 boots with an industrial sized scythe and is imprudently mowing down fields that were planted with the seeds of self-governance, the primacy of the individual, and the notion of limited government - seeds that took root and have flourished through war and peace, economic calamity and prosperity.

What was done in painfully small increments before, is now being rushed to fruition in one, great, gigantic gulp of activism before we can digest and manage the change he is seeking to make. That may be his greatest transgression of all in that he refuses to acknowledge that America’s past is prologue, that the path to the future must be trod on the well worn trails and byways of history that his predecessors respected and revered.

It is not that he is seeking to “end America as we know it.” It is that he is trying to do it by breaking the ties that bind us to a past where our ancestors worked, sweated, fought, and bled to create a nation like no other. It is the president’s failure to contextualize his actions, giving them a frame of reference that the American people can grasp and claim as part of their patrimony of freedom and individual liberty where he has failed utterly.

And for that, he is finding his plans to “remake America” coming a cropper.

I have used this blog for most of the last 5 years to berate liberals for what I view as stupidity, myopia, hysteria, hypocrisy, and for advocating ideas that are an anathema to America’s founding principles.

But I have also vigorously defended their idea of patriotism. I have sincerely tried to show my fellow conservatives that liberals love America as much as we do, except that they have a different, but equally valid way of expressing that devotion. To limit one’s definition of love of country to one’s own narrow perspective does a disservice to America which, after all, was created specifically so that those who dissent need not fear retribution.

But I don’t know what to make of this:

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.

This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year’s election campaign. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but it’s not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing.

Run that by me again?

The plan is to turn a “day of fear” that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left. In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.

“They think it needs to be taken back from the right,” said the source. “They’re taking that day and they’re breaking it because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a fearful day.”

I am all for allowing 9/11 to be placed in historical perspective, simplifying our remembrance of that tragic day, giving dignity to the dead and reminding the living of what is at stake. Like Memorial Day or Veterans Day, 9/11 (Patriot’s Day) should be marked with solemnity, but not the kind of overwrought oratory or ranting against Muslims that has marked previous incarnations of that day.

But this?

Of this National Day of Service, Jones says little except that it will be a great opportunity “for people to connect, to find other people in your peer group who are also passionate about repowering America but also greening up America and cleaning up America.”

On the same day, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, and Department of Energy Under Secretary Kristina Johnson and activists held a low-key press conference. At it, Yearwood said the National Day of Service will be “the first milestone” of a larger effort called Green the Block that is attempting to convince Americans that the utopian fantasy of a so-called green economy is possible without turning the U.S. into a Third World country.

“From policy creation to community implementation, the Green the Block campaign wants to see access and opportunity created for all Americans, to build prosperity and a healthier planet for future generations,” Yearwood said.

First of all, the political parameters of this attempt to demote the nationalistic significance of 9/11 is truly one of the most insidious ideas that has come from this administration. It leaves me speechless with anger that turning 9/11 into a day to celebrate Democratic interest groups would have its origins in the White House. If this is true - and given who is involved in this effort, one can easily believe it - it would be worse than anything the Bush administration ever tried to do to use 9/11 in order to advance their own political fortunes.

The left went crazy in 2004 when Bush held the Republican convention in New York City , gave Rudy Giuliani the keynote address, trotted out the “good” 9/11 widows who supported him, and did everything to remind people of that date except re-enact the attack on stage. It was shameless exploitation of the tragedy, but…

But there was no denying that there was also another dimension to the remembrance, one that all Americans could touch and be comforted. United in our grief and efforts to heal the gaping wound that 9/11 represented at that time (it being just 3 years removed from the tragedy), the GOP show may have had political overtones but also served the purpose of acting as a national catharsis for the still rank emotions that 9/11 brought to the surface.

No such dual objective appears to be present in this effort by the White House to essentially toss 9/11 down the memory hole, burying its true significance, in the name of advancing a political agenda.

And why put the radicals in charge of that day?

The administration’s plans were outlined in an Aug. 11 White House-sponsored teleconference call run by Obama ally Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, and Liv Havstad, the group’s senior vice president of strategic partnerships and programs.

Yearwood, who uses the honorific “Reverend” before his name, has been in the news in recent years, usually for getting arrested. After Democrats took back Congress, the rowdy activist was handcuffed outside a congressional hearing in September 2007 when Gen. David Petraeus was to testify. Yearwood told the “Democracy Now” radio program that he wanted to attend the hearing to hear Petraeus give his report. “I knew that when officers lie, soldiers die,” he said.

The Hip Hop Caucus? What the hell is going on here? If Bush had used the Michigan Militia to plan 9/11 events, don’t you think that would have elicited a few raised eyebrows somewhere?

Is 9/11 seen as a “Republican” day? Only if you’re an idiot liberal, paranoid about the political opposition to the point that you equate expressions by citizens of love for America with love of the Republican party. In the end, maybe that’s the problem in a nutshell. The kind of nationalistic outpouring on 9/11 is rejected on the left because they see nationalism as a form of fascism. And that kind of simple patriotism felt by the overwhelming majority of Americans is seen as dangerous, backwards, and not cynical enough to pass muster with “smart” people. Hence, any celebration of pride or love of country must, by definition, be evil.

What do you think these Bozos have in mind for the 4th of July?

LAST WORD

Many of you have chosen to ignore the thrust of this post - that even though Bush and the GOP hijacked 9/11 for their own political purposes, why should the Democrats ape that? It takes a special kind of stupidity to copy the absolute worst antics of your political foe.

Obviously, I don’t object to a day of National Service (although I believe it absolutely legitimate to question why it has to be on 9/11). I object to Obama and the liberals seeking to denude that date of meaning as far as the very real war we are fighting with radical Islam.

It makes no differrence whatsoever whether you believe we are at war. The point is that THEY BELIEVE IT, and taking away the significance - as the liberals are desperately trying to do by radically altering the parameters of how we remember the date itself - of the fact that this date should be the one day all year that reminds us of who the enemy is and why we are fighting, smacks of myopia.

The political reasons to alter the meaning of the date are despicable. And I would write the same post tomorrow whether I’m on my “meds” or not.

I have written previously that I believed the biggest contribution Ronald Reagan made to American conservatism was that he almost singlehandedly altered the civic conversation about government spending on social programs.

Prior to Reagan’s reasoned, and impassioned dialectic against big government, the debate over government programs began and ended with the question “How much more” should we be spending,” or “How big should this government program be” to accomplish its intended objective.

Democrats monetized this debate by increasing the number of zeroes in these program’s appropriations. Granted, this is something of an oversimplification but essentially, the center of gravity in Washington tilted toward more, more, and still more in the belief that “solving” the problem being addressed, and showing “compassion” for the poor was a matter of growing the size of government to meet the challenge.

Enter Ronald Reagan who championed the idea that “throwing money” at a problem wasn’t solving anything, and was making things worse. (There were other conservatives who gave Reagan his arguments - Buckley, Hayek, Mises, etc. But none had as big a bullhorn.) Over time, the civic conversation was altered to question not only the huge appropriations, but the necessity and the viability of these programs.

At bottom, of course, was Reagan’s contention that government was mis-spending tax dollars and threatening individual liberty by growing the size and scope of the federal government. It was an argument that plowed already fertile fields because from it’s founding, Americans have fiercely resisted centrally exercised power from Washington. From Andrew Jackson’s destruction of the Bank of America to the cheers of the common man, through Abe Lincoln’s draft, which set off riots in the north, through FDR’s overreach, and Bill Clinton’s attempt at nationalized health care, Americans have been more than suspicious of big government. There seems to be a genetic predisposition for Americans to resist government that they perceive as overstepping its limits.

Granted, those limits have expanded since Andy Jackson’s time. Most Americans have accepted a government that can feed them when they’re hungry, house them when they’re homeless, and generally be there with a “safety net” if misfortune befalls them. Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlements are sacred cows because they enjoy almost universal support by voters. This may be the death of us yet unless we can find a way to get their gargantuan costs under control.

But, as President Obama is finding, there are still lines in the sand that Americans are refusing to allow their government in Washington to cross. And Matt Welch of Reason Magazine, writing in the NY Post, nails why:

While the commentariat’s condescension is almost comical, the whole evil-or-stupid explanation misses the elephant in Obama’s room: Americans of all stripes, it turns out, aren’t very keen about the government barging into their lives.

An ABC/Washington Post poll from June showed people preferred “smaller government with fewer services” over “larger government with more services” by 54% to 41%, up from 50%-45% a year earlier (independents were even more pronounced, at 61%-35%). A Rasmussen poll from April showed that 77% of Americans preferred a “free market” economy over a “government managed” economy, up seven percentage points from just last December. A July CBS poll found that 52% of Americans think that Obama is trying to do “too much.”

After 11 months of federal bailouts and freakouts, Americans have become bone tired of panicky power grabs from Washington. It’s the big government, stupid.

The message of the various Tea Party protests, which predated this summer’s ahistorical media panic over town hall “lynch mobs,” has been pretty simple, says Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the nonprofit that has helped organize the protests, told Reason magazine this spring. “It was: stop spending so much money, stop borrowing so much money, and stop bailing out people who were irresponsible.”

I applaud the attempt by Mr. Welch to alter the narrative that begins and ends with protestors being “racist,” fascist mobs,” “un-American,” or “retarded.” It won’t matter anyway. Polls also show that a majority of Americans support the protestors which means that the Krugman’s, Rich’s, Pelosi’s, Garafolo’s, and the rest of the left aren’t getting any traction with their “evil-or-stupid” incantations.

Regardless, it’s the resistance to government overstepping what Americans sense is a proper exercise of its power that has so many, so angry. While there is much more tolerance for big government today - even government that helps the middle class with programs like S-Chip, and home mortgage bailouts - there are still boundaries (sensed more than specifically spelled out) that a majority of Americans refuse to stand for.

This is the essence of American exceptionalism. We are a different people than Europeans, and any other society in the world. We were deliberately made so at our founding and continue to be to this day. What should be self evident, is lost on many liberals who equate American exceptionalism with a rude form of nationalism. Not so - demonstrably not so. There is no other society in the world that looks upon government with such a jaundiced eye when they perceive that government to be crossing a comfort barrier relating to how much power the central authority should wield.

At heart, America is a profoundly conservative country in that First Principles, a respect for our past, and supporting change only when that change can be folded into tradition, is believed and supported by a large majority. This doesn’t mean that the out of bounds hasn’t been moving left the last 100 years. We are also, at bottom, a practical people, and see real benefit to growing government when the occasion calls for it. This too, makes us an exceptional people in that despite all, the people still have a big say in how big a government they will accept.

Perhaps one day, Americans will accept a growth in government that will result in Washington running health care. But it is not today, nor do I see such a day arriving in my lifetime. Each generation of Americans defines the parameters of their liberty differently. It is our particular genius as we constantly re-invent ourselves to meet the challenges of a changing world.

Obama and the Democrats ignore this reality at their political peril.

It takes anywhere from 11 to 13 years of schooling - including 3-5 years residency - to be able to call yourself a doctor. But as many physicians have pointed out, the process of learning is an on-going effort. Classes, seminars, and fellowships are required over the years so that a doctor can keep current with the breathtaking pace of innovation and increased knowledge.

This is one big reason I never even thought of being a doctor. I have an aversion to book learning, and the prospect of having to go to school until I was in my thirties lit my hair on fire. I find the human body eternally fascinating. But there are limits to curiosity and I have satisfied myself over the years with reading about the incredible breakthroughs and mind bending discoveries that makes the human machine so extraordinary.

Another reason I could never be a doctor is tied up with the debate we are having over health care reform; specifically, the discussion of end of life issues involving treatment and care, and most importantly, who should be involved in those decisions.

The doctors, hospitals, medical ethicists, and review boards that struggle with impossibly complex matters involving morality, religion, and the most intimate and personal desires of the patient, coupled with the pace of scientific progress in medicine that hold out the promise to prolong life, combine to present uniquely painful and wrenching decisions for all of us.

That’s really the bottom line, isn’t it? This is the matter we dance around when talking about “death panels” or “end of life consultation.” I think what we fear most about this isn’t so much that government will force euthanasia down our throats but that “efficiencies” that are forced on government by rising costs will result in a “one size fits all” solutions to problems that are best solved on a case by case basis.

To relieve suffering is the goal of palliative care. Should government - or insurance companies for that matter - force people to accept the end by paying for such end of life care rather than paying for a treatment or procedure that could prolong life but not cure the condition? Let’s imagine the procedure costs $100,000. Should government pay for these treatments when insurance companies won’t?

Sticky, yes? Let’s throw a few other ethical bombs on this scenario. Suppose the patient is 10 years old? Suppose the patient’s age increases the chances for survival but not enough to rationally justify the cost of the treatment? Suppose the treatment will only prolong life for a year or two?

While we’re creating moral problems, let’s try another nightmare scenario. An 60 year old cancer patient with a heart condition has a recurrence of the disease. The cancer can be treated with surgery and chemotherapy. But because of the patient’s heart condition, he won’t live more than a year or so anyway. Without treatment, he will die in six months.

Should Obamacare spend the money to cure the cancer?

These are matters faced by patients, their families, doctors, and hospitals every day. Guidelines in such matters drawn up by government or insurance companies are worse than useless. But in the absence of any good choices, shouldn’t someone be able to make the hard decision and deny payment for experimental, or unproven procedures - or life saving treatment when death from another condition is right around the corner?

Each case is different. Each situation has a human being attached to it, not a slide rule. And I believe this is the fear of old and young alike regarding Obamacare; that in the name of acting for the benefit of the many, government will lose sight of the fact that ultimately, the personal cannot be political in this instance, that there are some things that no government should be able to have a hand in deciding.

The same question can be asked of private insurance companies who would also be inclined to deny the kind of care outlined in both scenarios above. Do we really want those kinds of decisions made based on bottom line medicine?

If I’m confusing you, it’s because there are no good answers. And to my mind, this gives the lie to people who claim that health care is a “right.” Health care is a commodity, bought and sold like any commodity, valued like a commodity, and treated like a commodity by government, insurance companies, and patients alike. True, it is vital to life. But so is food. And I doubt even the most rabid proponent of Obamacare would want to see a government takeover of the food industry.

Every single one of us has already faced these choices or will have to do so someday, whether it affects us, or a close family member. Part of the problem is certainly linked to the miraculous state of medicine today. Our knowledge is growing by leaps and bounds, outpacing our capacity to develop a moral framework to make ethical decisions on life, death and “quality of life.”

Our pitiful attempts to quantify quality of life fall short because in the end, we’re talking about someone else’s life being evaluated based on invented criteria. Even Solomon would have a tough time judging something so intimate and personal. But again, is the current state of our health delivery system so bad that we must empower someone - government or insurance companies - to make these decisions for us? This is the philosophy behind Obamacare and it makes most of us uncomfortable.

I don’t have the answers. I think bringing costs down intelligently should be a priority simply because it’s logical, and because fewer dollars expended per patient would mean more potential dollars to spend on others. There are ways to do this without rationing, or simply paying doctors and hospitals less.

As for the rest, the issues are so complex and fraught with ethical and moral landmines, it would be prudent to make a greater effort to examine what is currently being railroaded through Congress without much thought given to the consequences, so that we can avoid engendering the kind of fear I mentioned above.

It’s been said before by others but bears repeating; Obama is trying to do too much, too fast, and without enough thought given to the real world consequences of what he is trying to accomplish. To claim otherwise is silly. And those fascist, astroturfed mobs of 70-something seniors at health care town halls know it - and fear it.