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- The White House has finally taken a stance on health care: they are committing to it, one way or another, even if that means using budget reconciliation. The unveiling of what one could accurately call "Obamacare" will premiere on Monday, in advance of Thursday's health-care summit. I like this approach because it acknowledges the source of gridlock in Congress, Republicans, and gives them one last, public, chance to play ball before the White House pivots and throws its whole weight behind using a majority-rule procedure to get the job done. It also puts congressional Democrats on the spot: They supposedly want leadership, and now they have it. If they fail now, the burden for that failure is singularly on them.
- The thing that stands out in the semantic debate over which this-or-that act of violence counts as terrorism is that most conservatives are perfectly willing to classify crashing a plane into an IRS building as an act of terror; they're just not too excited about addressing it as problem. Rather, what animates conservatives is specifically Islamic terror, apparently because Islam is an "aggressive and violent ideology that aspires to world domination." But it's not just that conservatives believe Islamic terror aspires to world domination but that it is capable of it and that the Obama administration is letting it happen.
- The revival of the treason card is clearly a core strategy of the GOP for regaining power in Congress this year. The conservative line is that Obama's policies are making us more vulnerable and are more interested in protecting the rights of terrorists than in killing or capturing them (I forget which). But does anybody care? Polls, including a new one from CNN, consistently show that the public has confidence in Obama's approach, including reading suspects their rights, and not the Jack Bauer "put one in his leg and he'll talk" approach to interrogation. And if it's true that "the Bush administration met its responsibility to protect society. And it did so without resorting to torture, by using methods that were lawful, moral, and just," then what exactly is Obama doing differently?
- The efficacy, for the purpose of political gain, of evoking the terrible policies and governance of the Bush/Cheney era will continue to have diminished returns the further we get from their administration. Yet if conservative activists and Republicans are cheerfully looking back at that era as an inspiration, then Democrats would be stupid not to take advantage of that. After all, the No. 1 concern of the public is, naturally, the economy. And most of the public still blames the Bush/Cheney administration for the state of the economy. Under these circumstances, it seems to me that Democratic candidates this fall need ask of their constituents only one question: "Do you really want to go back to that?"
- And speaking of showing true colors, shouldn't Republicans be taking Dick Armey's advice and publicly propose dismantling Medicare and Social Security as the core of the would-be Republican majority's domestic policy? Are they serious about stopping growth in government? And if Republicans won't publicly propose gutting Medicare and Social Security, then what are they proposing? What is their plan for the budget deficit? Reining in medical costs? Creating jobs? Or are they just afraid of putting an honest choice before the public?
- Remainders: The perpetrator(s) of the 2001 anthrax mailings will likely remain anonymous; Arlen Specter doesn't seem too interested in debating other Democrats in public; Hank Paulson has shocking revelations that the congressional Republican leadership is made up of uncommonly arrogant fools; Daniel Larison listens to Marco Rubio's CPAC barnstormer and concludes that Republicans are seriously detached from reality; Evan Bayh (maybe) and Harry Reid are open to including a public option via reconciliation; and the John Birch Society comes full circle.
--Mori Dinauer
