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- Taking the 30,000 foot view of tea party/heath care reform protests, it's quite amazing that opponents of reform are getting so belligerent, so worked up over something that will likely end up being a pretty small-scale change in the way health care is delivered to Americans. And while I don't agree with Paul Krugman that race and culture are the primary motivators, I would concur with Brendan Nyhan that there are structural similarities between the bigoted birther movement and the ignorant town hall protesters.
- Remember back in May when Gallup found that a majority of Americans considered themselves "pro-life?" Was it a sign of a cultural shift or a polling outlier? Seems we now have our answer. As anyone who knows the history of polling this issue can tell you, views on abortion have been fairly static in the 36 years since Roe was decided, and these small fluctuations don't tell us much of anything new.
- Jon Chait catches National Review editor Rich Lowry dismissing the birthers by claiming that they have been "denounced by every reputable conservative" and points out that wild-eyed former prosecutor Andy McCarthy has been on the tinfoil hat beat at NR for some time. But I'm curious what the parameters are for being a "reputable conservative." Is it merely confined to dismissing conspiracy theorists? Or does it extend to convoluted intellectual exercises designed to reach conclusions that confirm your prejudices?
- Speaking of NR editors, K-Lo reacts to the president's attempt to rally the Democratic base in Virginia by calling him an "American Caesar," musing that "For Barack Obama, democracy appears to be a distraction. He really does seem to view himself as a Caesar." I suppose comparing American presidents to the original dictator has the cachet of making you sound steeped in the humanities, but I would hope that the historically literate would take exception to this kind of nonsense.
- Conservatives have long opposed the United States participating in the International Criminal Court (ICC) because they believe this will infringe on our sovereignty (see this 2001 Foreign Affairs essay by Henry Kissinger for the basic argument). So it wasn't surprising to see one conservative react to Hillary Clinton expressing "regret that the US has not yet joined the ICC" by claiming she "may be arguing that it's time to kick U.S. sovereignty in the teeth." Maybe she ought to read Romney's silly book on American awesomeness.
- Remainders: Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) resigns; (another) birther schism emerges; the town hall protesters are inching closer to outright threats of violence; and The New York Times' financial section just got a bit smarter.
--Mori Dinauer