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- Both Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias have some thoughts on Lawrence Lessig's latest efforts to get money out of politics. What I find lacking in these discussions, what I found lacking in the launch of Lessig's Change Congress campaign two years ago, is an admission that it's not so much the amount of money in politics, but its source. Perhaps Lessig now sees things this way in the wake of the Citizen's United decision. But the point is that if you want money's corrupting influence out of the political process, then you need campaign finance law that essentially limits political contributions to actual human beings, not companies who can afford to throw corrupting amounts of money at candidates.
- Is health-care reform going to pass Congress? Nobody knows! Is Nancy Pelosi optimistic about passing the Senate bill, contingent on amending the legislation through budget reconciliation? She sure is! Are conservative Democrats in the Senate calling majority rule the end of the world? Of course they are! Is Ben Nelson totally bereft of principle? Of course he is! Is Harry Reid being overly cautious when time is not on his side? Mais bien sûr! Is Barack Obama strong on support, thin on specifics? Damn straight. Is there anything substantive to report on the state of health-care reform? Not particularly!
- This Pew political knowledge survey predictably describes an American public that has, at best, a mixed grasp of the current state of the American polity. 56 percent, for instance, know that there are two women on the Supreme Court, about the same percentage that know unemployment is at 10 percent. Of more immediate consequence is that only 32 percent know that there were zero Republican votes in the Senate for health-care reform, and only 26 percent know that it takes 60 votes to end a filibuster. After taking the quiz myself, I was greeted with an unintentionally humorous "Congratulations! You got all 12 questions correct, along with 2% of the public." How encouraging.
- Remainders: Ben Bernanke is easily confirmed for a second term; imagine that, asking a U.S. senator to actually specify how he would reduce the deficit; I'm going to go out on a limb and say people who take the Drudge Report seriously probably aren't all that bright; Mark Halperin may not be an astute observer of politics, but at least he's aware of his own limitations; Fox News is perfectly OK with allowing America's Mayor to flat out lie to their viewers; and more data for the why-liberals-go-into-academia file.
--Mori Dinauer
