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- As you've no doubt heard, August is going to be the month where advocates for and opponents of health care reform will either succeed or fail in their efforts. Brian Beutler has a great post breaking down the various organizations who will be in the field during the congressional recess making their case. Meanwhile, Greg Sargent shares an internal poll from House Democrats which confirms that bashing the insurance industry is highly effective at making the case for reform.
- Health-care reform roundup: Jonathan Alter channels the opposition point of view; House reform bill has little margin for error; Rudy Giuliani sympathizes with the struggling; the GOP alternative bill pretty much makes everything worse; Republicans don't have the guts to vote to kill Medicare; Ben Nelson whines, threatens; and is the Supreme Court responsible for our messy health care system?
- As if the GOP didn't already have enough problems remaking itself as a credible, mainstream alternative to the Democrats, would-be reformer Michael Steele has been restrained in how much access he has to the RNC's coffers. Of course, if you're wondering whether the GOP will be pitching a new Contract with America, look no further than the original Contract's well-heeled progenitor.
- Clearly, conservatives have a problem with their fringe base, who are increasingly in greater numbers identifying with crackpot conspiracy theories. But I've always thought the larger problem is with the built-in anti-intellectualism that exemplifies so much of the right wing. So I was a bit surprised to learn where some of that anti-intellectualism is being aimed: "I finally found a subject on which I can agree with Robert Stacy McCain. We both disdain National Review. But the similarity ends immediately. McCain doesn’t hate NRbecause it’s the home of dishwater-dull rightwing apparatchiks likeKathryn Jean Lopez and Jay Nordlinger. Instead he thinks that it’s a hotbed of intellectual snobbery."
- Weekend Remainders: John McCain takes a stand against judicial activism; The USS Barry M. Goldwater is a terrible idea; John Bolton takes American exceptionalism to its logical conclusion; Liz Cheney, foreign policy specialist; and Megan McArdle's great contribution is to provide a window into the emptiness of libertarian thinking on government spending.
--Mori Dinauer
