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- Bill Clinton made a private journey to North Korea today to personally ask for the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who had been sentenced to 12 years hard labor for "spying" on the totalitarian regime. After a meeting with a frail-looking Kim Jong-Il, the reclusive leader granted a special pardon, although it is unclear how soon they will be allowed to leave the country. The Obama White House has denied that Clinton's visit was part of a broader effort to engage the DPRK.
- "Grassroots" protesters have been showing up at town halls on health care reform and have been raising quite a ruckus of late. It's not a secret that well-organized and well-financed lobbying groups are staging these events, and the White House knows the game that's being played here, so several questions remain. Are these astroturf demonstrators better organized than their liberal counterparts? Are Democrats going to turn incoherent rage against opponents of reform? Do Republicans really think they have something to gain by openly cheering on efforts to stop health care reform?
- Running parallel to the protests is the meme that liberals are losing the messaging war on health care reform, and that efforts to try to correct misinformation are futile at best. Although, as Paul Krugman hints at in this post, an effective counter to the charge that "government run" health care will be like visiting the Post Office or DMV is to bring up our experiences with private bureaucracies, such as your local cable monopoly. If health-care reform is to be the legislative effort that helps Americans believe in the efficacy of their government again, then the myth that only public, not private, bureaucracies are corrupt must be countered.
- It's unclear who is out to oust White House Counsel Greg Craig, or why, but Spencer Ackerman takes issue with claims that Craig has mad skills navigating Congress: "I’ve heard months of gripes from Hill staffers, particularlybut not exclusively on the Democratic side, that the White House hadcut Congress entirely out of the loop on Guantanamo. Democrats didn’tknow what they were supposed to defend, and as a result weren’tinclined to defend much of anything."
- Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) has threatened to "shut down the Senate" if the Obama administration goes forward with a plan to relocate Guantanamo Bay detainees to Fort Leavenworth, prompting Steve Benen to ask why Roberts is getting so worked up about this now, given that Fort Leavenworth already houses several convicted terrorists. I'm sure the good Senator has sound reasons, and that this has nothing to do with politicizing national security for partisan gain.
- Remainders: The recession notwithstanding, I would concur that yes, growth is overrated; nobody could have predicted that all those tax cuts in the stimulus package would produce little stimulative value; Jon Chait demonstrates that the real value of The Weekly Standard is to illustrate how worthless writers for The Weekly Standard are; and another thuggish regime wants to join the world's nuclear family.
--Mori Dinauer
