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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | health care

Obama Steady at New Hampshire Town Hall

By Taylor Marsh on 11 August 2009

–updated–

At the airport – someone wrote the words “Stop Government Health Care” on the doors of an aircraft hangar in sight of press plane. – Mark Knoller

VIDEO: Obama addresses “death panels” and
insurance co. rationing v doctor guided decisions.

Outside the town hall there were a lot of protesters on both sides, as Knoller reports, but also the early livestream clip showed. Signs “Nobama Health Care”, “Socialism” with a line through it, “Stop abortion now.”

In other rancid news, a swastika was painted on Rep. David Scott’s office door, after he held a health care town hall that turned raucus.

Obama’s health care town hall today opened with a plea from a woman who is “uninsurable,” saying “hope is her only health care plan.” She pleaded for everyone to stand up and demand health care reform, which got her a standing ovation. She then proudly introduced Pres. Barack Obama.

After event began, Obama clearly states that he doesn’t think government should get between patients and doctors, but neither should insurance companies.

“I’m not promoting a single-payer plan.” – Pres. Obama

Close to the end of the town hall, Obama mentions diabetes and obesity, including the importance of losing weight and diet, bu also the need to change reimbursement and “also the care who prevents the amputation.”

The last questioner was from a skeptic and part of a group Obama asked to be part of the questioners. The guy said off the top that “he turned himself in” on the White House website, admitting he was a skeptic. Obama laughed, stopped everything for a moment to say the media is drumming this nonsense up. Said it’s about answering questions of the skeptics, not “collecting an enemies list.”

Someone tell Rush.

“The status quo is not working for you,” Obama said, ending an event that will look very good on the nightly news.

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Obama Throws Pelosi Under a Bus for ‘Un-american’ Rant

By Taylor Marsh on 11 August 2009

“I think there’s actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America,” White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments. – ABC News

Well, this was predictable. After yesterday’s op-ed, where Pelosi and Hoyer went out on a very long limb calling the town hall brawl inciters “un-American,” today we get the White House sawing off the branch.

…and launching a new website to counter the crazies: Health Insurance Reform Reality Check. The New York Times instant review gives you how traditional media will frame it:

But in introducing the Web site, White House officials were tacitly acknowledging a difficult reality: they are suddenly at risk of losing control of the public debate over a signature issue for Mr. Obama and are now playing defense in a way they have not since last year’s campaign.

Predictable.

As for Obama and Pelosi-Hoyer, I used the same term the other day, labeling Eric Cantor’s rhetoric in Israel un-American, because on foreign soil he offered an opposing foreign policy to the sitting commander in chief. I stand by it and think that’s fitting, especially when you’re doing so in the Middle East, which is fraught with danger on policy. No doubt the White House would disagree, though I have no intention of making a softer statement about what Cantor did, as I know exactly what would have happened if a Dem would have done such a thing to a Rep. president.

But as much as we need to label, ostracize and shame the wingnut town hall mob crew, calling them un-American just sets up their people higher up in the conservative food chain. Peter Daou made that very argument yesterday.

You also have to expect the White House to say something like they did, with Burton’s full statement, he was clear to offer caveats on what he called “our pretty long tradition.”

Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesn’t think that that’s productive.

Last week Robert Gibbs labeled the brawlers as “manufacturing” their outrage.

As I said earlier, labeling the town hall crazies won’t be enough. The “un-American” line simply succeeded in fueling conservatives up the political food chain, got the President involved, who felt he had to cut Pelosi and Hoyer loose.

We’ll see how the President feels after his next town hall.

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Why Health Care ‘Reform’ Will Fail

By Taylor Marsh on 10 August 2009

But we also need to transform what is covered. If we want to make affordable health care available to the 48 million Americans who do not have health insurance, then the fundamental causes of many chronic diseases need to be addressed — which are primarily the lifestyle choices we make each day — rather than only literally or figuratively bypassing them. – Dr. Dean Ornish

Speaker Pelosi and Rep. Steny Hoyer have penned a whopper of an op-ed: ‘Un-American’ attacks can’t derail health care debate. Wanna bet? To some extent it’s already happened. But it does prove that the politics surrounding health care “reform” have nothing to do with actual reform or making anyone healthier. Just read the opening line: Americans have been waiting for nearly a century for quality, affordable health care. Never mind that the actual solution has been in our hands for decades.

But finally, someone spotlights the real issues behind health care and why whatever “reform” comes down will ultimately fail, both articles at Huffington Post. And neither has a thing to do with this drivel coming from Democrats, though it’s very safe to say that Republicans are miles worse.

Following the health care “reform” debate as closely as anyone, the entire discussion has left me cold. It’s all about what can the health care industry do for us, with absolutely no focus on what we have to do for ourselves. It’s why whatever is done on health care won’t really mean anything as to cost, because we’ll still expect the same things without focusing on how we get sick in the first place and how our own choices impact our health and lives. It’s about lifestyle, something I’ve been saying to friends and anyone who will listen for decades.

Many people are just too lazy. Want a prescription, a diagnosis, with a doctor deciding what you should do. Even as critical as health providers are to us all, because sometimes we do get hit from out of the blue, vitality and quality of life are mostly about what we do every day that makes us healthy or threatens our life.

Dr. Ornish has the cred, even as people like me have already learned the lesson of lifestyle. Though we don’t always do all that’s necessary to be healthy, letting our lives, work, relationships and other distractions take us down roads that make us sick. Some Americans do get it and our intent remains focused on adding to our own health through the choices we make on how to live our lives.

Lifestyle changes are not only as good as drugs but often even better. For example, a major study showed that lifestyle changes are even more effective than diabetes drugs such as metformin in reducing the incidence of diabetes in persons at high risk, with lower costs and fewer side-effects.
… .. In our experience, it is not enough to focus only on patient behaviors such as diet and exercise; we often need to work at a deeper level. Depression, loneliness, and lack of social support are also epidemic in our culture. These affect not only quality of life but also survival. Several studies has shown that people who are lonely, depressed, and isolated are many times more likely to get sick and die prematurely than those who are not. In part, this is mediated by the fact that they are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors when they feel this way, but also via mechanisms that are not well-understood. For example, many people smoke or overeat when they are stressed, lonely, or depressed.
What is sustainable is joy, pleasure, and freedom, not deprivation and austerity. When you eat a healthier diet, quit smoking, exercise, meditate, and have more love in your life, then your brain receives more blood and oxygen, so you think more clearly, have more energy, need less sleep.

On and on this excellent post goes, all of the good doctor’s points ones that anyone serious about health care should read and take to heart.

But that’s not something Washington will stress, because telling the American people the truth about health care would mean demanding they do something about their own lifestyles.

I say this as someone who has never been rich in my life, that is not in terms of money. Choices have always had to be made on what I could afford, with vitamins always chosen over chips or some other empty food, though I love tortilla chips and salsa as much as anyone, snacking on them at cocktail hour at our place. I eat pizza too, but only on rare occasion, because not only are the empty carbs deadly and the fat content a killer, but I pay for it the next day in energy and vitality, which is the inspiration for everything I add (or subtract) to my life. So, no, my choices aren’t perfect every day, but the intent is there non stop. This has meant I’m healthy most of the time, which as you get older means more control over your quality of life, no matter how long you live. As someone who cured herself of debilitating, blinding migraines, trust me when I say I’ve been tested.

More tough love from Dr. Weil:

Washington is working on reform initiatives that focus on one problem: the fact that the system is too expensive (and consequently too exclusive.) Reform proposals, such as the “public option” for government insurance or calls for drug makers to drop prices, are aimed mostly at boosting affordability and access. Make it cheap enough, the thinking goes, and the 46 million Americans who can’t afford coverage will finally get their fair share.
But what’s missing, tragically, is a diagnosis of the real, far more fundamental problem, which is that what’s even worse than its stratospheric cost is the fact that American health care doesn’t fulfill its prime directive — it does not help people become or stay healthy. It’s not a health care system at all; it’s a disease management system, and making the current system cheaper and more accessible will just spread the dysfunction more broadly.

So, no matter what bill comes out of Congress, you’ll pardon me if I don’t get too exercised about the outcome. It won’t make any difference at all in the average American’s health, unless each of us quits asking what the health care industry can do for us, and instead start acting on what we can do for ourselves.

So, as Pelosi and Hoyer opine on “lower costs, better care”, and Republicans continue to act out in town hall brawls, the fundamental issue of how good health is manifested is once again ignored.

Quit kidding yourself, America.

You can’t even write about the obese or purposely fat without being scolded that you’re being prejudice. We should be as hard on them as we are on smokers, just to see what that would manifest in health care savings, not to mention on quality of life of Americans from all ages.

Have it all, no responsibility required doesn’t work in life and it sure doesn’t work when it comes to your health. Without prevention and each person taking on their own lifestyle restructuring, the health of the average American is not going to change one iota.

But just maybe health care “reform” will allow more people to manage their diseases, as Dr. Weil puts it. We’ll see. Just don’t kid yourself that this is actually “reform”.

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Newt Allies Himself with Sarah’s ‘Death Panels’

By Taylor Marsh on 09 August 2009

Watching Newt Gingrich this morning on “This Week” was like watching someone out of an alternate universe from a previous century, especially when compared to Howard Dean. But Newt’s apparent seduction by Sarah Palin after she made her my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel”, statement lunacy is really one for the political books.

“You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are clearly people in American who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.” – Newt Gingrich on “This Week”

It really isn’t that impressive that other Republicans are distancing themselves from Palin when you have Newt Gingrich embracing Sarah’s Twilight Zone talking points.

Didn’t Sunday used to be the day “serious” men gathered to discuss the real challenges we face, because women are seldom seen, as adversaries from both sides offered cogent solutions?

Instead, Gingrich joined the wacky wing of the Republican Party while using every opportunity he could to pimp his think tank.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dean played the grown up. The best one out front on health care that we’ve got.

I’m just thankful it wasn’t Sebelius.

TM NOTE: Yes, we know about the URL crazy coding. The hosting company is working on it. Appreciate your emails!

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The Ongoing Olbermann-O’Reilly Feud.. er.. ‘Truce’

By Taylor Marsh on 07 August 2009

–updated below–

On Fridays, I often go back over some items I haven’t had time to fully analyze, with this a particularly good day to do so on this one, especially as RECESS! and summer vacation call for the political class in D.C., though in cities across this country the health care war will just be ginning up, though I hope the arrests in St. Louis (where I grew up) aren’t a foreshadowing of worse things to come.

To participate in this media game of who silenced whom and who played along with the boss, or actually didn’t, you need to have done some homework on the matter. Start with Glenn Greenwald who links to all the salient posts detailing the story including David Sirota, FDL, and stats of how many times Olbermann criticized O’Reilly before and after the reported “truce” supposedly became law at the networks in question. Not to be outdone, media man for HuffPost, Jason Linkins offers a particularly breathless post on the O’Reilly – Olbermann mystery as well. But all of this scrutiny began with the New York Times story on the GE – Fox News channel enforced “truce,” which reportedly came down on Olbermann and O’Reilly that resulted in the “world’s worst person” video segment, as well as the O’Reilly smackdown below, proving the “ongoing” part of the feud is more salient than the “truce” part. Howard Kurtz has more.

However, before everyone became so recently focused, it should be noted that it was the Washington Post who first reported on the GE – Fox News Channel brawl back in May 2008, saying in part: Fox News spokesman Brian Lewis said Ailes never offered a “quid pro quo” involving a cease-fire by O’Reilly and Olbermann.

Fast forward to the NYTimes piece recently that ignited the latest media critique war:

Mr. Olbermann, who is on vacation, said by e-mail message, “I am party to no deal,” adding that he would not have been included in any conversations between G.E. and the News Corporation. Fox News said it would not comment. – Voices From Above Silence a Cable TV Feud

Back on June 1, Olbermann made a comment that after Dr. Tiller’s death, O’Reilly was no laughing matter any longer, intimating that the attacks on O’Reilly would no longer be done just for fun, so they’d be stopped.

Somewhere between the NYTimes story and Olbermann’s quote within, and Olbermann’s prior statement of June 1, many progressives started smelling something suspiciously like corporate big footing of the news, with very good arguments made to prove the point.

Now again, I won’t go into the minutia of the criticisms of Olbermann, except to say that I don’t see why all of the above doesn’t apply. First, corporate heads do insert themselves into programming of the news. Go back to “60 Minutes”, CBS honchos and David Wigand, as a good example, with many more current examples available. Secondly, Olbermann was likely not a party to any deal, though I don’t doubt the network honchos made one. Thirdly, Olbermann’s statement about Dr. Tiller is also true. Considering O’Reilly’s incitement and the subsequent murder, it’s really incumbent upon everyone to take O’Reilly’s hate speech more seriously than to constantly throw rhetorical pies at the Fox pundit.

For my money, the real story was always Richard Wolffe sitting in for Olbermann, also being the most hacktacular target of them all.

I’ve had my beefs with Olbermann, who I long ago proved isn’t worthy of Edward R. Murrow’s “Good Night, and Good Luck” sign off. But that doesn’t mean we start picking gnat crap out of pundit pepper, if you’ll excuse the crassness.

Besides, I remember Olbermann’s show back in the late 1990s during impeachment. Never forgetting his ad nauseam coverage of Zippergate, which was expected from the media money men, and finally led Keith screaming out of the MSNBC studios to also break his contract, because he couldn’t stand what he was made to cover day in and day out, as dictated to him from the top. So when he was asked again to sign on for another show, I was particularly interested to see that “Countdown” was clearly formatted to safeguard against Olbermann having to ever cover one topic throughout the whole show again, regardless of what flaming hot button political scandal was catching fire and advertising gold. So, I just don’t see Olbermann signing on to any deal that dictates to him what he can and cannot cover on a daily basis. Doesn’t ring true.

But again, that doesn’t mean that GE honchos didn’t strike a “truce” with Fox News Channel. It’s just that in the era of ratings and ad money wars, it’s very unlikely that anyone is going to tell the likes of Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly what they can and can’t cover, as long as they stick to some basic ethical guidelines. Though even the cable networks’ definition of ethics is up to question, as the Wolffe, Barry McCaffrey, “Morning Joe” brewed by Starbucks, Swiftboat Veterans for “Truth” pimping, Dr. Tiller incitement, hunting judges, imbedded journalists depending on the Pentagon for stories, etc. segments prove.

But right now, given all the evidence I’ve combed over on this one, I’m taking Keith Olbermann at his word, all of them. Let’s also remember we’re talking about Keith, shall we? He may be a lot of things, including a shill in ’08 without declaring himself, though he’s got lots of company on that one, including his pal Wolffe, but he’s no Bill O’Reilly. I’ve never stopped watching him, even in his Hillary hating glory days, as he also never stopped hitting Bush-Cheney during it all, which was always most important.

I also remember well when there wasn’t a single voice on cable who could be called even remotely Democratic. Keith, Rachel and Ed, even Davis Shuster of Chelsea pimping infamy, are a big improvement from what we had before. Watch them all, but let’s not lose sight of the big picture. We’ve got more important battles to fight, which is why I wish Media Matters, one of my favorites, was using all that Lou Dobbs cash to fight for health care.

UPDATE (12:26 pm): Well, that certainly didn’t take long; emails, links, etc. coming in on this piece, and even before, so a couple of things to make clear. First, if you look at what I’ve written in criticism of Olbermann over the last year plus, you’ll see I’ve already rendered my own judgment as to his journalistic ethics and character, which is what this latest story is about really. So, in a nutshell, if Olbermann was stupid enough to actually allow himself to be muzzled, well, all I can say is that it wouldn’t surprise me. But we’ve had a lot of that in the seats of power, media and political, over the last years. Look what Colin Powell did to much greater harm, something he’s still trying to live down, unsuccessfully. However, it won’t alter my opinion: Mr. Olbermann will remain in the place he earned during 2008; a voice that comes in handy for liberals, but who sells out, as he did in the primary season by never openly declaring his candidate preference even if it was abundantly clear, whenever it suits him.

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Republicans Can’t Afford for Democrats to Succeed

By Taylor Marsh on 05 August 2009

Michelle Malkin is pouting (incoherently) again.

The impassioned thrashing in public of the wingnut fringe is having the impact of rallying Democrats, which isn’t exactly what Malkin maniacs had in mind.

DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse issued a statement about “the Republican Party and Allied Groups’ Mob Rule,” saying that the “Republicans and their allied groups — desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill — are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.”
“The right wing extremists’ use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the president’s citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are. This type of anger and discord did not serve Republicans well in 2008 — and it is bound to backfire again.”

The backlash has begun, with progressive health care activists organizing online, get your August Recess Guide here, in order to get the word out about where town halls will be held so serious people who want the insurance companies held to account can get their voices heard.

But it all comes down to the absolute, bone clattering panic of the Republicans, who obviously have guessed that if Democrats succeed in getting serious health care reform, once again they will be cast as the party with no answers and no solutions for the people.

Like other government safety nets, health care will be delivered through Democratic passion for what’s possible and what’s needed to make the lives of people better. Instead of trying to convince people to vote against their own best interests so you can seem relevant, when the only answer you have to any question is no.

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Labeling the Angry Mob Won’t Be Enough

By Taylor Marsh on 04 August 2009

via FDL

This can be boiled down into a very short analysis. The other side has emotion on their side, while Democrats sound clinically professorial. You cannot win any political campaign without connecting to people’s emotions.

In the video, Kathleen Sebelius clearly gets out messaged by the organized mob. Question is, why was she so ill prepared and does it really matter if the screaming hecklers are paid activists and lobbyists when the Administration and Democrats clearly have no plan to confront them? Besides, if Democrats and progressives succeed in casting hecklers as paid shills, there goes the opportunity to nail them for what they really are, extremists, a much more damaging label.

The White House (and Democrats) need to approach the town halls as if they are primary caucuses, something that candidate Barack Obama knows how to work very well. Because it’s obviously war out there.

Gibbs seemed to be getting what’s going on today when he referred to the extremists by calling them the “Brooks Brothers Brigade”. Obviously referring to the wild-eyed wingnuts who caused such a stir down in Florida during the 2000 recount.

Marc Ambinder is among the growing number of people putting the Dems in the spotlight:

The more troublesome question for Democratic strategists is why the major Democratic groups, including Organizing for America, the labor unions, Health Care for America Now, seem to be flatfooted and unable to match the much smaller conservative organizing capacity in these critical districts. One answer is that the media pays attention to the loudest voices, which are coming from the right. The other is that organizing around major — even popular — reforms of existing institutions is tough. The Democrats don’t have a single bill right now, and the elite left is worried about what’s not in the cards — a public plan — and is therefore fairly unenthusiastic. If the liberal elite isn’t enthusiastic, the liberal base — less knowledgeable — will be as well.

Hopefully the Brooks Brothers Brigade labeling will stick and cascade across the media.

The thing that’s alarming is that when I analyze this down I come to the uncomfortable conclusion that it really doesn’t matter whether the right has well financed, well organized mobs, including insurance shills, showing up for Democratic town halls. It’s still a whole lot of angry partisans who believe what they’re shouting getting the attention, while Democrats look positively lame when responding.

When your average American isn’t paying full attention and only tunes in to hear the shouts and see the outrage; given the economic state of most people’s lives, it’s not a far jump to bet the viewer agrees with the rabble.

That’s why focusing on describing the angry mobs showing up at town halls is in the end pretty worthless. Details seldom matter in these types of campaigns. Take the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, who were a bunch of partisan liars out to impugn the integrity of a Democratic veteran. The details didn’t matter; they simply tapped into doubts already there and funneled emotion through them.

What’s important is the offense Democratic legislators are offering at the top of their town hall, not the description of whom they’re facing. So even though Brooks Brothers Brigade is good, very good, it doesn’t hit the emotion button like the angry mob is doing. One person in an email to me suggested every single legislator bring an “average American” who has a health care horror story to tell to the town hall and have him/her tell their tale. Bring two! Hearing heartbreaking real life stories hits that emotion button critical in these types of campaigns. Besides, it’s much harder to yell at a health care victim than it is a politician.

Unfortunately, right now there is no such plan in motion, with the passion mostly on the organized mob side. So that’s where the cameras will be focused, even if we succeed in labeling them, which has already become a problem as talk radio brings on listener after listening exclaiming, “We are too grass roots!”

There goes the Brooks Brothers Brigade. Then what? So far, Democrats have no answers.

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Open Season

By Taylor Marsh on 04 August 2009

“We’ve addressed these rumors before. They are nothing more than typical Washington parlor games. It’s disappointing that while we are focused on reviving the economy and fighting two wars, others spend their time pointing fingers in an attempt to promote their own status.” – White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, via Wall Street Journal

Whether the Wall Street Journal has a solid story amidst the wild-eyed, anonymously sourced writing that breathlessly offers that the Administration is “holding discussions that could result in White House counsel Gregory Craig leaving his post,” is unknowable right now. The White House, the only source on record for the piece, is having none of it, with Emanuel’s office quick to swat it down.

What isn’t really in question is that Greg Craig has not served his President well.

The state secrets issue is a problematic stance, but it’s hardly shocking once Obama became part of the Presidents’ Club. And the idea of closing Gitmo isn’t an issue either, even though The Weekly Standard wants to make it one. Gitmo has to be closed, though no one is doubting that doing it won’t be easy. If it were we’d have done it already. Besides, keeping Gitmo open is untenable in an Obama presidency. But the real tipping point for Greg Craig was when he put Pres. Obama in a place where he had to reverse himself on releasing detainee photos, in a flip flop that revealed horrific legal advice that exposed the President to his adversaries, while it was clear that the timing of the release would coincide to Obama hitting Cairo just as the photos were to be released. It was a White House amateur hour moment, likely delivered, at least in part, through bad advice from Craig.

When you couple this with DADT, which is clearly under the national security umbrella, which Craig seems to partially hold up, the decision to not have the President issue an executive order (as Truman did on desegregating the military), but instead let legislation snake through at a snail’s pace, while pictures of a hunky fighter jock about to be kicked out of the Air Force blast across the country, clearly presents Obama look like a man who doesn’t deliver on promises. When you have Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, who is about to be discharged even after heroic service, saying that explicitly, well, it’s a direct hit no commander in chief takes lightly from a vaunted military man who also has the backing of military groups across the country.

FISA is yet another issue where Greg Craig’s excuses for Obama remain incredulous to this day. But it was foreshadowing of the bad advice to come. From 2008:

“This was a deliberative process, and not something that was shooting from the hip,” Mr. Craig said. “Obviously, there was an element of what’s possible here. But he concluded that with FISA expiring, that it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire.”

Greg Craig may or may not lose his job, but so far, he’s not done the President much good.

It may not be fair to judge it like this, but it just seems like this WSJ piece is part of the shotgun blast coverage Pres. Obama is now getting since his poll numbers started to soften and he’s made himself vulnerable over the horrific mismanagement on health care messaging, which culminated in the botched press conference that led to the “beer summit” that took Obama further off message on health care. While Republicans dug in and down, continuing their well funded grass roots campaign in the void, with nothing short of well financed and well organized mobs bombarding legislators in their home districts, which will continue throughout the recess.

Greg Sargent asks the bottom line question: Is Obama’s Vaunted Political Operation Getting Outworked By Tea-Baggers?

Going after Craig is just a side show for the real battle, which is to take down Obama by scuttling health care. So Republicans are hitting the President wherever they can. It’s open season on all things Obama.

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Digging Down and Looking Around

By Taylor Marsh on 02 August 2009

“Americans are asking what’s in it for them, and I don’t think the Democrats have responded as directly as we should on that,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). With so much attention focused on the legislative brawls and missed deadlines, he said, “it looks like we’re drifting.” – Washington Post

One of my favorite stops of the day, Abu Muqawama, is interviewed by Charlie Rose regarding Afghanistan.

Marc Lynch covers the 2009 Arab Human Development Report over at The National. One segment:

The report is scathing about the corrosive effects of the “war on terror” – showing clearly how Arab authoritarian regimes reconfigured and expanded their repressive power at precisely the time when the Bush administration spoke the loudest about its “Freedom Agenda”. The authors do not need to resort to discussing Guantanamo to make this point brutally clear. They describe the anti-terror laws passed in many Arab countries, in which “imprecision and ambiguity form a threat to basic freedoms”, and note that states have clearly “failed to find the required balance between the security of society and the preservation of individual rights and freedoms”. It is this legacy that Arab reformists – and those in the West who wish to help them – now must confront. The “global war on terror” will not fade so easily away.

Read Laura Rozen on all Gen. McChrystal’s advisors.

If you’re into intelligence, Tom Ricks has reading suggestions for you.

Counterterrorism has a 2008 final report on Terrorism in the West.

Which Afghanistan War Are We Fighting? speaks for itself, via Democracy Arsenal.

…and way off the foreign policy subject, but worth reading, is the incredible tale of Annie Lebowitz’s financial catastrophe. Sobering.

Swinging back again, pressure on Iran will intensify this fall, first via economic sanctions, while Clinton’s words that the offer for engagement won’t be on the table forever now hits home. Via Haaretz:

American officials briefed Israel this week on the administration’s ideas for intensifying sanctions against Iran if it fails to respond to President Barack Obama’s offer of dialogue.
U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones, who is now in Israel to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, indicated that Tehran has until the UN General Assembly in the last week of September to respond. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates delivered a similar message during his visit here earlier this week. If no satisfactory answer is received, the Americans said, they would work to form an international coalition to impose harsh sanctions on Iran.

Finishing back here at home on health care, with the Post offering this headline: Obama Trims Sails On Health Reform He Seeks to Rally Support. We’ll have to see what actually manifests.

… ..By leaving the bill-writing up to Congress, Obama is better-positioned to claim success no matter which bill is adopted. Already, he has abandoned his opposition to the proposed requirement that everyone have insurance, known as an individual mandate, and signaled a willingness to consider financing schemes — including tax increases — that originally were not on his agenda.
His patient, hands-off style — reminiscent of his methodical primary campaign last year — has frustrated some anxious Democrats but stands in stark contrast to Clinton’s unsuccessful strategy of crafting a 1,300-page bill in secret and then pressing lawmakers to approve it.
Administration officials have also begun whispering a phrase used during the presidential campaign, speaking of putting the nation on a “glide path” to universal coverage rather than the insurance-for-all trumpeted by many Democrats. Though few remember, Obama never promised coverage to all 47 million uninsured Americans. A slower, phased-in attempt to cover everyone would help reduce the cost of legislation.
“A bill that gets us on a glide path is a win,” said one Democratic strategist who recently visited the White House and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to comment on administration strategy.

About that bold above, I’m one who does remember. However, I have also seen how Pres. Obama has moved on other aspects. But the “hands-off style” is over. It simply didn’t work.

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Bill Clinton, Can’t Get No Respect

By Taylor Marsh on 01 August 2009

Can anything be more obvious?

Obama in trouble on health care for weeks, can’t explain his way out of it while stepping into “stupidly,” yet won’t reach out to, perhaps, the one man who could put it over the top. If only to get down into with the Blue Dogs. Of course, I’m talking about the great Democratic salesman, William Jefferson Clinton.

Hey, but since the Obama administration won’t use Howard Dean on health care, who is an actual doctor, no one should be surprised.

Got ego, Prez? In excess, if you ask me.

Of course, even daring to write this I can already hear the squealing from the Obama choir, emphasized by the Bill Clinton is Bad orchestra. Because, you know, William Jefferson Clinton can never be utilized by progressives or libs, even on health care after the “Hillarycare” fall. Ack! The bad memories.

Never have Democratic assets been so under utilized.

Tina Brown, thank you:

Surely it’s the former president who got it wrong once who has spent the most time and lost the most sleep thinking over how he would do it again. More important, wouldn’t Bubba do a better job than the professorial Obama at sweet-talking, arm wrestling, hugging, and head locking such obstructive Blue Dogs as Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross, who used to run a family drugstore just like the one Bill remembers from his years growing up in Hot Springs? Or North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler, who’s one of that class of moderate Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer promised not to push around too much when Rahm persuaded them to run for a seat in the House? Obama needs to get himself dirty, and be seen to get dirty.
It looks like Obama would rather live on cheeseburgers than let Clinton get into the act on health care—or on anything else, for that matter. Maybe he thinks there’s no stage big enough for both these two Mount Rushmore megastars and never will be. Despite surface cordiality and self-restraint for Hillary’s sake, the former president’s wounds from the harsh charge of racism on the campaign, a falsehood on which Obama created his “post-racialism” campaign, remain deep, and they are not assuaged by the coolly minimal lip service a still mistrustful Obama pays to Bill’s presidential wisdom. “Sure, he calls me every few weeks,” the former president told a person I know. “But it feels as if, you know, he’s just checking a box.”

We all know what an aversion Barack Obama has to all things relating to the Big Dog. But considering he’s the best salesman we’ve got, you’ve really got to wonder. Lots of people are asking why not, including original Obama supporters.

It all gets down to Obama not wanting to have to give Bill Clinton credit. Even at the presidential level we’re seeing pettiness and spiteful professional jealousies. An attitude that permeates the Democratic layers all the way down to the grass roots, even though it was Clinton who dragged us out of the financial mess Ronald Reagan and his deregulating Republicans got us into. You’d think after the financial collapse of 2008 Obama would appreciate former Pres. Clinton a little more. Find a presidential kinship of sorts. That Bill Clinton was able to do that with George H.W. Bush, through the son president George W. Bush no less, illustrates how grown men can act when larger goals require it.

Ego is a tough master.

TM NOTE: As expected, this post generated a lot of discussion, though the downturn into male… um… endowment insults was definitely not a high point.

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Obama Finds His Inner Partisan

By Taylor Marsh on 29 July 2009

“No one in America should go broke because of an illness. … .. … [...] …Because the truth is we have a system today that works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn’t always work well for you.” [applause] – Pres. Obama

After Obama’s abysmal health care press conference last week, which left his message in tatters. It seems he decided to pay attention to his leaking approval ratings and the fact that Democrats were losing ground on the health care debate and do something about it.

So, in Raleigh, North Carolina today, a hub of Glaxosmithkline, Pres. Obama came out swinging at his opponents. He was on fire, taking special delight at hitting the Republican health care reform fearmongers, while simultaneously slamming them over criticism of the Recovery Act.

When Obama got to the moment in his warm up where he stated you won’t be denied insurance because of a pre-existing illness, the room erupted into a standing ovation. But Obama’s opener was a stem winder reaching back into the Republican excess under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. It was long overdue.

“… Although I’ve gotta say, when I hear critics talk about out of control spending I start scratchin’ my head. I can’t help but remember, those same critics contributed to a $1.3 trillion deficit that I inherited when I took office. [applause]… I mean, seriously, I’m now president, so I’m responsible for solving it, but I don’t think we should have a selective memory. You hand me a $1.3 trillion dollar bill and then you’re complaining 6 months later because we haven’t paid it all back. [applause] A debt, by the way, that was partially the result of two tax cuts that went primarily to the wealthiest few Americans, and a Medicare drug program that wasn’t paid for. These are the same folks who are now complaining about health care, we can’t afford health care. You pass a prescription drug program and didn’t pay for it! Handed the bill to me. [Obama laughs]…” … .. Nobody is talking about some government takeover of health care. [applause] I’m tired of hearing that … These folks need to stop scaring everybody. [applause and cheering]… .. …” – Obama in Raleigh, North Carolina (rough transcript)

The ending was even better than the beginning.

“I keep sayin’ to people, I’ve got health care. This is not for me. …this isn’t about politics, this is about people’s lives. This is about people’s businesses. This about the future. I want our children and grandchildren to look back and say this is when we decided to take the politics out of it and start doing something for the future of this country. I’m going to need your help, Raleigh. Let’s go do it.”

It was Barack Obama the campaigner today, taking a page from William Jefferson Clinton who always understood that pushing big legislation in Washington is always a partisan fight. That people side with winners, not losers, especially when the complexities are beyond them. So if the health care debate is being framed as “lost,” we’re screwed. Changing perceptions and the message was what today was about.

“I was getting fired up there,” Obama said with a chuckle, as he headed to take questions.

Stay fired up, Mr. President. That’s what it’s going to take to get a good bill done, especially with no votes coming until fall.

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Tax the Stuff Making Us Sick

By Taylor Marsh on 29 July 2009

–updated–

How do we pay for health care?

Some call it a “sin” tax. I won’t. It’s too 20th century, religious punishment for me.

It’s a “healthy tax.” Taxing beverages and foods, but also pleasure vices, that are making us sick, sometimes killing us, but also adding to the cost of national health care hopes. It’s an idea whose time has come IF we’re serious about getting healthier.

Meanwhile, The Hill has its usual headline maligning Democrats: “Dem healthcare infighting intensified.” The whole “Democrats in disarray” the favorite theme of the DC media elite. That this crowd doesn’t see working hard to get a national health care bill something that should be talked about in more serious terms, rather than reduce it to party infighting, illustrates the lack of understanding for what Democrats are actually intending to do. As if getting national health care is an easy goal.

Read about rural Virginia if you don’t think this issue is urgent.

The story here isn’t Democratic “infighting.” It’s about Max Baucus hijacking the health care agenda, with top Dems willing to provide him cover while he does it. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a healthy Ted Kennedy. We’ve never needed his presence more.

Reid gave Baucus some cover by refusing to rule out supporting the co-op compromise.
On Tuesday, Obama reiterated his support for the public option during an event held at the headquarters of the seniors’ lobby AARP. “I think that helps keep the insurance companies honest because now they have somebody to compete with,” he said.
But while Obama and his aides have trumpeted this support, they have not ruled out backing the compromise. “He knows what we’re doing,” Baucus said. “I talk to the president daily; our staffs talk to the White House daily.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration would “certainly take a look at” the co-op idea, but said it was “a little premature” to talk about reconciling the two conflicting bills.
Obama is “comfortable with the path this is going on,” Gibbs said.

But we’ve still got to pay for it.

Food lobbyists are working overtime to make sure they’re not hit, even if it’s just a few cents on each product.

The House wants to tax the rich.

I say, tax my wine and beer. Tax chips. Tax anything with refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup in it, including those high fat breakfast treats like danish and donuts. If Americans are going to insist on their fat-causing, obesity aiding refined products, they should at least have to pay the price for what it will cost in health care bills eventually.

But we should get a tax deduction if we belong to a gym. After all, some Americans spend time and hard earned money on staying healthy. A tax credit incentivizes our intent. It’s another good idea.

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TM-DC Podcast: Health Care, Dean on Dems (and more)

By Taylor Marsh on 28 July 2009

The latest podcast is up. You can get it through RSS, as well as ITunes. Enjoy.

The topics are Gates – Crowley – Obama, health care, as well as Sarah Palin. Couldn’t forget her after she officially quit on Sunday.

As for some background for the podcast, it’s Howard Dean who nails it.

You know, this is going to be a hell of an issue in 2010 cause honestly, what’s the point of having a 60 vote majority in the United States Senate, if you can’t produce…health care reform. You can get health insurance reform. This bill is going to cost us a lot of money and it isn’t going to do anything, if this so-called compromise is true. This compromise does nothing, except it will reform insurance. That’s a good thing to do, but they ought to strip the money out of it cause we reformed insurance like this in Vermont 15 years ago. It’s a fine thing to do, but it doesn’t insure more people.

I’d remind everyone that in last week’s press conference Obama led off with “health insurance reform” as the goal, which few caught at the time. But it sure got my attention straight off.

Good evening. Before I take your questions, I want to talk for a few minutes about the progress we’re making on health insurance reform and where it fits into our broader economic strategy. – Pres. Obama

Now take a look at this picture.

Where are the health care heroes? See Ezra:

This is not the Finance Committee’s bill. This is the Max Baucus Committee’s Bill. And there’s not a liberal — or even a Democrat traditionally associated with health-care policy — working on it.

Now read this article, if you haven’t already.

Health care and more in the podcast.

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Obesity is Deadly and Expensive

By Taylor Marsh on 27 July 2009

We’re fat and getting fatter quicker.

Look around.

Now that we’re talking about national health care, will it become everybody’s business?

In the eight years leading up to 2006, the proportion of Americans weighing in as obese shot up 37%, fueling a $40-billion-a-year rise in healthcare costs, according to a new analysis of the nation’s weight conducted under the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That added bill for the care of obese Americans — equivalent to an annual expenditure of $1,429 more per person — drove the nation’s healthcare tab up fast and very steeply: while the extra care required for the severely overweight accounted for 6.1% of all medical spending in 1998, it accounted for 9.1% of total spending by 2006, the new study shows.

Check with your doctor about any exercise program, especially if have never had one. That goes double for any change in diet. Altering either exercise and diet is something that should be done slowly and carefully. Besides, if you want to get healthy the only way it will happen is through a lifestyle shift. This post in no way is being offered as medical advice, as I’m not an M.D. and not qualified in the least, which will make my lawyer happy that I’ve admitted. But I certainly can give you my own personal experience on the subject gained over a lifetime of competitive living in many, many arenas.

“The biggest loser” is a terrific inspiration to the obese. These people intend on changing their life by getting control over their own eating and exercise habits, which has the power to change their lives.

Of course, eating is also tied to emotions. Who doesn’t know that? So it’s a complex issue requiring a lot of intellectual work as well.

If we’re serious about health care reform, the first thing that has to happen is each American taking responsibility for their own health and the choices each person makes to sabotage that effort. With national health care, we’re paying for the fat slob across the aisle. So tolerance for obesity has got to go. As does laziness about working out and our own responsibility to health.

Anyone bet we’re going to do this? That people are going to curb their junk food addictions? Fat chance.

Now, not everyone is a size 4, including me. But everyone knows when they’re overweight and should rein it in. You don’t need a scale for that. You also know if you’re in shape. You don’t feel good when you’re overweight and out of shape. You also look like hell. There is nothing wrong with being a size 14, depending on your own natural curves and body structure. However, if you’re not working out 30 minutes a day, 5 to 6 times a week, well, you’re simply out of shape.

Working out every day is not something you ask yourself if you have time for. You simply make the time every day. No outs. Period.

The phrase “big and beautiful” was a major phrase back in the 1990s. It was used a lot in personal and dating ads. But “fat and beautiful” would not have caught on. Making big sexy had been a movement. However, fat isn’t in anymore.

What’s the difference? With national health, will we start defining it more aggressively?

The saddest sight I see is fat parents with kids following in their footsteps. It’s appalling. In fact, it’s a type of child abuse. It’s setting up the kid to have a horrendous disadvantage later in life. But when parents are lazy, fat slobs, what do you expect?

But how focused are we really going to be on “health care.” Not just affordable health insurance, but a nation of people who get a grip that “dieting” doesn’t do it and if you want to be healthy it’s about changing your lifestyle to match that intent?

Drinking too much? Did you think immediately about alcohol? What about sugar rich sodas? Both in excess are killers.

There are a few secrets I’ve learned over the years about weight. First among them is you won’t lose weight if you don’t exercise… a lot. Some half-assed meandering walk around the block isn’t enough. That goes double once you’re over 40. Secondly, to lose weight you have to eat less. Push away from the table. But starving yourself is stupid and a diet frame of mind, not a lifestyle shift that you can manage over the long haul. There’s no substitute for thinking long term. And know your body and don’t compare it to Jane who’s younger and burns calories like oxygen.

Oh, and get your butt to the gym.

Someone also needs to tell me why people who work daily on staying fit and healthy should pay for the diseases of the obese when they made that choice themselves?

“The connection between rising obesity and rising medical spending is undeniable,” the authors of the study, published in the journal Health Affairs, concluded.

Smokers get dinged on insurance forms, costing more, why shouldn’t the obese?

This is one reason I can only get so exercised, forgive the pun, about health care reform, unless it has a prevention and wellness aspect built in. What are people going to do themselves to make health care reform work, which includes keeping costs down by not getting preventable diseases?

It gets down to changing the way we think. Good health is very rarely an accident. It also goes beyond diet and exercise to include mental health. But that’s another subject for another day.

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Beyond Dr. Tiller

By Taylor Marsh on 26 July 2009

–updated–

Not only did she fear the protesters, she also worried about whether Dr. Tiller would be gruff and cold, “only in it for the money,” as his critics alleged. It was almost a shock, she said, to instead meet a slightly nerdy doctor who gently explained every step and kept asking, “Are you doing O.K.?” – An Abortion Battle, Fought to the Death

I don’t write much about this subject. I still can’t figure out why in an age where science has offered up the antidote to abortion, we’re still talking about it. The Morning After Pill combined with birth control should render this discussion closed. In fact, the article today in the New York Times Magazine illustrates why traditional media is failing so spectacularly. Instead of Dr. Tiller’s story, why isn’t the Times focusing on the health care debate and women’s reproductive rights, including abortion?

A group of 20 House Democrats signed a letter sent last Friday to House Democratic leaders stating they “cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.” The House health-care bill doesn’t explicitly mention abortion, but the Democrats who signed the letter are a guarantee that it wouldn’t allow the federal funding of abortions or require that private health-insurance plans pay for abortions. – WSJ

But yet, the pro selective life crowd keep on with their 19th century mantra, with zealots among them winning on access and lynch-mob mentality for anyone who dares to provide women the legal health care rights we deserve. The pro selective life crowd hell bent on scuttling women’s civil rights for which women have fought and died over decades and decades. Their theory when applied to health care today is simple, as is their advice to Pres. Obama:

You will infuriate abortion-rights activists. But to be blunt, where are they going to go? – The Week Magazine

The “where are they going to go” theory of women’s civil rights shrouded in the “call their bluff” talking points of putting in language against poor women, so that the majority gets health care, etc. etc. Read the piece, you’ll get the picture.

But even as bad as the piece is, it’s where the New York Times should have gone today. Proving that even this newspaper can’t reject passed events over the importance of covering a critical current event in today’s health care debate.

The pro choice crowd not singularly focused on engaging these anti civil rights activists on the one issue that renders the issue solved: reproductive health care products, including when it comes to health care reform. Some Democrats fighting for health care reform seem to think the Chris Matthews philosophy against abortion access the most moral fight.

The whole debate revolves around civil rights (which should never be predicated on whether you are rich or poor).

Back in May, I did an interview with Women on the Web about whether there is a “pro-life feminist movement.” I can barely write those words without laughing out loud. I explain why fully in the interview below. It seems like a perfect moment to share the importance of women’s civil rights, which includes full reproductive health care access. Today Women on the Web’s lead story is on “The Bathing Suit Chronicles.” Anyway, I tape all my interviews, so I’ve got the back and forth, which I thought I’d share today, because it adds a broader context to The New York Times piece. Though we might have missed some things here and there, the text is as close to verbatim as we could get. I hope it will give everyone something to think about. We’re beyond Tiller today.

_________________________

WOMEN ON THE WEB: … As I told you this is for a piece on the pro-life feminist movement.

TAYLOR: Oh, that’s an oxymoron.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK, well we’ll get into that in a second. First of all you describe yourself as pro-choice, basically. Can I ask you why you . . . you’re pro-choice?

TAYLOR: Well I don’t describe myself as pro-choice, actually.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: How do you describe yourself?

TAYLOR: I’m pro women’s civil rights.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK.

TAYLOR: That’s what I’m for.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And what’s . . .

TAYLOR: Civil rights begins with what we do with our own bodies. If you cannot have . . . if you don’t have control over your own body, there’s . . . there are no civil rights. It doesn’t exist. I mean, I happen to believe that privacy is part of that, but that isn’t the only issue. The issue is my body is nobody else’s but my own. And what I . . . and my decisions that affect my body and my life, whether it’s diet, health or something as monumental as ending a pregnancy or deciding to go forward with a pregnancy, that is ultimately my decision. And this is a civil rights issue.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right. Well a lot of people, certainly like in your ideological camp for people who would define themselves as pro-choice, discuss the fact that, you know, being able to choose what to do with their body is an empowering decision for women. Marjorie Dannfelser, who runs the Susan B. Anthony List, and that’s a group that campaigns for pro-life female candidates, as well as pro-life male candidates, argued to me that . . . …But she said, “Well, you know, people can be empowered to do lots of things. We can be empowered to abuse our children, we can be empowered to starve ourselves, we can be . . .

TAYLOR: Oh, good grief.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: . . . empowered to steal. What do you make of that sort of counter argument from her?

TAYLOR: Well it’s . . . it’s changing the subject. It’s kind of like a non sequitur argument, and I disagree with their whole . . . they’re pro-selective life. They’re not pro-life. A woman in the throes of a difficult choice, especially someone that’s younger, this is . . . this is a life issue for her. And some women can’t afford it, aren’t emotionally prepared. I mean, there’s a million reasons. I’m not going to, you know, delineate people’s choices there. But this is . . . their platform is a pro-selective life, because if they really were pro-life then these individuals that want to curtail a woman’s civil rights would also be for preventing pregnancy, they’d be fore contraception, they’d be for RU-486. We could get into the stem cell debate and what that does for quality of life and pro-life. Their argument is morally bankrupt and most . . . and a lot of these people are also . . . you know, they’re the proponents for torture, they’re the proponents for the death penalty. So their pro-selective life. It’s . . . it’s . . . their argument is morally bankrupt and it . . . it really doesn’t . . . if you follow the through line you just gave, it makes absolutely no sense and I really feel sorry for them because in the 21st Century, if you really want to be an agent for changed, whatever it is, but especially when it comes to the abortion issue, you have to put everything in the mix. You have to want to help young women, you have to want to go beyond abstinence – which doesn’t work. That’s been proven a million times. And you have to not only teach abstinence, but you have to also give them the tools of what happens our emotions and our physical urges smack int . . . you know, run into the wall of a situation that is leading you down a tough road. You have to be prepared and be willing to stop unwanted pregnancies, not just through abstinence but through every means we have – scientific, medical, all of it. You have to bring all of it to bear if we’re going stop the number of abortions, which we actually have the power to do. We can bring this down if everyone would agree. You know, my side – pro civil rights – will agree, OK teach abstinence, but abstinence plus. Their side won’t come to our side. They will make no compromises whatsoever. So we’re not able to curtail the number of abortions. Then if you want to go to what we can do in the world, and AIDS and what is happening with our policy in the gag rule around the world, you know, we have a moral obligation to use every . . . every scientific means at our method, plus the moral means, plus abstinence. The only way to get abortion down is to use them all.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: … Hmm, interesting. I like the pro-selective life argument. I had not heard that but I think it’s, you know, very . . .

TAYLOR: You know, it’s absolutely what it is. It’s . . . and too many people . . . that’s why I reject wholly being put in the pro-choice. It’s far larger than that, and they get pro-life. Their sloganeering makes them sound like their on a higher plane. But when you dissect it down, and even the argument you gave me, if you dissect it down it’s creepy what their saying – that you can inspire people to be . . . I mean, that’s their argument? This . . . I’m not just . . . it’s not just about being pro-choice. I think women have a tremendous responsibility, especially in the modern era. There is no excuse for an “unwanted pregnancy.” There’s no excuse for it, with the scientific methods we have, the medicine we have, planned parenthood. And I’m not a . . . you know, I’m not a member of any of these groups, but there’s just no excuse for it. We have the means for . . . for every, single young woman – and young man, by the way. It’s not just about women, it’s men too. We have the means to stop “unwanted pregnancies.” There’s no excuse for it. And the pro-selective life community won’t engage on all these methods. And that’s why we’re still having this ridiculous argument. We should just go about . . . we should be in the solution phase, period. I mean, it’s the 21st Century. We should . . . none of these other things are valid. They are old. They are out-worn. It is putting us on a hamster wheel of this argument that gets us nowhere. And I’ve seen what this does when someone is faced with these things, when they have parents that . . . that, you know, don’t allow . . . don’t allow their own daughter’s civil rights to be acknowledged. This is a problem, and we can’t just close our eyes and say, “Oh, we’d love this all to be abstinence and every . . .” I mean, who wouldn’t love that to work? But it just doesn’t. You know, it’s just not practical. It’s just not practical. And we are . . . we all are guilty if we don’t fight for every tool we have to be on board. This is a very serious issue. This is very serious and it deserves . . . it deserves solutions, not just a rolling debate that leads us back to the 20th Century, to things that have already been solved by science.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And my next question is a simple enough question, but of course the answer can be quite complicated. What . . . how do you define a feminist?

TAYLOR: Boy, well I’ll start by saying that for a long time the Conservatives have said that the feminist era is over, and that is because they look through a very myopic lens, and they think that feminism is just about the United States, and just about what women in the United States have. I cover foreign policy. That is my main thing, especially since I moved to DC. It has always been my passion and I look at it through a really wide lens, covering Afghan women, covering what is done to women in honor killings. Being a feminist is about . . . and you don’t have to be female to be feminist. Being a feminist is insuring that every woman has the God given civil rights that we were born with, to be totally free to envision her life as she wants without restriction, except obviously by law and certain things of that nature; not the law of a country, but the law of . . . the Golden Rule law, let’s say. And I think as long there is one woman being stoned to death in some country, if young girls are having acid poured on them because they want to go to school, it is every woman’s duty to fight for that woman to be free to make those choices to educate herself or educate children. And I . . . and this does not involve getting in the midst of religious differences. It has nothing to do with what clothing some woman wears, whether she wants to wear a (abaya or hajib). That is a choice of her religion that is none of our business. But it is the world’s business that women’s rights are human rights, and a feminist fights for those rights whether they’re in the United States of in Kenya – wherever it is. That is the goal, is to spread the importance of women’s rights as human rights, as Hillary Clinton so eloquently said back in China in the ‘90s as First Lady. This is very critical because we are learning, and we have learned, that the more women have a say in a nation the more stable their government. That is in our interest as Americans, and that’s in our interest as we go forward to try to have relationships with countries, to stabilize the world we live in.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Going over . . . I mean, doing my work for this piece I’ve encountered to many different definitions of feminist. There is the free-market feminist, the pro-life feminist, feminist feminist, progressive feminist… … I mean, you have a very . . . I’m not going to say strict, but you have a very definite definition of what a feminist can and should be. So you . . . do you not believe in a spectrum of feminism?

TAYLOR: What do you mean by a spectrum of feminism?

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Well, you know, some people argue you can be a feminist and pro-life, you can be a feminist and pro-choice, you can be . . .

TAYLOR: No, I don’t. No. Absolutely not. I don’t believe in that.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK.

TAYLOR: I absolutely don’t believe that. You know, femin . . . no, I don’t. It’s a civil rights issue. It’s what I just explained. No, I don’t. I don’t think you can dissect it. I think they want to dissect it because that makes it easier and the responsibilities less onerous. You know, the responsibilities that we have to fellow people on our plant, it makes it easier. And they can also say, “Well, in this small section I really am a feminist. But if I go out of this section I’m not.” You know, that . . . that doesn’t wash. Whether progressive or conservative, you know, I could care less, when we’re talking about getting something done around the world – helping women . . . The Clinton Global Foundation and how they help keep down AIDS, they make deals to get drugs to communities to help, women, their children, stop the AIDS virus. I mean, this is all our job as feminists… . . . . . …You know, we each have tribes, but we can all agree that quality of life is imperative, especially with women… whether you’re Israeli Palestinian… Israeli Arab women there do not . . . are not able to work. I mean that is our job. There is no . . . there is no subset. You either are involved in dragging this world forward to a place of more enlightenment, peace and civil rights for everyone, or you’re not. Period.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: You know what’s interesting, Taylor, is that I’ve been approaching all sorts of people for this story, but Planned Parenthood and Feminist Majority declined to comment.

TAYLOR: Huh?

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Isn’t that weird? I thought it was weird.

TAYLOR: Well, I . . . I’ve got to be honest, as I said before I don’t belong to any of those groups.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right.

TAYLOR: And so . . . and there’s a reason… You know, there’s a reason. I just . . . I push away from the group think stuff and it’s what gets me in trouble all the time.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Well, I mean, I have the same thing with organizations like Human Rights Campaign.

TAYLOR: Yeah. . . . . . Well it’s another . . . it’s another form of tribalism. And I don’t want to get down into smaller tribes. I want to be part of a big tribe.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right. Right.

TAYLOR: Because big tribes can make better change.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: I think so, too. Another argument that has come up from the so-called pro-life feminists is the idea that the ability to have a child, that maternity is an essential part of a woman’s being. What do you make of that, that it’s like a woman’s duty to have a child almost?

TAYLOR: That’s propaganda placed on someone else because you want to control them. Its guilt, it’s marketing, it’s making it laudatory without . . . without considering the personal woman’s own life. Again, pro-selective life, the life they want you to lead has nothing to do with her civil rights and her willingness to find her own soul’s journey. Each person is not in it for . . . as much as I want to move the collective forward, each of us is not in this world to simply be part of a collective. Through our own soul journey we find answers and our own bliss, which leads us to a higher place that makes us more valuable in that group that can push forward and make change. But the first thing you’ve got to do is go through your own soul journey. And they want to cut that off and make it . . . make women feel a duty to do something other than they’re being called to do. It’s coercion.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And my final question for you, and I . . . I mean I pretty much know how you’re going to answer this, but I need to ask. Is it anti-feminist to fight Roe vs. Wade?

TAYLOR: Roe vs. Wade is . . . is settled law. I’m going to come back to it. This is a civil rights issue. And if you’re against women’s civil rights, you’re on the wrong side. Anything that impedes a woman’s civil rights is wrong, it is antithetical to everything that I know, even about my own Christian faith. It’s . . . it’s cutting off freedom and it’s cutting off your own soul journey. Part of the tough choices we make in life, the tough decisions, what we create on our own . . . by our own mistakes, is the challenges that make us better people. And all this is part of a civil rights journey that makes you who you are and hopefully you learn from them and get better. And it’s all down to civil rights. Anyone who fights against a person’s civil rights – women, man, gay, lesbian, whatever you want to call it – anyone who stands up against a person’s civil rights is on the wrong side.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Alright. Well you have been very informative . . .

TAYLOR: Well thanks for this. I appreciate the opportunity. I really do.

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Defying Expectations

By Taylor Marsh on 23 July 2009

Gordon Liddy’s performance on “Hardball” today, which I taped (because I don’t watch this show much anymore), was stunning. You simply have to watch Liddy to believe it. According to him, Obama’s step-grandmother gave a deposition under oath that she actually saw, that’s right, saw Barack Obama born in Mombasa, Kenya. What it symbolizes is something larger. That Republicans will do anything to take Pres. Obama down. It remains to be seen what Democrats in Congress are willing to do to keep this from happening. Of course, I’m talking about the issue of the moment, health care.

Take an email that surfaced from Rick Scott, the former hospital executive leading conservatives against reform. In the blast, Scott states that if Obama doesn’t get a bill passed before Labor Day, the public option is done. From Glenn Thrush:

Keep Up the Fight – Victory is in Sight!
Thanks to a collective effort by a loose knit coalition of free market health care advocates, conservative grassroots groups, and some reasonable-minded elected officials, I am very confident, after meetings on the Hill this week, that if Congress does not pass a health care bill with the public option before Labor Day, the public option is dead. While Victory is near, we must not rest.

This is what Republicans did to Clinton back in the 1990s. They hunt Democratic presidents hoping their constant attacks weaken him so he can run them from office or deny him a second term, which is the same thing.

As the “loyal opposition,” Republicans always defy expectations, taking every campaign against the Democratic president in power to whatever low level is required.

On the other side you have a Democratic president whose congressional majority has decided that working through the August recess isn’t necessary. Check out this tag from memeorandum, showing article after posting of “delay”, “punting,” “backs off,” etc.

I’d like to know why Democrats in Congress don’t feel the urgency that most of us feel on this. The new drop dead date is by the “fall.” Sounds ominous to me.

In response, a senior administration official said Reid’s announcement does not change Obama’s timetable, with the president still wanting House and Senate votes before the upcoming recess.
“My attitude is I want to get it right, but I also want to get it done promptly,” Obama said. “Our target date is to get this done by the fall. That’s the bottom line.”

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Obama’s Cambridge Police Quote Ricochets

By Taylor Marsh on 23 July 2009

–updated–

As predicted, the topic exploding today is Pres. Obama’s statement about his friend Skip Gates and that the Cambridge police acted “stupidly.” It’s the last thing Obama wanted. From Ben Smith:

After spending most of an hour patiently reiterating his arguments for changing the health insurance system, President Barack Obama turned his press conference sharply toward an iconic moment in American race relations: The arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. earlier this week by the Cambridge Police.
Gates was arrested for allegedly disorderly conduct — a charge that was quickly dropped — after a confrontation with a police officer inside his own home. Though some facts of the case are still in dispute, Obama showed little doubt about who had been wronged.

Lynn Sweet was the reporter who asked the question of the night, which turned out to be way afield of health care, boring in on race and police profiling. Obama took it on directly, but as with much of last night, if he’d been on his game he’d never have gone as far as he did. There are many ways to say what Obama did without giving a headline to his haters. To add text, Obama could have just stuck with fact and truth, which wouldn’t distract:

“There’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

Paul Krugman is irritated at Howard Fineman, because he was unimpressed with Obama last night, though I didn’t know anyone still cared about Fineman’s opinion. Then Krugman pulls out one of Fineman’s typical beauties about George W. Bush, proving that even Nobel Prize winners can get seduced by a non sequitur.

UPDATE II: Dear Gibby, if you’re explaining yesterday, you’re losing today. On cue, a clarification on Gates:

The president does not regret anything he said last night about the Cambridge situation, said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, emphasizing that Obama did not say that the police were stupid. The president said they acted “stupidly” in arresting Gates, a noted black scholar, attempting to enter his own home in Cambridge.
“Let me be clear,” Gibbs said. “He was not calling the officer stupid, okay? He was denoting that . . . at a certain point the situation got far out of hand, and I think all sides understand that.”

UPDATE: James Crowley, Policeman Who Arrested Gates, Won’t Apologize.

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Obama Misses the Mark

By Taylor Marsh on 22 July 2009

“Because he’s made it such an issue, and because he has invested so much personal time and effort, this will, more than stimulus and more than anything he has done so far, be a measure of his clout and of his success early on,” Daschle was quoted in the New York Times. “And because it is early on, it will define his subsequent years.” – Will Obama’s health care plan mirror the 1994 Clinton failure?

First take away from Obama’s press conference: Cambridge police acted “stupidly” when they arrested Prof. Skip Gates.

OBAMA: Well, I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little bias ed here. I don’t know all the facts. What’s been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys. He jimmied his way to get into the house. There was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place. so far so good. Right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger in — well, I guess this is my house now so it probably wouldn’t happen. Let’s say my old house in Chicago. here I’d get shot. But so far so good. They’re reporting, the police are doing what they should. There’s a call. They go investigate what happens. My understanding is at that point Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in. I’m sure there’s some exchange of words but my understanding is that Professor Gates then shows his I.D. to show that this is his house. And at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped. Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. And that’s just a fact.

We could have done without “number two.”

Second take away: Obama gets letters from people about their health care woes.

Now, it may or may not be true about the Cambridge police, but Obama proved he was well off his game by handing the press (and his adversaries) this beauty.

I’m glad the President gets letters that inspire him to work on “health insurance reform,” his new term for the fight. I just wish he’d told their stories.

It illustrates that you can’t sell health care reform if you don’t have a passion for its purpose.

Between Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, who has vanished from TV because she’s lousy on it, we have two people who just don’t communicate the urgency and real benefits of a national health care system. Together they don’t make one Teddy Kennedy or even a Howard Dean.

I saw Elizabeth Edwards on Rachel Maddow’s show tonight. Oh, if only she was the one on point on health care. She gets it and knows the details and the people behind the statistics. Too bad Obama couldn’t see her through the baggage her book and husband would bring along with her. Elizabeth Edwards would have put fear into the Republicans on the subject. She’s bullet proof.

So, here we are. Durbin says no pre-recess vote, while Republicans are planning to draw out Sotomayor’s vote in the Senate, making sure all the members speak about her, which will eat up time. While Pelosi remains tough and is pushing for members to work through recess.

And whatever Obama hoped to accomplish tonight, he missed by a mile.

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Obama’s Pitch: ‘Health Insurance Reform’

By Taylor Marsh on 22 July 2009

–updated–

Right off the top, Pres. Obama offered a new framing: health insurance reform.

Then he went straight at the conservatives in both parties: “If we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control the deficit.” Pledging again that “health insurance reform” won’t add to the U.S. debt.

The next hit on “Washington,” that amorphous enemy that Pres. Obama wants to make everyone’s enemy.

Before questioning began, Obama reminded everyone that he has great insurance, as does “every member of Congress.”

Oh, and I just saw that the WH disclosed health-care execs’ visits right before the presser.

To add, Fred Hiatt talked to Obama by phone before the presser. Here’s an excerpt on the costs going forward, where Obama mentions Social Security:

Hiatt: CBO and other economists say that, as you say, you can’t solve the fiscal problem if you don’t solve the health problem. But they also say that solving the health cost problem is not sufficient, that a big part of the issue is demographics and aging. And so — and as you know, the 10-year budget shows the government raising 18 or 19 percent of revenue in 2019, and spending 24 or 25 percent –
Obama: We have a structural gap that has to be closed.
Hiatt: So can I ask you how you think about the timing and politics of closing that structural gap?
Obama: What I think has to happen is if we can show that we have a disciplined health care reform package that is serious about cost savings and is deficit-neutral, you combine that with the pay-go rules that we have been promoting and I believe that we can get through Congress, and you are imposing some discipline on the appropriations process — and I thought that the F-22 victory yesterday was a good example of us starting to change habits in Washington — then I think we’re in a position to be able to, either at the end of this year or early next year, start laying out a broader picture about how we are going to handle entitlements in a serious way.
It may start with Social Security because that’s, frankly, the easier one. And I think that it’s possible to also look at tax reform and think about are there ways that we can maybe even lower marginal rates but eliminate all the loopholes and have that a net revenue generator. I think there are going to be a bunch of things that we can take a look at, but I think health care reform combined with pay-go, combined with how we deal with appropriations bills over the next six months will help lay the foundation for us to be able to make some of these broader structural changes.

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Health Care a Symbol of Worse to Come if Obama Fails

By Taylor Marsh on 22 July 2009

This gives me no pleasure to say, but the reality is ripe to manifest. Don’t think for a minute that the health care debate playing out hasn’t already become a model for how Obama’s adversaries will take on his other policy prescriptions. Go back to Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope Obama fails.” This has always been the rallying cry, propped up by the excuse that they’re simply talking about his policy prescriptions. Right now, health care is the model. If Republicans succeed in scuttling reform or making the final bill something that is unworkable, they will replicate this campaign for everything else they want to defeat.

So, it’s unfortunate that here we go again with secrets surrounding health care reform, a prime reason “Hillarycare” went south. It’s as if Obama is taking George W. Bush’s philosophy of ignoring all things Clinton by pretending there aren’t lessons to learn from WJC’s two-term presidency.

That Obama thinks channeling on health care what Dick Cheney did on his energy meetings is a good thing should remind everyone of what happens when ambitious politicians become members of the Presidents Club.

Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.
…A White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, said, “We are reviewing our policy on access to visitor logs and related litigation.”
As a candidate, President Obama vowed that in devising a healthcare bill he would invite in TV cameras — specifically C-SPAN — so that Americans could have a window into negotiations that normally play out behind closed doors.

Josh Orton reminds us what candidate Obama did to Hillary Clinton during the primaries over transparency.

During one of the recent Democratic debates, Obama, criticizing the secrecy of Clinton’s 1993 effort to reform healthcare, talked about how he would open up the entire process — “Not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN …”

Obama’s hypocrisy is choking.

My friend Peter Daou comes at this another way in Obama’s Presidency Will NOT Be Defined By Health Reform (The “Waterloo” Myth). Peter goes on to cite important policy issues that matter as much as health care, on which he is correct. But Peter misses the larger point.

Whether its secret meetings with health care industry honchos, or the missteps on marketing health care out of the White House, the debate on universal health care has the potential to become THE symbol of the Obama presidency. And not in a good way.

Pres. Obama came in with record approval numbers here and across the world. His outreach to the world, but particularly the Muslim world, has been greeted with unanimous praise and hope. But at a time when the American people, in a large plurality, have weighed in that they want universal health care, Obama has allowed the naysayers to hijack, not only the debate, but the positive impact of national health care, even when the numbers began strongly on his side. Slowly, we’ve seen these numbers erode. Why? Because the White House naively thought their bipartisan call would be greeted warmly and that Barack Obama would become the political exception to the rule of national politics.

So, the health care debate could become a symbol of Barack Obama’s presidency and how even the mighty can fall, if the opposition, including some in his own party, come at him hard enough.

Then all those things Peter cites, civil liberties and detainee treatment, gay rights, stopping environmental degradation, re-examining our Afghan policy, etc., will not mean a thing. Because they’ll all be seen through the prism of being able to outwit Obama on health care, so the “I hope Obama fails” of stopping Obama’s policy changes will be set.

What worries me the most is as goes health care, so may go Middle East progress. Because this onslaught that seems to be working, with Obama playing into his adversaries hands through his secret meeting hypocrisy, will embolden the Netanyahu settlement builders and the AIPAC crowd. Inspiring them to oppose Obama just like the anti health care reform zealots are doing now, thinking if one “Waterloo” can manifest when the people want what was defeated, scuttling Obama’s Middle East agenda will be easy.

The “Waterloo myth,” as Peter cites, isn’t a myth at all right now. The symbol has been hoisted. It all depends what happens on health care. Unfortunately, even if Obama succeeds, the seeds have been planted that his health care reform isn’t the best prescription, which means Obama’s health care reform could become the rallying cry for 2010 and beyond.

If that’s not defining Obama’s presidency by health care reform, I don’t know what is.

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Digging Down and Looking Around

Bill Clinton, Can’t Get No Respect

Obama Finds His Inner Partisan

Tax the Stuff Making Us Sick

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Beyond Dr. Tiller

Defying Expectations

Obama’s Cambridge Police Quote Ricochets

Obama Misses the Mark

Obama’s Pitch: ‘Health Insurance Reform’

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