Of all the ills of American health care, least visible is the pervasive fraud it encourages in everyone involved--doctors, patients, labs, hospitals and, most of all, the insurers who manage the mess.
One small symptom can be seen today in a New York Times report of 91 Medicare audits showing “widespread violations of patients’ rights and consumer protection standards” in private drug plans for the elderly that were supposed to save them money but, in some cases, are endangering their lives.
Slap-on-the-wrist fines totaling $770,000 on 11 companies won’t make a dent in the billions they are raking in from the most vulnerable Americans, who might have been helped by authorizing Medicare to bargain with pharmaceutical companies or allowing medications to be imported from Canada instead of devising new ways for insurance companies to fleece them.
Other clues about the enormity of health care fraud emerged this summer when the new Justice Department Medicare Fraud Strike Force announced measures to crack down on medical companies that send phony bills or provide excessive treatments, pointing to 2,400 investigations last year and warning that more cases were on the way.
The FBI, which estimates health-care stealing to total between $60 and $100 billion dollars a year, lists a few of the ways it’s done:
Hospitals, doctors, pharmacists, and other care providers submit fake bills for services never rendered--or overcharge for those delivered.
Service providers bill insurance for unnecessary and costly procedures.
Doctors sell prescriptions to patients for cash.
Companies charge insurance for expensive equipment but provide poor substitutes.
Crooked M.D.s entice patients to visit their offices for "free services" or gifts, then steal their personal information and use it to file fake claims.
If you have a strong stomach, you can Google “health care fraud” and get 23 million hits, many reporting convictions of providers across the country. But reading too many may make you sick and in need of medical attention.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Building in Baghdad
The new American embassy in Iraq is a perfect metaphor for our experience there. It’s unfinished, behind schedule, unsafe to occupy, more expensive than expected and, from the start, beset by bungling and possible corruption.
Symbolically, the 21 buildings were intended to move American diplomats from Saddam Hussein’s former palace to a compound secure from bomb, mortar and rocket attacks where they could live and work in relative safety.
But the project has been mismanaged to the point that the more than half-a-billion-dollar budget has ballooned by another $192 million and two key structures will not be finished before 2009.
Now, as with everything else in Iraq, Congress is trying to find out what went wrong. The myriad of questions include:
*Why the Washington official overseeing the project has been barred from Iraq by Ambassador Ryan Crocker,
*Why formaldehyde fumes in a facility built to house embassy guards by a Kuwaiti contractor and a faulty electrical system installed by a former Halliburton subsidiary have made it unsafe to open,
*Why offices to house Gen. David Petraeus and his staff are now being reconfigured to safeguard classified material at an additional cost of $14.7 million.
Like nation-building in Iraq, construction of the largest U.S. embassy in the world is not going well. State Department officials, with their Blackwater security guards, are going to be spending an unpredictable amount of time, money and human lives trying to get it right.
Symbolically, the 21 buildings were intended to move American diplomats from Saddam Hussein’s former palace to a compound secure from bomb, mortar and rocket attacks where they could live and work in relative safety.
But the project has been mismanaged to the point that the more than half-a-billion-dollar budget has ballooned by another $192 million and two key structures will not be finished before 2009.
Now, as with everything else in Iraq, Congress is trying to find out what went wrong. The myriad of questions include:
*Why the Washington official overseeing the project has been barred from Iraq by Ambassador Ryan Crocker,
*Why formaldehyde fumes in a facility built to house embassy guards by a Kuwaiti contractor and a faulty electrical system installed by a former Halliburton subsidiary have made it unsafe to open,
*Why offices to house Gen. David Petraeus and his staff are now being reconfigured to safeguard classified material at an additional cost of $14.7 million.
Like nation-building in Iraq, construction of the largest U.S. embassy in the world is not going well. State Department officials, with their Blackwater security guards, are going to be spending an unpredictable amount of time, money and human lives trying to get it right.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
No-Name Ties Rudy and Fred in G.O.P. Poll
The Rev. James Dobson has pronounced them all value-less in a New York Times OpEd no less, and Republicans of all persuasions seem concerned about their Presidential front runners.
In the oddest expression of discontent, in a “blind” Zogby poll based on anonymous bios, as many G.O.P. voters have just chosen an unknown Defense Department official as Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson.
When the electorate is as enthusiastic about nobody as it is about everybody on the ballot, the Party should be thinking about what’s missing in their field. To oversimplify, voters seem to be finding Giuliani shameless, Thompson listless, Romney clueless and McCain hopeless.
America’s Mayor, with 9/11 tattooed on his forehead, has been an attack dog on two continents, accusing Hillary Clinton of “spewing venom” when she politely questioned Gen. Petraeus, labeling her health insurance proposal “Hillycare” and otherwise acting like a schoolyard bully.
After hiding in the weeds for months, Thompson, the road-show Reagan, has crept out into the open, barely, to bore and confuse voters with his disdain for details.
Romney has as many stances on issues as dollars for TV commercials, but the party faithful are not buying in droves.
McCain is still showing up to jaw with Jon Stewart, apparently unaware that Daily Show viewers are not a prime demographic for the Republican primaries.
Less is definitely not more is this contest, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see a boomlet for Dr. Ward Casscells, a conservative now assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, who did so well in the Zogby poll. As an expert on pandemics, he just might catch on.
In the oddest expression of discontent, in a “blind” Zogby poll based on anonymous bios, as many G.O.P. voters have just chosen an unknown Defense Department official as Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson.
When the electorate is as enthusiastic about nobody as it is about everybody on the ballot, the Party should be thinking about what’s missing in their field. To oversimplify, voters seem to be finding Giuliani shameless, Thompson listless, Romney clueless and McCain hopeless.
America’s Mayor, with 9/11 tattooed on his forehead, has been an attack dog on two continents, accusing Hillary Clinton of “spewing venom” when she politely questioned Gen. Petraeus, labeling her health insurance proposal “Hillycare” and otherwise acting like a schoolyard bully.
After hiding in the weeds for months, Thompson, the road-show Reagan, has crept out into the open, barely, to bore and confuse voters with his disdain for details.
Romney has as many stances on issues as dollars for TV commercials, but the party faithful are not buying in droves.
McCain is still showing up to jaw with Jon Stewart, apparently unaware that Daily Show viewers are not a prime demographic for the Republican primaries.
Less is definitely not more is this contest, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see a boomlet for Dr. Ward Casscells, a conservative now assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, who did so well in the Zogby poll. As an expert on pandemics, he just might catch on.
North Korea Without Nukes or Nuttiness?
From both sides of the ideological divide, Americans who pay attention to politics are in uncharted territory with the seeming remission of North Korea from the madness of Kim Jong-il.
After almost seven years of disdain for diplomacy, the Administration now needs judgment and skills that may have atrophied in a politicized State Department. Critics on their part will have to put aside reflexive Bush distrust and do some actual thinking about what is in the best interests of the U.S.
North Korea’s agreement this week to disclose nuclear programs and disable facilities in exchange for fuel oil or economic aid calls for a post-axis of evil policy.
It won’t be easy to get beyond slogans and do the diplomatic scut work of detailed tradeoffs, verification and policing that the Clinton experience showed are vital in dealing with one of the world’s most unreliable and capricious regimes.
Karl Rove is gone, but Dick Cheney’s warlike gnomes will still be an obstacle. John Bolton, their link to the outside world, has already decried agreements to take North Korea off the U.S. terrorism list and that of “enemy” nations forbidden from trading with us, warning that without “final” verification of nuclear disarmament, “the president will have embarrassed his administration in history.”
From the other direction, Democrats are wary too, with Rep. Edward Markey warning against being too trusting about removing sanctions against North Korea.
Although logic has never been his strong suit, Bush himself will have to reconcile cozying up with North Korea while threatening war with Iran. In public this week, he held up the former as an example to the latter of what would be possible if Iran agreed first to stop nuclear enrichment. Ahmadinejad won’t be leaping at the chance.
But as he enters a final year of lame-duckness, the most relentlessly warlike of recent presidents has the chance to undo a small fraction of the international damage done during his tenure. Will he take it, and will his friends and foes help him do it?
After almost seven years of disdain for diplomacy, the Administration now needs judgment and skills that may have atrophied in a politicized State Department. Critics on their part will have to put aside reflexive Bush distrust and do some actual thinking about what is in the best interests of the U.S.
North Korea’s agreement this week to disclose nuclear programs and disable facilities in exchange for fuel oil or economic aid calls for a post-axis of evil policy.
It won’t be easy to get beyond slogans and do the diplomatic scut work of detailed tradeoffs, verification and policing that the Clinton experience showed are vital in dealing with one of the world’s most unreliable and capricious regimes.
Karl Rove is gone, but Dick Cheney’s warlike gnomes will still be an obstacle. John Bolton, their link to the outside world, has already decried agreements to take North Korea off the U.S. terrorism list and that of “enemy” nations forbidden from trading with us, warning that without “final” verification of nuclear disarmament, “the president will have embarrassed his administration in history.”
From the other direction, Democrats are wary too, with Rep. Edward Markey warning against being too trusting about removing sanctions against North Korea.
Although logic has never been his strong suit, Bush himself will have to reconcile cozying up with North Korea while threatening war with Iran. In public this week, he held up the former as an example to the latter of what would be possible if Iran agreed first to stop nuclear enrichment. Ahmadinejad won’t be leaping at the chance.
But as he enters a final year of lame-duckness, the most relentlessly warlike of recent presidents has the chance to undo a small fraction of the international damage done during his tenure. Will he take it, and will his friends and foes help him do it?
Friday, October 05, 2007
Byrd-Watching and Sleepwalking
The senior Senator from West Virginia--and I do mean senior, he turns 90 next month--always gives me hope that, at 83, I can grow up to be as smart and outspoken as he has been in trying to keep American kids from being killed in stupid wars that should never be fought.
In 2002, he tried to keep us from invading Iraq, and here he is again, warning us about getting caught up in another mess with Iran. It may be an octogenarian thing, but both of us think it’s sleepwalking.
In 2002, he tried to keep us from invading Iraq, and here he is again, warning us about getting caught up in another mess with Iran. It may be an octogenarian thing, but both of us think it’s sleepwalking.
Clarence Thomas-Rush Limbaugh Lovefest
Two current newsmakers--the scourge of “phony soldiers” and the man a New York Times editorial today calls “The Angriest Justice”--started this week with Rush Limbaugh telling Clarence Thomas that “those of us privileged to know you and love you know a man we wish everybody knew as we do.”
If Justice Thomas is still short of being beloved, it is not for Limbaugh’s lack of trying. In a record hour and a half interview, the radio host did his best to sanctify the man who officiated at his third wedding in 1994.
It was an instructive encounter for those who know both as publicly less than loving--Limbaugh, the college dropout son of a family of Southern judges and prosecutors, and Thomas, the Catholic seminary dropout raised by a righteous grandfather he honors in his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.”
In their long embrace on the airwaves, Limbaugh, who usually trashes everybody, and Thomas, who usually resents everybody, were different people in an alternate universe of sweetness and light.
Talking about the stormy confirmation hearings of 1991, Limbaugh noted, “The thing that I've noticed--I'm not sucking up here--I don't hear any bitterness today about anything that's happened or been said about you.”
“Well, Rush, I don't really have the luxury to be bitter...When you are trying to do your best...you don't have the luxury of having those sorts of negative things in your life.”
Today’s Times editorial notes, on the evidence of Thomas’ book, that “the rage he harbors raises questions about whether he can sit as an impartial judge in many of the cases the Supreme Court hears.” Limbaugh’s venom against “phony soldiers” who are against the Iraq war had politicians trying to get him removed from the air.
But on the Rush Limbaugh show, Clarence Thomas is a down-to-earth guy who confesses he would like to drive trailer trucks for a living. They seem to have a calming effect on each other.
If Justice Thomas is still short of being beloved, it is not for Limbaugh’s lack of trying. In a record hour and a half interview, the radio host did his best to sanctify the man who officiated at his third wedding in 1994.
It was an instructive encounter for those who know both as publicly less than loving--Limbaugh, the college dropout son of a family of Southern judges and prosecutors, and Thomas, the Catholic seminary dropout raised by a righteous grandfather he honors in his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.”
In their long embrace on the airwaves, Limbaugh, who usually trashes everybody, and Thomas, who usually resents everybody, were different people in an alternate universe of sweetness and light.
Talking about the stormy confirmation hearings of 1991, Limbaugh noted, “The thing that I've noticed--I'm not sucking up here--I don't hear any bitterness today about anything that's happened or been said about you.”
“Well, Rush, I don't really have the luxury to be bitter...When you are trying to do your best...you don't have the luxury of having those sorts of negative things in your life.”
Today’s Times editorial notes, on the evidence of Thomas’ book, that “the rage he harbors raises questions about whether he can sit as an impartial judge in many of the cases the Supreme Court hears.” Limbaugh’s venom against “phony soldiers” who are against the Iraq war had politicians trying to get him removed from the air.
But on the Rush Limbaugh show, Clarence Thomas is a down-to-earth guy who confesses he would like to drive trailer trucks for a living. They seem to have a calming effect on each other.
Styles of Stealing: Bush and Maliki
The news today is about contrasts in corruption. In Baghdad, they do it the old-fashioned way, with Prime Minister Maliki’s friends and family taking $18 billion and then muscling or murdering those who try to expose them.
In Washington, the Bush Administration has been taking away our national morality to the point that headlines are all about crimes of character. Torturing and lying about torture is only the latest in a long list leading conservatives such as Andrew Sullivan to call his President a “war criminal” and David Brooks to accuse him of destroying the “social cohesion” that true conservatism values.
Testifying before a House panel yesterday, a former Iraqi investigator described scenes right out of our Roaring Twenties.
"They are so corrupt that they will attack their accusers and their families with guns and meat hooks, as well as countercharges of corruption," Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi testified. He recounted how one of his staff was gunned down with his seven-month-pregnant wife, his security chief's father found dead on a meat hook and another investigator’s father riddled with holes from a power drill.
Bush and Cheney have been more subtle. Senate Committees are still trying to get hold of documents that apparently condone torture while the White House was, and still is, insisting that it doesn’t.
Democrats on Capitol Hill were demanding classified memos, disclosed by the New York Times, giving the C.I.A. approval in 2005 for “harsh interrogation techniques.”
Sen. Pat Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the 2005 opinions had “reinstated a secret regime by, in essence, reinterpreting the law in secret” and his panel had been asking for those opinions on interrogation for two years without success.
Chris Matthews summed it all up succinctly yesterday: "They've finally been caught in their criminality.” But the MSNBC anchor, who will co-host a Republican candidates debate next week, may be too optimistic. Unlike the new Baghdad government, Bush and Cheney have an almost seven-year backlog of illegality waiting to be uncovered.
In Washington, the Bush Administration has been taking away our national morality to the point that headlines are all about crimes of character. Torturing and lying about torture is only the latest in a long list leading conservatives such as Andrew Sullivan to call his President a “war criminal” and David Brooks to accuse him of destroying the “social cohesion” that true conservatism values.
Testifying before a House panel yesterday, a former Iraqi investigator described scenes right out of our Roaring Twenties.
"They are so corrupt that they will attack their accusers and their families with guns and meat hooks, as well as countercharges of corruption," Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi testified. He recounted how one of his staff was gunned down with his seven-month-pregnant wife, his security chief's father found dead on a meat hook and another investigator’s father riddled with holes from a power drill.
Bush and Cheney have been more subtle. Senate Committees are still trying to get hold of documents that apparently condone torture while the White House was, and still is, insisting that it doesn’t.
Democrats on Capitol Hill were demanding classified memos, disclosed by the New York Times, giving the C.I.A. approval in 2005 for “harsh interrogation techniques.”
Sen. Pat Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the 2005 opinions had “reinstated a secret regime by, in essence, reinterpreting the law in secret” and his panel had been asking for those opinions on interrogation for two years without success.
Chris Matthews summed it all up succinctly yesterday: "They've finally been caught in their criminality.” But the MSNBC anchor, who will co-host a Republican candidates debate next week, may be too optimistic. Unlike the new Baghdad government, Bush and Cheney have an almost seven-year backlog of illegality waiting to be uncovered.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Untied States of America
Just as talk of partitioning Iraq dies down, up pops some sentiment for dismembering our own country.
Although their motives and political philosophies are worlds apart, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention today in Chattanooga.
The Middlebury Institute of upstate New York, whose members are unhappy about the Iraq war and “federal imperialism,” shares the idea of states becoming independent republics with the Southern group, which insists it is not racist despite a Confederate Battle Flag on its banner and its opposition to amnesty for immigrants.
Middlebury director Kirpatrick Sale says the co-sponsorship is intended to show that "the folks up north regard you as legitimate colleagues."
Kirk Sale’s name conjures up memories of the 1960s when he was a student leader of S.D.S. at Cornell, protesting among other social ills, racism and the war in Vietnam. He has gone on to become a respected scholar and author, a self-described neo-Luddite who has written a sympathetic treatise about the Unabomber.
Strange bedfellows, but Yeats too comes much to mind these days: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/ The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/ The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.”
It’s an odd world in which those who want to kill each other in Iraq insist on a central government and those here who differ about everything get together to talk about breaking away from their own.
Although their motives and political philosophies are worlds apart, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention today in Chattanooga.
The Middlebury Institute of upstate New York, whose members are unhappy about the Iraq war and “federal imperialism,” shares the idea of states becoming independent republics with the Southern group, which insists it is not racist despite a Confederate Battle Flag on its banner and its opposition to amnesty for immigrants.
Middlebury director Kirpatrick Sale says the co-sponsorship is intended to show that "the folks up north regard you as legitimate colleagues."
Kirk Sale’s name conjures up memories of the 1960s when he was a student leader of S.D.S. at Cornell, protesting among other social ills, racism and the war in Vietnam. He has gone on to become a respected scholar and author, a self-described neo-Luddite who has written a sympathetic treatise about the Unabomber.
Strange bedfellows, but Yeats too comes much to mind these days: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/ The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/ The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.”
It’s an odd world in which those who want to kill each other in Iraq insist on a central government and those here who differ about everything get together to talk about breaking away from their own.
Bush Explains the Veto
The President is not against the government helping poor children get health care insurance. He just wants to be sure that there isn’t too much for too many and especially not for kids whose parents could cut back on a few of the necessities and buy it from private insurers.
As he explains in his veto letter, the misguided bipartisan bill “moves our health care system in the wrong direction” and turns it into “a program that would cover children from some families of four earning almost $83,000 a year.”
White House statisticians must be working overtime these days because last week the program was covering families with up to $73,000 a year.
But no matter. The heart of the President’s argument is that “Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage.”
Why can’t radicals like Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch understand that? If they keep going in this direction, every kid in the country would have health insurance and Congress would have devastated a major American industry.
As he explains in his veto letter, the misguided bipartisan bill “moves our health care system in the wrong direction” and turns it into “a program that would cover children from some families of four earning almost $83,000 a year.”
White House statisticians must be working overtime these days because last week the program was covering families with up to $73,000 a year.
But no matter. The heart of the President’s argument is that “Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage.”
Why can’t radicals like Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch understand that? If they keep going in this direction, every kid in the country would have health insurance and Congress would have devastated a major American industry.
Fred Thompson, Lonely Guy
Jeri Thompson makes it all sound like something out of Steve Martin’s 1980s movie, “The Lonely Guy.”
There is Fred, on the Fourth of July, when everybody else is at the beach or backyard barbecues getting sloshed with friends, standing on a supermarket checkout line with a pathetic pre-made half a tunafish sandwich and a can of high-cholesterol beanie-weenies.
"I looked at him and just said, 'I'm so sorry,'" she tells People, lets him carry her groceries to the car and invites the lonely guy to a friend’s party that night.
In the Steve Martin movie, a friend takes him to a gathering where most of the guests are life-sized cardboard cutouts of celebrities. But life does not imitate art. Fred Thompson is luckier and, before you can say fireworks, loses his lonely guy status and is living in Washington with a beautiful young wife and kids.
As Jeri tells it, far from being a “trophy wife,” she is a kind-hearted young woman who saved Fred Thompson from the fate of the Steve Martin character who has to get lessons in how to talk to the ferns in his bachelor apartment.
Now the party celebrities are real, but watching Thompson’s listless interactions with them on the campaign circuit, the inner Lonely Guy may be longing to be home with the cutouts and the ferns.
There is Fred, on the Fourth of July, when everybody else is at the beach or backyard barbecues getting sloshed with friends, standing on a supermarket checkout line with a pathetic pre-made half a tunafish sandwich and a can of high-cholesterol beanie-weenies.
"I looked at him and just said, 'I'm so sorry,'" she tells People, lets him carry her groceries to the car and invites the lonely guy to a friend’s party that night.
In the Steve Martin movie, a friend takes him to a gathering where most of the guests are life-sized cardboard cutouts of celebrities. But life does not imitate art. Fred Thompson is luckier and, before you can say fireworks, loses his lonely guy status and is living in Washington with a beautiful young wife and kids.
As Jeri tells it, far from being a “trophy wife,” she is a kind-hearted young woman who saved Fred Thompson from the fate of the Steve Martin character who has to get lessons in how to talk to the ferns in his bachelor apartment.
Now the party celebrities are real, but watching Thompson’s listless interactions with them on the campaign circuit, the inner Lonely Guy may be longing to be home with the cutouts and the ferns.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Et Tu, Denis?
Denis Kucinich, of all people, turns out to be one of the members of Congress who will have to change their votes if President Bush’s veto of the expanded children’s health insurance bill is to be overridden by the House of Representatives.
Kucinich voted for the original House-passed version of the bill because it included health coverage for legal immigrant children. When this language was omitted in the final bill, he voted no.
“I cannot support legislation which extends health coverage to some children while openly denying it to other children,” Kucinich said.
Rationalization is the prevailing mode for all politicians, but if you chop that sentence in half, Kucinich is saying the bill has to be perfect or else. Meanwhile, the most liberal or progressive or whatever of Democratic presidential candidates is achieving the same result as his presumably polar opposite, George Bush.
If you tell Kucinich that politics is the art of the possible, he will undoubtedly give you one of his idealistic speeches. Meanwhile he has voted to deprive several million children of health insurance.
Kucinich voted for the original House-passed version of the bill because it included health coverage for legal immigrant children. When this language was omitted in the final bill, he voted no.
“I cannot support legislation which extends health coverage to some children while openly denying it to other children,” Kucinich said.
Rationalization is the prevailing mode for all politicians, but if you chop that sentence in half, Kucinich is saying the bill has to be perfect or else. Meanwhile, the most liberal or progressive or whatever of Democratic presidential candidates is achieving the same result as his presumably polar opposite, George Bush.
If you tell Kucinich that politics is the art of the possible, he will undoubtedly give you one of his idealistic speeches. Meanwhile he has voted to deprive several million children of health insurance.
Hillary's Horselaugh
As she widens her lead in the Democratic horse race for the ’08 nomination, Hillary Clinton is provoking pundits to great lengths to find fodder for their work.
In today’s Washington Post, media critic Howard Kurtz analyzes all the analyses of the Senator’s laugh-a-thon on the Sunday morning talk shows the weekend before last.
The findings, as they always do, range from deeply psychological (“a defensive laugh”) to socially significant (“there’s sexism is the giggle critique”) to politically calculating (“a shrewd political skill disarming her critics with the gleam in her eye and a roar straight from the belly").
After she made a joke in Iowa about knowing how to deal with “bad and evil men,” Mrs. Clinton scoffed at the media reaction, “You guys keep telling me, lighten up, be fun. Now I get a little funny, and I'm being psychoanalyzed.”
She has a point. There may be a simple explanation for the laughter explosion. The Senator was doing all five Sunday AM interviews from the barn near her Chappaqua home.
Did it occur to anyone that Hillary’s hawhawing may have been the result of her husband on the other side of the cameras making funny faces to mock her solemn demeanor?
In today’s Washington Post, media critic Howard Kurtz analyzes all the analyses of the Senator’s laugh-a-thon on the Sunday morning talk shows the weekend before last.
The findings, as they always do, range from deeply psychological (“a defensive laugh”) to socially significant (“there’s sexism is the giggle critique”) to politically calculating (“a shrewd political skill disarming her critics with the gleam in her eye and a roar straight from the belly").
After she made a joke in Iowa about knowing how to deal with “bad and evil men,” Mrs. Clinton scoffed at the media reaction, “You guys keep telling me, lighten up, be fun. Now I get a little funny, and I'm being psychoanalyzed.”
She has a point. There may be a simple explanation for the laughter explosion. The Senator was doing all five Sunday AM interviews from the barn near her Chappaqua home.
Did it occur to anyone that Hillary’s hawhawing may have been the result of her husband on the other side of the cameras making funny faces to mock her solemn demeanor?
Bush Makes Republicans French Toast
He did it this morning, without comment or news coverage, an act that proves George Bush to be, depending on your politics, either the most steadfast or stubborn, the most principled or heartless of American Presidents in memory.
But there is common agreement in Congress that, by vetoing the bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance, a lame duck Head of State has committed the most politically selfish act since Louis XV proclaimed, “Apres moi, le deluge” before the French Revolution.
Now Congressional Republicans, facing a guillotine at the ballot box in 2008, are scrambling to limit the damage. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott talks bravely about a “compromise” with an Administration that takes no prisoners.
The Senate has enough votes to override, but House Minority Whip Roy Blunt is "absolutely confident" that the House will be able to sustain Bush's veto as Democrats keep trying to convince more than a dozen members on the other side of the aisle to switch their position.
If not, Nancy Pelosi can start practicing her knitting for the role of Madame DeFarge, as Republican incumbents go by on their way to the tumbrel in the George Bush revival of “A Tale of Two Cities” next fall.
But there is common agreement in Congress that, by vetoing the bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance, a lame duck Head of State has committed the most politically selfish act since Louis XV proclaimed, “Apres moi, le deluge” before the French Revolution.
Now Congressional Republicans, facing a guillotine at the ballot box in 2008, are scrambling to limit the damage. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott talks bravely about a “compromise” with an Administration that takes no prisoners.
The Senate has enough votes to override, but House Minority Whip Roy Blunt is "absolutely confident" that the House will be able to sustain Bush's veto as Democrats keep trying to convince more than a dozen members on the other side of the aisle to switch their position.
If not, Nancy Pelosi can start practicing her knitting for the role of Madame DeFarge, as Republican incumbents go by on their way to the tumbrel in the George Bush revival of “A Tale of Two Cities” next fall.
Clarence Thomas' Confession
By writing his memoirs and promoting them on 60 Minutes, Clarence Thomas has not only breached the traditional Supreme Court wall of personal privacy but, in effect, made it clear that his critical vote to give George W. Bush the presidency in 2000 should never have been cast.
Given the bitterness and disdain he now publicly expresses for Democratic Senators over their behavior during his confirmation hearings in 1991, how could he possibly not have recused himself from the case that would give the presidency to their party or, as it actually did by a 5-4 vote, to the Republicans and the son of the man who named him to the court at that?
Could there be a case in which a Justice is compromised by personal prejudice any more clearly?
In his blog on The Hill web site, old Washington hand Brent Budowsky notes the unprecedented event of a Justice “using the Court’s return as a book promotion to remind the world of his enemies, demons, biases and vendettas.”
Budowsky, a former Democratic aide in Congress who advises politicians of both parties, went on to suggest that Thomas “should now recuse himself from any cases involving any litigants who opposed his confirmation, because his attacks on them destroy any pretense of judicial impartiality. This is a man with a chip on his shoulder, axes to grind and scores to settle.”
He was the same man in December, 2000 when he cast the only vote in the United States that counted to make George W. Bush the 43rd President. Almost seven years later, he is still so full of the anger behind that vote that he can’t resist confessing how wrong it was of him to cast it.
Given the bitterness and disdain he now publicly expresses for Democratic Senators over their behavior during his confirmation hearings in 1991, how could he possibly not have recused himself from the case that would give the presidency to their party or, as it actually did by a 5-4 vote, to the Republicans and the son of the man who named him to the court at that?
Could there be a case in which a Justice is compromised by personal prejudice any more clearly?
In his blog on The Hill web site, old Washington hand Brent Budowsky notes the unprecedented event of a Justice “using the Court’s return as a book promotion to remind the world of his enemies, demons, biases and vendettas.”
Budowsky, a former Democratic aide in Congress who advises politicians of both parties, went on to suggest that Thomas “should now recuse himself from any cases involving any litigants who opposed his confirmation, because his attacks on them destroy any pretense of judicial impartiality. This is a man with a chip on his shoulder, axes to grind and scores to settle.”
He was the same man in December, 2000 when he cast the only vote in the United States that counted to make George W. Bush the 43rd President. Almost seven years later, he is still so full of the anger behind that vote that he can’t resist confessing how wrong it was of him to cast it.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Money Talks, MSM Listen
There is jubilation among Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign manager exults in an e-mail, "This is the moment when your dedication defied the skeptics."
News that Clinton raised $22 million for the nomination race and another $5 million for the general campaign in the third quarter is being greeted like victory in a large primary state. Barack Obama raked in only $19 million in primary money and another $1 million in general election funds.
These figures confirm that, in politics, big money tends to track the polls in a self-confirming cycle and that MSM are only too happy to focus on keeping score until voting begins.
On front pages, that’s the big headline. The fact that Obama is making a speech today, proposing a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, gets lesser billing.
Only the Huffington Post gives it the top spot, but what do bloggers know about the real world?
News that Clinton raised $22 million for the nomination race and another $5 million for the general campaign in the third quarter is being greeted like victory in a large primary state. Barack Obama raked in only $19 million in primary money and another $1 million in general election funds.
These figures confirm that, in politics, big money tends to track the polls in a self-confirming cycle and that MSM are only too happy to focus on keeping score until voting begins.
On front pages, that’s the big headline. The fact that Obama is making a speech today, proposing a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, gets lesser billing.
Only the Huffington Post gives it the top spot, but what do bloggers know about the real world?
The George Bush of Sports
Before the basketball season starts, the New York Knicks have suffered a stunning defeat, reaffirming its status as the worst-managed professional sports team in the world.
A jury ruled today that coach Isiah Thomas sexually harassed a team executive, subjecting the married mother of three to unwanted advances and verbal insults, in a case that an organization with any brains at the top would have settled out of court to avoid the humiliation of an ugly trial.
But today’s result only extends the record of team owner James Dolan as the George Bush of the sports world, a second-generation perpetrator of monumental misjudgments that have left lifelong followers of the team of Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier and Willis Reed in a state of shock and rage. Running a baseball team, Bush traded away Sammy Sosa, but Dolan makes him look like a genius.
The Cablevision heir's devotion to Thomas, who assembled the highest-paid N.B.A. roster with the worst record, has prompted Madison Square Garden crowds to chant “Fire Dolan!” on a regular basis, an unprecedented response to a team owner.
Bush and Dolan raise questions about the wisdom of Warren Buffet, who once said, "I want to give my kids enough so that they feel that they can do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing."
In some cases, nothing would be a blessing for the world.
A jury ruled today that coach Isiah Thomas sexually harassed a team executive, subjecting the married mother of three to unwanted advances and verbal insults, in a case that an organization with any brains at the top would have settled out of court to avoid the humiliation of an ugly trial.
But today’s result only extends the record of team owner James Dolan as the George Bush of the sports world, a second-generation perpetrator of monumental misjudgments that have left lifelong followers of the team of Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier and Willis Reed in a state of shock and rage. Running a baseball team, Bush traded away Sammy Sosa, but Dolan makes him look like a genius.
The Cablevision heir's devotion to Thomas, who assembled the highest-paid N.B.A. roster with the worst record, has prompted Madison Square Garden crowds to chant “Fire Dolan!” on a regular basis, an unprecedented response to a team owner.
Bush and Dolan raise questions about the wisdom of Warren Buffet, who once said, "I want to give my kids enough so that they feel that they can do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing."
In some cases, nothing would be a blessing for the world.
Phony Soldiers With Real Bullets
As Washington debates the humongous issue of Rush Limbaugh’s outburst about unpatriotic “phony soldiers,” there is news today about murderous drive-by shootings in Iraq by quasi-soldiers.
The New York Times cites a report by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: “Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded.”
In what is now becoming familiar asymmetry, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday was asking Limbaugh’s bosses for an apology as the House Committee was preparing to grill State Department and Blackwater officials about the behavior of bodyguards whose mission is supposed to be defensive--195 shootings from 2005 until early September, a rate of 1.4 a week, incidents in which 163 times they fired first.
Blackwater is emerging as one more piece of the disheartening picture of Wild West chaos in Iraq, with millions of American dollars disappearing and civilian profiteers free to treat locals as targets in a turkey shoot.
Among those testifying today will be Blackwater’s owner and founder Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and intern in Bush I's White House, who has contributed $200,000 to the Republican National Committee since 1998.
According to the House report, his company has dismissed 122 employees in the past three years for misuse of weapons, drug or alcohol abuse, lewd conduct or violent behavior, insubordination and failure to report incidents or lying about them.
Congressman will be asking about what they have been doing in our name while the Senate keeps America safe by trying to get Rush Limbaugh fired.
The New York Times cites a report by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: “Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded.”
In what is now becoming familiar asymmetry, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday was asking Limbaugh’s bosses for an apology as the House Committee was preparing to grill State Department and Blackwater officials about the behavior of bodyguards whose mission is supposed to be defensive--195 shootings from 2005 until early September, a rate of 1.4 a week, incidents in which 163 times they fired first.
Blackwater is emerging as one more piece of the disheartening picture of Wild West chaos in Iraq, with millions of American dollars disappearing and civilian profiteers free to treat locals as targets in a turkey shoot.
Among those testifying today will be Blackwater’s owner and founder Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and intern in Bush I's White House, who has contributed $200,000 to the Republican National Committee since 1998.
According to the House report, his company has dismissed 122 employees in the past three years for misuse of weapons, drug or alcohol abuse, lewd conduct or violent behavior, insubordination and failure to report incidents or lying about them.
Congressman will be asking about what they have been doing in our name while the Senate keeps America safe by trying to get Rush Limbaugh fired.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Outbid in the Baby Boom
Economists will have to explain it, but if we were to judge by Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin, an American tot is worth only half as much as a Russian.
Speaking at a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus last Friday, Sen. Clinton proposed that every child born in the United States get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future college costs or buying a home.
But Russian President Putin has been giving couples with more than one child $10,000 vouchers to pay for education or home repairs.
Last year, the Democratic Presidential front runner was talking about $1,000 on the installment plan--$500 at birth, followed by $500 at age 10.
According to AP, Britain launched a similar program in January 2005, handing out vouchers worth hundreds of dollars to parents with children born after Sept. 1, 2002.
Any more bidders? Do I hear $11,000?
Speaking at a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus last Friday, Sen. Clinton proposed that every child born in the United States get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future college costs or buying a home.
But Russian President Putin has been giving couples with more than one child $10,000 vouchers to pay for education or home repairs.
Last year, the Democratic Presidential front runner was talking about $1,000 on the installment plan--$500 at birth, followed by $500 at age 10.
According to AP, Britain launched a similar program in January 2005, handing out vouchers worth hundreds of dollars to parents with children born after Sept. 1, 2002.
Any more bidders? Do I hear $11,000?
Bill Clinton's Jack Bauer Moment
On Meet the Press yesterday, the former President worked his way around to agreeing with his wife, the future President, that our policy should be “uncompromisingly opposed to terror--I mean to torture.”
Freudian slip aside (some lingering doubt about using torture to avert terror?), Bill Clinton’s, uh, tortured explanation may have given us some insight into how a President deals with the real world as opposed to abstractions.
“There’s a one in a million chance,” Clinton said, “that you might be alone somewhere, and you’re Jack Bauer on ‘24’...It happens every season with Jack Bauer, but in the real world it doesn’t happen very much. If you have a policy which legitimizes this, it’s a slippery slope and you get in the kind of trouble we’ve been in here with Abu Ghraib, with Guantanamo, with lots of other examples.
“And I’m not even sure what I said is right now. I think what happens is the honest truth is that Tim Russert, Bill Clinton, people filming this show, if we were the Jack Bauer person and it was six hours to the bomb or whatever, you don’t know what you would do, and you have to--but I think what our policy ought to be is to be uncompromisingly opposed to terror—I mean to torture, and that if you’re the Jack Bauer person, you’ll do whatever you do and you should be prepared to take the consequences. And I think the consequences will be imposed based on what turns out to be the truth.”
Translation: Policy and politics don’t cover every contingency in the real world, and people in power sometimes have to make horrific judgments. But if a President decides to become Jack Bauer or his ancestor, Dirty Harry, at some critical moment, he should be prepared to take the consequences for breaking the rules.
Would somebody please explain that to George Bush and Dick Cheney?
Freudian slip aside (some lingering doubt about using torture to avert terror?), Bill Clinton’s, uh, tortured explanation may have given us some insight into how a President deals with the real world as opposed to abstractions.
“There’s a one in a million chance,” Clinton said, “that you might be alone somewhere, and you’re Jack Bauer on ‘24’...It happens every season with Jack Bauer, but in the real world it doesn’t happen very much. If you have a policy which legitimizes this, it’s a slippery slope and you get in the kind of trouble we’ve been in here with Abu Ghraib, with Guantanamo, with lots of other examples.
“And I’m not even sure what I said is right now. I think what happens is the honest truth is that Tim Russert, Bill Clinton, people filming this show, if we were the Jack Bauer person and it was six hours to the bomb or whatever, you don’t know what you would do, and you have to--but I think what our policy ought to be is to be uncompromisingly opposed to terror—I mean to torture, and that if you’re the Jack Bauer person, you’ll do whatever you do and you should be prepared to take the consequences. And I think the consequences will be imposed based on what turns out to be the truth.”
Translation: Policy and politics don’t cover every contingency in the real world, and people in power sometimes have to make horrific judgments. But if a President decides to become Jack Bauer or his ancestor, Dirty Harry, at some critical moment, he should be prepared to take the consequences for breaking the rules.
Would somebody please explain that to George Bush and Dick Cheney?
Democratic Sleepwalking in Washington
Now that the month of decision about Iraq has come and gone in a Petraeus-MoveOn cloud of dust, the United States government starts October in a worse stupor than ever.
Democrats who took over Congress in a fever to stop the old war and expose Bush-Cheney lawlessness have just opened the door to a new war and, after months of bloviating about Administration scandals, have only the sorry scalp of Alberto Gonzales to show for their efforts.
The Presidential front runners are still wagging fingers at George Bush without promising to be out of Iraq by 2013 while the frontmost runner of all, the new, improved Hillary Clinton of 2007, casts a vote for Kyl/Lieberman aggression against Iran that looks very much like the one for invading Iraq in 2002.
Only a party elder and a Senate newcomer are awake enough to sound an alarm. As Mario Cuomo reminds Congress of its Constitutional power and responsibility, freshman Senator Jim Webb speaks up about last week’s move against Iran:
“This proposal is Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream. It’s not a prescription for success. At best, it’s a deliberate attempt to divert attention from a failed diplomatic policy. At worst, it could be read as a back door method of gaining Congressional validation for action without one hearing or without serious debate.”
Whatever Bush and Cheney have put into the Washington water supply, it has most Democrats pushing the snooze button on their 2008 alarm clocks. They may wake up with the worst political hangover ever.
Democrats who took over Congress in a fever to stop the old war and expose Bush-Cheney lawlessness have just opened the door to a new war and, after months of bloviating about Administration scandals, have only the sorry scalp of Alberto Gonzales to show for their efforts.
The Presidential front runners are still wagging fingers at George Bush without promising to be out of Iraq by 2013 while the frontmost runner of all, the new, improved Hillary Clinton of 2007, casts a vote for Kyl/Lieberman aggression against Iran that looks very much like the one for invading Iraq in 2002.
Only a party elder and a Senate newcomer are awake enough to sound an alarm. As Mario Cuomo reminds Congress of its Constitutional power and responsibility, freshman Senator Jim Webb speaks up about last week’s move against Iran:
“This proposal is Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream. It’s not a prescription for success. At best, it’s a deliberate attempt to divert attention from a failed diplomatic policy. At worst, it could be read as a back door method of gaining Congressional validation for action without one hearing or without serious debate.”
Whatever Bush and Cheney have put into the Washington water supply, it has most Democrats pushing the snooze button on their 2008 alarm clocks. They may wake up with the worst political hangover ever.
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