Monthly Archives: February 2010

Obama salutes Ryan

The rationale of Obama’s health care gabfest was theatrical. The bipartisan aura was intended to support the effort to ram Obamacare through the House and the Senate on a purely partisan basis, capped off by the use of reconciliation in the Senate. White House spinmeister Dan Pfeiffer holds that the event provided “a good discussion and even though people periodically lapsed into talking points, it was honest, substantive and thoughtful.” »

Dems’ Sneak Attack on CIA Fails

While our attention was elsewhere, the Democratic Party launched a disgraceful sneak attack against our intelligence professionals. The Democrats attempted to subject anyone who interrogates a terrorist in a less than gentle manner–for example, by “exploiting the phobias of the individual,” which refers to the notorious caterpillar in the cell–to 15 years’ imprisonment. As usual, Andy McCarthy blows the whistle on the Democrats’ perfidy: [T]his shows how politicized law-enforcement has »

Mel and Barack: What Do They Have In Common?

They both hate England, apparently. The difference is that Mel Gibson’s antipathy, as expressed in Braveheart and The Patriot, is mostly fictional. Why Barack Obama hates England is hard to say, but his antipathy is distressingly real. Now, Obama has declared that the U.S. is neutral with regard to the Falklands. The Telegraph headlines: “Et tu, Barack? America betrays Britain in her hour of need”: It was a headline I »

Not exactly two peas in a pod

The more I see of today’s health care summit, the more impressed I am with the way the Republicans handled themselves. They say it always works to the president’s disadvantage when the opposition appears on the same stage and holds up its end of the argument. Today, in my opinion, the Republicans did more than that. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise. As I suggested earlier this month, to »

Ryan Takes Obama to School

By all accounts, the Republicans performed well today. A number of them deserve praise, but Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan stood out, as usual. Here, Ryan dissected the economics that underlie the Democratic shell game that they call “health care reform”: RYAN: Thank you. Look, we agree on the problem here. And the problem is health inflation is driving us off of a fiscal cliff. Mr. President, you said health care reform »

Why Obama Hates Insurance Companies

It’s puzzling: why don’t more people notice that President Obama is a rather weird guy? When he describes his own experiences, they tend to be other-worldly. During the health summit today, Obama related one of his formative experiences with an insurance company; in this case, it was auto insurance: OBAMA: … You know, when I was — when I was young, just got out of college, I had to buy »

Not too humble to take over health care, but…

This won’t make the health care gabfest highlight reel, but it would be a shame for readers to miss a clarifying moment courtesy of the inimitable Joe Biden: “I’m always reluctant after being here 37 years to tell people what the American people think. I think it requires a little bit of humility to be able to know what the American people think, and I don’t, I can’t swear I »

Reid unreconciled

It’s hard to believe that Harry Reid has risen to a position of leadership in a profession that is supposed to place a premium on likability. Perhaps he has grown crabby with age. When he adds goofy dishonesty to the mix, you have to wonder what’s going on. In his opening remarks at the health care gabfest this morning, Senator Lamar Alexander asked the president to renounce the use of »

Early “returns” good for Republicans

The House Republican Conference Press Office has collected some reviews of the health care summit, from sources that are hardly in the Republican camp. These reviews find that the Republicans did quite well. CNN’s David Gergen: The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the »

This exchange will make the highlight reel

From the Critical Condition blog: After Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) focused on issues in his wheelhouse — the dearth of transparency and wealth of special deals in Obamacare — and chastised Obama for failing to live up to his campaign promises to change the way Washington works and conduct health-care negotiations in front of C-SPAN cameras, the president got testy. “We’re not campaigning any more, John. The election is »

Better them than me

My day job prevents me from reporting on the health care “summit,” but you can follow it at NRO’s Critical Condition blog. »

Fall back, baby

As the health care “summit” kicks off, the word is that President Obama has prepared a fall-back plan that would provide health insurance to millions of Americans (perhaps as many as 15 million). Reportedly, the plan would require insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents’ health plans, and would expand two federal-state health programs, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. I »

Gridlock, Please!

The health care “summit” is today, so let’s all remind the Republicans to stick to their guns. Or paddles. Click to enlarge: »

Europe: Does It Exist?

Well, sure, as a continent. But serious “Europeans” want their continent to be a country. A few years ago I was flying to London and before takeoff, a flight attendant engaged a fellow passenger in conversation. She innocently asked the passenger what country he was from; he said “Europe.” She hadn’t gotten the memo, and reacted with puzzlement, but he stuck to his story–he was a native of “Europe.” In »

A look at Liu

President Obama has nominated Goodwin Liu for a spot on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Liu, age 39, is a professor at UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). Based on his faculty biography, it appears that he has practiced law for, at most, three years. Liu is staunchly left-wing. For example, he chairs the Board of Directors of the left-liberal American Constitution Society for »

Annals of Government Medicine

The London Times reports on England’s latest medical scandal: Patients were routinely neglected or left “sobbing and humiliated” by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care. An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs. … Staff shortages at Stafford Hospital meant that patients »

Did the bleat of the lamb excite the lion? Part Two

Michael Rubin, posting at the Corner, adds another level of sophistication to the discussion of Hillary Clinton’s claim that President Obama’s policy of engagement with Iran failed, not because it was inherently a bad idea, but rather because of the rise of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iranian society. He writes: The problem is that the IRGC was in control well before Obama took over; its rise is »