The Politics Of Fear

Leaked RNC document reveals that the GOP will attempt to fundraise off scaring the shit out of their donors with words like "socialism" and pictures of President Obama as the Joker.

Also water is still wet, and ice is still cold.

Yawn

Bypassing Politico

For whatever reason people tend to still pay a lot of attention to Politico (or Politicol like) stories about the fate of the public option. This leads to a lot of hyperventilating and hyperbole from some segments of the left almost every other day even though it should be well known at this point that they and the folks like them are just trying to drum up clicks on their website. Well the White House has taken the opportunity to bypass a filter and any "leaks" and come out with their own "rumor check".

A rumor is making the rounds that the White House and Senator Reid are pursuing different strategies on the public option. Those rumors are absolutely false.

In his September 9th address to Congress, President Obama made clear that he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition. That continues to be the President's position.

Senator Reid and his leadership team are now working to get the most effective bill possible approved by the Senate. President Obama completely supports their efforts and has full confidence they will succeed and continue the unprecedented progress that is being made in both the House and Senate.

"Absolutely false". Did you see that? Ok so at least for the next couple of the days can we at least TRY to keep our powder dry on any story full of "anonymous" sources and ridiculous premises? Sheesh.

GOPolitico And Their Rampant False Equivalency

I don't agree with Glenzilla in this post about whether what Joe Wilson was egregious or not, but thats about the only thing I can find a quibble with and he accurately portrays how Politico and other mainstream media outlets create a bizarro world when it comes to politics all in the name of false equivalency.

Politico Leading Them Off A Cliff

Check out all the lemmings falling for this Politico non story story entitled "Under Fire, Obama Shifts Strategy". And you have just GOT to love their lede.

Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.

Now you might think what follows would be kinda like a game changer, especially considering how many people jumped all over the story last night when it broke.

You would be wrong.

What exactly is the "new" news in the article? Well there really isn't any. The "new" approach seems strikingly different to the old approach.

Pretty much the only area of a health care reform bill that President Obama has been teh slightest bit shaky on is the public option. So will he finally draw a line in the sand?

Obama is considering detailing his health-care demands in a major speech as soon as next week, when Congress returns from the August recess. And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said.

Uhmm no.

And how exactly will this speech be any different from his previous speeches? They don't say.

Ok well will he at least set another deadline?

The timing, format, venue and content of Obama's presentation are still being debated in the West Wing. Aides have discussed whether to stick to broad principles, or to send specific legislative language to Capitol Hill. Some hybrid is likely, the officials said.

“I’m not going to put a date on any of this,” Axelrod said. “But I think it’s fairly obvious that we’re not in the second inning. We’re not in the fourth inning. We’re in the eighth or ninth inning here, and so there’s not a lot of time to waste.”

Ummm no.

Well at least maybe his specifics will be more specific.

Obama's specifics will include many of the principles he has spelled out before, and aides did not want to telegraph make-or-break demands.

Sigh...

Of course Politico doesn't waste an opportunity to frame the debate through their own wingnut lens:

White House officials say they are looking forward to "a break from the August break" -- a chance to take back control of the debate after a grim month where news coverage of the issue was dominated by vocal, emotional opponents at lawmakers’ town meetings, railing against the cost and complexity of the plans being debated.

So Obama and Democrats will return from vacation wounded, divided and uncertain of the best way to turn things around. Many Democrats, especially in the House, were spooked over break by the rowdy town hall meetings and flurry of polls showing independent voters skeptical of their leadership and spending plans.

Really Politico? Many Democrats were "spooked"? Hmmm well that's just funny because see I saw this other report about some Blue Dog Democrats in the House that said:

Even after the tough town-hall-style meetings, unrelenting Republican assaults and a steady stream of questions from anxious voters, interviews with more than a dozen Blue Dogs and their top aides indicate that many of the lawmakers still believe approval of some form of health care plan is achievable and far preferable to not acting at all.

“I can’t tell you how comprehensive it will be, but I do believe something will get passed,” said Representative Michael Arcuri, a second-term Blue Dog Democrat from New York.

The political temperature of the Blue Dogs — and their ideological counterparts in the Senate — after the five-week recess is crucial. As representatives of some of the nation’s most conservative territory represented by Democrats, they potentially have the most to lose if a Democratic bill spurs a backlash. Even with healthy majorities in Congress, every Democratic vote is critical given the reluctance by some Democrats to consider a major overhaul and near blanket Republican opposition.

One lawmaker in the group, Representative David Scott of Georgia, said his determination to enact a health care overhaul had been increased over the recess because of what he called the spread of misinformation and other unfair tactics engaged in by the opposition.

“I think now more than ever we must get strong in our resolve to pass health care insurance reform legislation,” Mr. Scott said.

Another coalition member, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, said that despite the intensity of the health care fight over the last month, he was not sure the Democratic landscape had changed all that much from when House members left Washington in early August.

“The members that were skeptical of the public option going into the recess are still skeptical,” Mr. Schiff said. “Those who were supportive are still supportive.” He suggested the major transformation was among Republicans, who seem far less open to any health care proposals given the heated sentiments aired by conservative voters.

Of course the New York Times actually went and actually asked some Democrats how they were affected by the astroturfed townhalls rather than try to speak for them. That's what journalism is all about, something Politico has no time for.

Now I guess there was at least one piece of quasi news in the piece. It seems some unknown unnamed aide to President Obama wants to "take on the left":

On health care, Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.

Politico doesn't tell us who these unnamed "administration officials" who want President Obama to stare down the left are. I am sure Jane Hamsher over at FireDogLake will say its Rahmbo, and for once she is probably right. But on this subject, if there are officials who think this is a winning strategy for President Obama, I don't think there is a chance in hell of that.

There is no "Sistah Soulja" moment available to the Obama Administration with respect to health care reform. This isn't just about ideology. Its about whether healh care reform will actually BE reform or not or whether it will end up being a giveaway to the health insurance companies. Whether pundits like it or not a public option is the only way to bring down costs and premiums from the private insurers. A health care exchange all on its own doesn't inherently insure that. In fact what it will probably do is just push the insurers to engage in more collusion than they have in the past so that they all continue to make record profits.

So what exactly would "standing up to the left" accomplish for President Obama? Well I can tell you, and it won't just affect him, it will also affect progressives and liberals in the midterm elections. You see when you look at polling right now its true that President Obama's numbers are coming down. But who is keeping them up even at the lower level? Democrats that's who.

Right now, according to Pollster, President Obama's aggregate approval rating has dropped below 50% (almost entirely due to the inclusion of wingnut pollsters Zogby and Rassmussen). But what is it by party ID?

Democrats: 85%

Independents: 48.5%

Republicans: 13.9%

Now here is the thing, if President Obama intends to get his numbers up above water he won't do it by attracting Republicans because they aren't going to come around for anything. And if he wants to attract more independents then what he had better understand is that not every independent is conservative. Many of them are liberals and progressives who simply no longer trust the Democratic party. And evidently that's with good reason.

The point is "standing up to the left" will help him to lose some of that high approval rating from the Democrats and probably won't do much to raise his approval with independents. And its also important for him to remember that its the face painters, the liberals and progressives, who do the grunt work come election time. Its us who are manning phone banks. Its us who are doing the fact checking on blogs. Its us who go door to door for GOTV campaigns. So losing the face painters not only won't win you many new friends in the middle or on the right, it will also lose a lot of the grassroots support that the Democratic party will need in the midterms and for his reelection. Simply put, if you lose the face painters, you lose elections.

Now for all we know it might have been the White House chef who was talking about "standing up to the left" since whomever said it was too chickenshit to put their names on it. But no matter who it was, its not sound political advice that much is for sure. Still if that was the best Politico could do in this overhyped piece that is still sad as hell.

At some point GOPolitico will have to ruin its brand so much that people refuse to pay attention anymore. I am hoping its soon.

I Don't Care Either

GOPolitico has an article up that I refuse to link to because its so idiotic, meant to paint Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as this unpopular and despised leader who doesn't care about the way the nation sees her. First of all her ratings are still the highest of any Congressional leader from either party. Second of all if she sticks to her guns and helps pass a progressive health care reform bill in the House I'm pretty sure most Democrats won't give a damn about her approval ratings either. At least she isn't afraid to come out and stand up for Democratic principles on the air. Tell me when you have EVER seen Harry Reid do that.

"The Point Of The Proposal, However, Was Never To Generate Savings Over The Next Decade."

That is perhaps the most important line amongst others in OMB Director Peter Orszag's letter about the new CBO study on the IMAC proposal. Of course he had to respond to the study in the first place because GOPolitico ran a story with the screaming headline "CBO deals new blow to health plan". But if the point was never to reach long term savings with the IMAC proposal then in reality its not a big blow at all. The point was cost containment, not savings.

But then you have Jake Tapper doing a story this morning and although he links to Orszag's and quotes from it, he omits the most important sentence in the letter in his analysis and he makes it out to be a food fight pitting Orszag against OMB director Doug Elmendorf. I asked Tapper about this omission on twitter and his response was.

i have only heard WH discuss IMAC in terms of cost containment

Now that, to me, sounds like Tapper is calling Peter Orszag a liar. To be honest with you I don't have a problem with it if that's what he is doing. However it would seem to me that he should have had the courage to say that in the post itself rather than ignore Orszag's statement in his analysis. Don't get me wrong, he did link to the letter so people were free to go and read the letter themselves. However we all know that its rare for people to go to the source material. They rely on the journalist to provide them with the truth. And it would seem in this situation that because Tapper was predisposed to believe that Orszag wasn't being truthful he omitted pretty much the most important sentence in that letter from his analysis.

Here is what I feel are the most important parts of the letter.

CBO noted that this type of approach could lead to significant long-term savings in federal spending on health care and that the available evidence implies that a substantial share of spending on health care contributes little, if anything, to the overall health of the nation. This supports what President Obama has said all along: we can reduce waste and unnecessary spending without reducing quality of care and benefits.

In part because legislation under consideration already includes substantial savings in Medicare over the next decade, CBO found modest additional medium-term savings from this proposal -- $2 billion over 10 years. The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. (Indeed, under the Administration’s approach, the IMAC system would not even begin to make recommendations until 2015.) Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term. In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset.

With regard to the long-term impact, CBO suggested that the proposal, with several specific tweaks that would strengthen its operations, could generate significant savings. (The potential modifications included items such as providing mandatory funding for the council, rather than having the council rely on the annual appropriations cycle, and requiring independent verification of the expected reductions in program spending rather than relying only on the Medicare actuaries for such verification, along with other suggestions, such as including an across-the-board reduction in payments as a fallback mechanism if the council did not produce proposals that generated adequate savings.) And if you look back at recent history, one can see why an empowered advisory council would be useful. For example, for the better part of this decade, MedPAC has recommended reducing overpayments to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage plans – to equate those payments with the cost of covering the same beneficiary under traditional Medicare. Yet, nothing happened, costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. We can’t afford that type of inertia.

Basically what it boils down to is Orszag is saying "move along folks, nothing to see here" in response to the CBO study. Now the truth is for all I know Orzag is full of it and the CBO analysis really IS a huge blow to health care reform. But it would be nice if a journalist who was skeptical of Orszag statement was either earnest enough or brave enough to put that in their post on the subject rather than avoiding it all together.

Im just sayin.

Gawker PWNS GOPolitico

You know our media sucks when Gawker is calling out Politico for "sensationalizing" of the news. Let that one sink in for a minute.