The Corner on National Review Online

Krauthammer's Take [NRO Staff]

From Friday's Fox News All-Stars.

On Senate passage of the health-care reform bill:

You asked what Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas will ask for. Well, after watching Louisiana get $100 million in what have some have called "The Louisiana Purchase," she ought to ask for $500 million at least.

Obama said he would end business as usual in Washington. If you look at section 2006, the Louisiana money, it looks as if it is a provision for all states which have had a proclamation of a disaster area in the last seven years — and then the fine print inside eliminates all the others except Louisiana. It's a new kind of business as usual. ...

There is almost no way imaginable that the vote [to allow debate to proceed on the health-care bill] will fail tomorrow. If it is, it is the ultimate humiliation [for Obama]. It's the rejection of the debate even before it starts.

The Democrats, even Lincoln who will have to be [up] for reelection, will have a second shot at killing the bill later, after the amendments. …

Now, you've got [Sen. Ben] Nelson, who is against the abortion provisions. He will allow debate, but if it's [the abortion language] not changed in the course of these amendments, he will oppose the bill at the end, which is why I think the bill at the end is going to strip out all the abortion stuff.

And then on the … public option, they're going to lose [Sen. Joe] Lieberman in the end — not tomorrow night — but in the end if it stays in. But they could possibly gain Olympia Snowe of Maine if a trigger [for the public option] is in.

So it can in the end pass, but it has to be amended in precisely the right way.

On Sarah Palin’s popularity:

She's a rock star. She's this year's Barack Obama — incredible charisma and a strong constituency.

She will not be the [Republican presidential] nominee. She shouldn't be. But she will be decisive in deciding who is.

On the end of the Oprah Winfrey Show:

I'm not sure I can take it. My afternoons will be empty.

11/23 11:00 AM Share

An NR Education [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $50 NRO contributor:

Been reading for years since I was about 16 in high school. Now 25 and finally have spare money to contribute. Keep up the good work and fight the good fight.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 11:00 AM Share

NRO: Pastor-Approved [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $25 NRO contributor:

I'm a conservative Baptist pastor with 4 kids, so my contribution must be minimal. I've read NR through the years both online and "dead tree" but still wasn't planning to contribute.

Jonah's announcement of the returning G-File pushed me over the edge. I've enjoyed his prose greatly throughout the years. I've even enjoyed "Liberal Fascism." Sometimes in the dark hours when I have flubbed a sermon or presentation, my spirit sinks so low that I think, "If I could only preach like Jonah writes" . . . but then I get right with the Lord and it passes.

In all seriousness, I appreciate the wide range of conservative thought. It challenges my thinking, and reminds me that the right answers are rarely easy.

Thanks . . .

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 10:30 AM Share

Harmonic Convergence [Mark Steyn]

The approval numbers of renowned moron Sarah Palin and global colossus Barack Obama are about to meet.

Oh, my. Maybe the White House should call in the Climate Research Unit to (as the settled scientists say) "hide the decline".

11/23 10:27 AM Share

More Mush from the Wimp [Mark Steyn]

The view from post-"reset button" Europe. A headline from Der Spiegel:

Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage

This presidency is shaping up as a tragedy — for America, and the world.

11/23 10:00 AM Share

Pumpkin Bread, Anyone? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I'm thinking of heading over to Elizabeth Scalia's house after reading this pumpkin-bread-pudding recipe on her blog.

This reminds me that in years past, Thanksgiving recipes have found their way in and around The Corner. This cranberry-sauce thread was a winner. So was this cornbread dressing recipe. More here. And a fried-turkey classic.

11/23 10:00 AM Share

Keeping Hope Alive [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $50 NRO contributor:

In deepest blue Boston, you keep hope alive. Not a day (or some days, an hour!) of my life goes by without The Corner and NRO's other blogs, and I am happy to pay for the privilege.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 10:00 AM Share

'Representative' Patrick Kennedy [Rick Brookhiser]

Even Luther believed in consubstantiation.

11/23 09:55 AM Share

What Strange Things People Are Pt. 2 [Jonah Goldberg]

But before despair over the quality of our citizenry overtakes me, I read Thomas Friedman's latest sigh about China and our own suboptimal democracy. He writes:

Mr. Obama was elected for similar reasons. People had hoped that his unique story, personality and speaking skills could bring the country together, overcome paralysis and deliver nation-building at home. A lot of the disappointment settling in among Obama voters today is prompted by their dawning realization that maybe, like Arnold, he can’t.

China’s leaders, using authoritarian means, still can. They don’t have to always settle for suboptimal. So what do we do?

The standard answer is that we need better leaders. The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things. Otherwise, folks, we’re in trouble. A great power that can only produce suboptimal responses to its biggest challenges will, in time, fade from being a great power — no matter how much imagination it generates.

This sort of thing makes me want to hunker and bunker-down with my family in a Nockian cubbyhole until this all blows over.

11/23 09:52 AM Share

What Strange Things People Are Pt. 1 [Jonah Goldberg]

I was in Florida, at the Breakers Hotel, this weekend for the David Horowitz Freedom Center Restoration Weekend (say that ten times fast). It was a great event. Delightful — and enthusiastic! — people. While lounging at the pool — I am an accomplished lounger — I listened to some businessmen (not with the Restoration bunch) talking in the pool. It was a very common conversation. Both men were preening over the fact that they are independents. "I call 'em like I see 'em," a particularly loud-mouthed fellow said. "I'm not extreme right or extreme left," he explained as if he was saying, "I'm not dumb or ugly." And the conversation went on — and on. Then they turned to health care. The loud-mouthed guy kept singing the praises of a documentary he saw on health care. It was "very intellectual" and "very controversial" and he enjoyed it a great deal. It was made by Michael Moore. "The one thing I can't figure out," he confessed, "is whether [Moore] was coming from the right or the left.

Then just a few minutes ago, I was listening to the morning call-ins on C-Span radio. Viewers were asked what newspapers they read. One woman explained that she used the Google translator function to translate foreign newspapers. In particular, she says she gets a lot of her news from Argentina's newspapers. She doesn't like China's newspapers because they're just like America's — "full of right-wing propaganda."

Geniuses!

11/23 09:49 AM Share

re: Amazon [Michael Walsh]

I second the experience outlined by John J. Miller in his post below re Amazon's "reader reviews." My novel, Hostile Intent, debuted at No. 1 on Amazon Kindle when it came out in September, rode high on the Barnes & Noble mass-market lists for more than two months, and twice reached the New York Times extended mass-market bestseller list in October — not bad for my first foray into the international thriller market. It was so successful that the publisher has extended the series by three more books, making a total of five (the next installment in the "Devlin" series, Black Widow, comes out next fall), and the franchise is now the subject of a bidding war in Hollywood And yet it, too, has been subjected to a barrage of one-star review attacks, some of them personal, some of them illiterate, many of them still coming, and all of them characterized by the trademark lefty sneer.

It's a shame. Once Amazon was an author's best friend: Now, it's an enterprise that undercuts a writer's sales almost instantly by offering second-hand copies along with new ones, and allows an army of trolls to attack, apparently completely unmoderated. I flagged a couple of the reviews as inappropriate, but of course nothing was done. Listen: I was a critic for 25 years at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, and Time magazine. I used to tell Horowitz how to play the piano and Pavarotti how to sing. I can dish it out and I can take it. But this is a new, and ugly, phenomenon indeed.

11/23 09:49 AM Share

Re: KSM & Friends in NYC [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

New Yorkers are not taking it well, thank goodness; via Debra Burlingame:

NEW YORKERS TO HOLDER:
“WE WILL FIGHT YOU ALL THE WAY!”

Last Wednesday, a group of 9/11 family members and New York first responders attended the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Attorney General Eric Holder testified about his decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 9/11 co-conspirators in a New York City federal court. Mr. Holder stumbled through several tough and pointed questions about the dangers of giving war criminals the same rights as American citizens and blurring the mission of our war fighters. He was visibly unnerved by the presence of the families and the first responders. We want to keep the pressure on him, as well as President Obama, who we were shocked to learn was AWOL on this reckless decision.

Nearly two weeks ago we sent a letter signed by 300 family members to President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. After Mr. Holder’s announcement last Friday, another 120,000 people (as of today) have signed the letter in support of our position. Many of these individuals are family members from all three attack sites, active & retired FDNY, PAPD & NYPD, first responders from throughout the country and active, reserve and retired members of the military.

We are holding a press conference on Tuesday, November 24, at noon in Battery Park, Clinton Castle for the 9/11 families and first responders/survivors. We chose to hold it on Thanksgiving Week in the hope that our fellow Americans will join us in sending our prayers and messages of thanks to our troops and first responders, who will bear the brunt of these dangerous decisions made in Washington.

At that time we will announce the details for a large rally in New York City on Saturday, December 5 at noon, to tell Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obama and their supporters in Congress: “We will fight you all the way!”

11/23 09:35 AM Share

'Karmic Conservative Brownie Points' [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $25 NRO contributor:

I receive the magazine . . . LOVE IT!! Love online, but don't have time to read it — four kids and husband on fourth deployment. Still, I'm making a donation to get me karmic conservative brownie points. Soldier on, guys!

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 09:30 AM Share

Love This Headline [Mona Charen]

From The Hill:

McCaskill still working toward goal of reading the healthcare bill

11/23 09:17 AM Share

Not Holding Back [NRO Staff]

Conrad Black writes:

Until the risks of being awash in newly created money were finally recognized as the 800-pound self-inflating tiger in the room, the administration and congressional leadership were hinting at a new stimulus package. As was widely seen at the time, the $787 billion stimulus bill was a disaster, a riot of children left to ransack the candy store and gorge themselves. It stuffed money into the districts of prominent Democrats in Congress, on a delayed trip-wire to coincide with upcoming elections, as less than a quarter of the money has been spent; but it has been a very inefficient job-creator. The whole concept of stimulus is bogus, as the borrowing of the money consumes at least as much stimulus as it generates.

There was no excuse for such a bumbling program by this administration. The procedural playbook, if not all the substantive policy, was written by Franklin D. Roosevelt 75 years ago: Prepare a precise program, round up public support for it, send completed bills to Congress and ram them through, alleviate unemployment with low-paid conservation and infrastructure workfare, and solve banking problems with investments in the banks, not in their worst assets. Instead of that, we have witnessed a bunch of grumpy boy scouts trying to put up a pup tent in the dark.

With Social Security, Medicare, and the FDIC (totalling $125 trillion of obligations) as well as the Federal Reserve itself now confronting appalling debt scenarios (the Fed’s loans and other advances, some of them vulnerable, are backed by hard assets of only about one half of 1 percent of the obligations), the administration projects trillion-dollar annual deficits for ten years. Obviously, the Chinese and Japanese are not going to go on buying this debt, and have already moved much of what they hold to short-term Treasuries, to translate into U.S. assets at knock-down prices. To sell on any real market any serious amount of this debt in the next decade would require torqued-up interest rates, which would be steroids for bulging debt, while strangling economic growth. It would be the 30-year-old bugbear of stagflation. And most is already being bought by the Federal Reserve: a straight open-faucet addition to the money supply, future inflation, and the reduction of the dollar’s value.

The present health-care bills include large tax increases. The proposed cap-and-trade bill to reduce carbon emissions would pile increased heating and air-conditioning costs on homeowners and employers, but would neither reduce emissions nor raise government revenues. The whole program is based on the unproved eco-terror arguments that have made Al Gore a Nobel Prize laureate centimillionaire, and the bill is ill-conceived if not insane.

More here.

11/23 09:10 AM Share

Slouching Toward Despotism [Peter Robinson]

This week on Uncommon Knowledge, from Toqueville to Obama — and from a republic characterized by individual liberty to the vast, yawning maw of the welfare state. Our guest, Dr. Paul A. Rahe, professor of history and political science at Hillsdale College, and the author, most recently, of Soft Despotism.

Soft despotism comes, Tocqueville thinks, when very gradually within a liberal democratic polity the government offers a helping hand to people. It’s always welcome. Businessmen who argue against government interference in the economy are always willing to have government help in their particular area of the economy. And very gradually, very slowly, unobtrusively, without anyone’s quite noticing what’s going on, the government ends up helping in a thousand and one ways and there are always strings attached.

Click here.

11/23 09:03 AM Share

Why Should You Donate to NRO? Because . . . [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $50 NRO contributor:

I've never donated before . . . figured my subscription to the Dead Tree edition would suffice, but...Because I believe Ponnuru would be a great SCOTUS addition. Because Goldberg told me to rent Deadwood (oh, and also happened to write the most important political book in ages). Because Derb used the phrase "Marmite Motorway" to describe England's future in an email to me. Because K-Lo knew Father Callaghan in my local parish would be the one priest to reference NRO in a Christmas Eve sermon. Because if I miss it, you reprint Krauthammer's Fox News take. Because Steyn is Steyn. Because Nordlinger loves music even more than politics (I think). Because Miller's a rock and roll animal in conservative clothing. Because I want Lowry to start handing out raises. Because NRO is the only stimulus package I need to get through these dark days. Because someday I want to work for NRO and this is the closest I can get to a bribe. Because of Barack Obama, Nancy "Pants-on-Fire" Pelosi, and Harry Reid. I wish it could be more, folks, I truly do. This should be enough to buy a beer for everyone. Keep fighting the good fight.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 09:00 AM Share

They Like Us! They R'lyeh, R'lyeh Like Us! [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $100 NRO contributor:

Where else can you find Cthulhu, zombies and sparkling political commentary? Speaking of which, how about a new blog, "Cthulhu Calls?" Plenty of eldritch evil around these days.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 08:30 AM Share

Whitewashing Reality [Bill Bennett]

Is there anything more important than the issue of terrorism? Domestic terrorism and foreign-based terrorism that aims to strike us internally? I well recall the 2006 Nickle Mines Amish School massacre of six children. And I recall Jay Nordlinger saying: “This is what we would have thought would have been one of the last safe places in America.” Who would have thought a health care center . . . run by the Army . . . in a Fort . . . in Texas, would not have been the last safe place in America, safe from terrorism, safe from our own U.S. military hosting an officer-terrorist. Of course, as we all know, it was not safe. On November 5th, 14 people were shot to death by a Radical Muslim in Army uniform. He had a laser sight on his gun.

Why has terrorism, how has terrorism, come to be such a rare and indeed controversial identifier here? Let’s look at what the American people think.

Americans themselves apparently have mixed feelings over characterizing the rampage as terrorism. A recent Fox News poll found that 49 percent of those interviewed preferred to describe the incident as “a killing spree” and that 44 percent thought “act of terrorism” was more accurate.

The older the respondent, the more likely he was to call it terrorism. Forty-five percent believe the outburst involved the shooter mentally snapping, and 38 percent consider him a Muslim extremist protesting American foreign policies.

We have carved out for our culture and ourselves categories that are completely meaningless in and of themselves to whitewash the notions of reality before our eyes, realities such as good and evil. In the days following 9/11, many of us thought a lot was morally clarified; that for the first time in a generation, the true hand of evil and the true face of evil could be seen for what they were, without psycho-babble, without moral unseriousness, without politically correct norms, without the language of mush. And we, in fact, were there. It didn’t last. We have a Muslim terrorist, who called for jihad, who shouted “Alahu Akbar” as he was killing unarmed soldiers in a health center, who had cards made up that said “Solider of Allah,” who spoke of pouring boiling oil down the throats of infidels, who has regular correspondence with a radical imam who preached to 9/11 terrorists . . . and, and, and, and . . . we call it not terrorism but a “killing spree” as if that is what it was and not a terrorist trying to kill as many Americans as possible for political motives.

There is a rot that spreads outside of Washington into the larger culture. It begins with a confusion of terms, and by not calling things by their proper names, it begins with a disassembling of the moral categories. We don’t hear about terrorism or radical Islam so we are surprised to find it in our midst, and when we do, we don’t even recognize it. We have Army generals who elevate diversity over life, we have a president who speaks not of radical Islam or terrorism — though life is what we are fighting for and radical Islam and terrorism is what we are fighting against. And so we are reminded again of the notion that the chief purpose of education is to know when a man is talking rot. Because, if unchecked, the rot will settle, it will metastasize. Soon we no longer know anymore what we are fighting against . . . or more importantly, what we are to fight for.

— William J. Bennett is host of Morning in America.

11/23 08:21 AM Share

NRO: History in the Making [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $50 NRO contributor:

In the days of our American Revolution, patriots had Committees of Correspondance to bring them the news in the fight for liberty. NRO is today's patriot's C of C. Each morning I eagerly await my internet browser, like some modern day Paul Revere, to bring me NRO galloping onto my screen. "Standing athwart history and yelling stop" has always seemed to me to be our generation's "to arms, to arms!" Keep up the great work!

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 08:00 AM Share

A Monday 101 [Peter Wehner]

In every important public debate, many myths rise up. Some of them are factual mistakes; others are based on false premises. Whichever is the case, there is a need to swat them down in a careful and accessible manner. The Foreign Policy Initiative’s Fact Sheet, making the case for a fully resourced counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy for Afghanistan, does just that. It can be found here. It’s a useful primer showing why the arguments against a significant increase in troop strength and COIN strategy in Afghanistan are wrong. But see for yourself.

11/23 07:30 AM Share

NRO: Your Friends Online [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $150 NRO contributor:

The barrage of inside-joke references in Goldberg's "Appeal" reminded me what a huge presence my friends on the Corner have been in my life over the last ten years. Almost every day for a decade I have been able to enjoy conversation with people much smarter, wittier, and more fun than anyone who would ever talk to me in real life. Please accept my meager donation as token of affection and esteem.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 07:30 AM Share

For Real [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

It was hard to miss this from the AFP on Sunday on Patrick Kennedy's continuing church issues:

Communion is a church ritual that involves the sharing of bread and wine meant to represent the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Patrick Kennedy is Catholic — or, at least, says he is, which is the issue. Catholics don't believe it's a representation. AFP doesn't have to buy in. They just have to report accurately.

Kennedy's bishop, BTW, has responded to the congressman's comments over the weekend:

Keep reading this post . . .

11/23 07:18 AM Share

Nine Years Together [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $25 NRO contributor:

OK, OK . . . you got me with the pseudo-G-File! I have 2 daughters in college and not a heck of a lot extra cash laying around, but I've been reading The Corner every day since the 2000 elections and this is just a small token (granted . . . really small) of how much you guys mean to the rest of us out here.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/23 07:00 AM Share

Obama’s Fundamental Misconception [Gordon G. Chang]

The best the defenders of President Obama’s trip to Asia can say at this moment is that the resounding chorus of criticism is premature. Of course, no presidential visit can be fully assessed until months — and sometimes years — after the event.

But the president has united the political spectrum against him for his abandonment of human rights as a central element of the American dialogue with China. The New York Times gently put it this way this weekend: “The American president must always be willing to stand up to Beijing in defense of core American interests and values.”

What the president does not understand is that American values are American interests. American diplomats tend to separate the two and sometimes think that promoting the former can undermine the latter. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton obviously subscribes to this view. After all, this February she famously said that the issue of Chinese human rights cannot be permitted to “interfere” with important topics of discussion with Beijing. The president, for his part, broke the precedent of the last three administrations and refused to see the Dalai Lama during His Holiness’s trip to Washington early last month. The administration indicated Obama did not want to rile the Chinese before his visit.

What Obama and Clinton fail to comprehend is that America derives its security because of its values. Peoples around the world support our policies precisely because they share our beliefs. And with the Chinese there is another dimension: Beijing’s ruthlessly pragmatic leaders see our failure to press human rights as a sign that we think we are weak. And if they think we are weak, they see little reason to cooperate. So promoting human rights is protecting American security.

Chinese officials were reported to have been ecstatic when Secretary Clinton issued her February remarks. Since then, they have been noticeably less cooperative on the great issues of the day. And in March, just one month after her statement, they felt bold enough to order their vessels to harass two of our unarmed ships in international waters in the South China and Yellow Seas. The Chinese even attempted to sever a towed sonar array from one of the Navy vessels. That hostile act constituted an attack on the United States.

— Gordon G. Chang is the author of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World. He lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades.

11/23 07:00 AM Share

Terrorists' Opportunity to Issue Their Foreign-Policy Critiques [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

I listened to this defense attorney explain what's to come on local New York news last night. I thought I had fallen asleep and was having nightmares. But here it is:

By KAREN MATTHEWS (AP)

NEW YORK — The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain "their assessment of American foreign policy," Fenstermaker said.

"Their assessment is negative," he said.

11/23 06:50 AM Share

A Book the Left Doesn't Want You to Read [John J. Miller]

On Friday, a left-wing website launched a coordinated attack on my new novel, The First Assassin. It encouraged its minions to post fraudulent one-star reviews on Amazon.com — in other words, to trash a book they haven't bothered to read. They also tagged the book with strange terms such as "wingnut assassination fantasy," "wingnuts are go," and worse. Their behavior is a case study in illiberalism — an online book-burning party that ought to embarrass honest liberals. I'm hardly the first National Review writer to face such abuse. Just ask Jonah.

This calls for a counterattack. Readers of The Corner can go on Amazon.com's customer-review page for The First Assassin and rate the customer reviews. By clicking a button, you can describe which reviews are helpful and which are unhelpful. These decisions matter. Reviews deemed most helpful rise to the top of the section. Also, if you're able and willing to contribute your own customer review of The First Assassin — now or at some point in the future — this would be even more valuable.

Many NROniks already have purchased The First Assassin. I’m grateful for this support. You are the best readers in the world. Thanks for letting us do what we do.

11/23 05:53 AM Share

An Amazing Story [Mark Steyn]

I'm surprised this man didn't go mad. It's a remarkable and sobering tale:

A man thought by doctors to be in a vegetative state for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time, it was revealed last night.

11/23 12:44 AM Share

New Policy at the New York Times! [Mark Steyn]

The paper's position on those revelations of "climate change" shenanigans I wrote about earlier:

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.

(Please note: This policy does not apply to Republican candidates showing any signs of life in the polls.)

11/23 12:22 AM Share

Sunday, November 22, 2009

'The Taliban came to kill me, and instead we killed them.' [Rich Lowry]

Thus says a tribal elder in Afghanistan in this encouraging New York Times story about Afghan militias fighting the Taliban.

11/22 10:43 PM Share

'The Bureaucrat in the Exam Room' [Stephen Spruiell]

That's how Tennessee Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn characterized the preventative-care sections of the Democrats' health-care bill:

BLACKBURN: And, George, this is exactly how it happens. If you go to page 1,296 of the House bill, the engrossed copy, and you began to read in title three of that bill, on preventive and wellness services, and you get down to section 2301, this is what happens. In section 3131 of that bill, it changes the Preventive Services Task Force to the Clinical Preventive Services Task Force. Then, you go back and you see that that task force on preventive clinical services is tasked with rating A, B, C, D, or I all preventive services. Then you go back into section 222 of the bill..."

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKBURN: Yes, I have read this bill. And that indicates what would be paid or covered. And this is where the actual link comes, and I'll read it for you. In section 2301, it says, "All recommendations of the Preventive Services Task Force" — that's the group that did the mammograms — "and the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, as in existence on the day before the date of the enactment of this act, shall be considered to be recommendations of the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services." [...]

BLACKBURN: And when you look at what is going to happen with these 118 new bureaucracies with 62 directives that are given by the health choices commissioner on what insurance can be offered in this country after 2013 and what is going to be paid, you know that this is the bureaucrat in the exam room. This is how it's going to happen.

Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a statement stressing that the task force's recommendations "do not set federal policy and they don’t determine what services are covered by the federal government." But under the Democrats' health-care legislation, they would. In the House bill, only preventative services receiving grades of A or B from the task force would be part of the "essential benefits package." The task force's new recommendations on mammography downgrade routine screening in women aged 40 to 49 years to a C grade.

Of course, many states already require insurance companies to cover at least one mammogram per year. These and other mandates have driven up the cost of insurance and led conservatives to call for reforms that would enable people to buy health insurance across state lines. The point is not that all mammograms should be covered, or that none should be. It is that people should be allowed to buy insurance coverage that meets their needs, based on their family health histories, their doctors' advice, etc. They should not be required to buy coverage — or denied coverage — based on the edicts of some task force in Washington.

As James Joyner pointed out last week, the vacillations of the medical community on issues like mammography draw into question "the rigors of medical scholarship, which seems to frequently draw wide conclusions based on studies of very small, self-selected samples." We shouldn't be forced to buy one-size-fits-all insurance policies in any case, but certainly not when they are designed by bureaucrats reacting to the health crisis du jour.

11/22 06:21 PM Share

'Light Words During a Dark Time' [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $50 NRO contributor:

It's worth $50 just to be able to read lines like, "you keep us on our toes like Robert Reich at a urinal". Thanks for the light words during a dark time.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/22 06:00 PM Share

Supporting Our Troops [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $100 NRO contributor:

For [all the authors] who always keep me entertained. Thanks for always supporting me in Iraq and at my job as a casualty officer at Bethesda.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/22 04:00 PM Share

Sanity in an Insane World [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $25 NRO contributor:

As you might expect (I live in Vermont) I feel somewhat under siege. Fortunately I have NRO and NRODT to keep me sane.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/22 02:00 PM Share

Three Cheers for NRO! [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $50 NRO contributor:

The conservative media is in the ascendancy because of your work.

How could anyone miss a website with Mark Steyn.

God Bless — The Corner!

Long Live — Doctor! Doctor!

Hallelujah — The Campaign Spot!

Contribute to NRO here.

11/22 12:00 PM Share

Kalifonistan [John J. Miller]

The movie. Coming sooner than you think.

11/22 11:31 AM Share

The Swiss Army Sentence of Internet Punditry [Jonah Goldberg]

From a reader in response to my appeal:

The new most useful all purpose line in Internet Punditry: "And even if that's not exactly what you're saying, I'm sure that's the gist of it."

If I hadn't already donated, that would of done it.

Cheers, and thanks for the good work.

[Name withheld]

11/22 10:07 AM Share

How the Science Gets Settled [Mark Steyn]

It all depends on how you look at it. From the Boston Herald:

In an embarrassing blow to the movement to combat global warming, hackers have posted hundreds of e-mails from a world-renowned British institute that show researchers colluding to exaggerate warming and undermine skeptics.

From the Guardian:

The alleged emails illustrate the persistent pressure some climatologists have been under from sceptics in recent years.

Yes, it's awfully stressful having to develop models to "hide the decline" in global temperatures, "balance the needs of the science and the IPCC", pressure scientific journals to exclude dissenting views, and delete (illegally) material requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

"Climate change" and "health care" are different ends of the same stick: They're both all-purpose pretexts for regulating every aspect of your life. Don't take my word for it — listen to the Belgian nonentity upgraded on Friday to the Holy Roman Emperor de nos jours:

2009 is also the first year of global governance.

Did you get that memo? And, if you disagree, who do you call? Who do you vote out of office if you want a change in "global governance"? Previewing Copenhagen, global warm-monger Tim Flannery is entirely upfront about the end-game:

We think of them as being concerned with some sort of environmental treaty. That is far from the case... They deal with every aspect of our life and they will inﬂuence every aspect of our life, our economy, our society.

And surely that admirable goal justifies a little bit of "hiding the decline" and other sleights.

11/22 10:04 AM Share

'Part of the Family' [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a $100 NRO contributor:

In many ways, you guys make us readers feel like we're part of the NR family. And where I come from, family takes care of family. Thanks for all you do. Keep it up.

Contribute to NRO here.

11/22 10:00 AM Share

Robert Wright Calls Me Out [Jonah Goldberg]

In the NYT:

IN the case of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and the Fort Hood massacre, the verdict has come in. The liberal news media have been found guilty — by the conservative news media — of coddling Major Hasan’s religion, Islam.

Liberals, according to the columnist Charles Krauthammer, wanted to medicalize Major Hasan’s crime — call it an act of insanity rather than of terrorism. They worked overtime, Mr. Krauthammer said on Fox News, to “avoid any implication that there was any connection between his Islamist beliefs ... and his actions.” The columnist Jonah Goldberg agrees. Admit it, he wrote in The Los Angeles Times, Major Hasan is “a Muslim fanatic, motivated by other Muslim fanatics.”

The good news for Mr. Krauthammer and Mr. Goldberg is that there is truth in their indictment. The bad news is that their case against the left-wing news media is the case against right-wing foreign policy. Seeing the Fort Hood shooting as an act of Islamist terrorism is the first step toward seeing how misguided a hawkish approach to fighting terrorism has been.

The American right and left reacted to 9/11 differently. Their respective responses were, to oversimplify a bit: “kill the terrorists” and “kill the terrorism meme.”

Conservatives backed war in Iraq, and they’re now backing an escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Liberals (at least, dovish liberals) have warned in both cases that killing terrorists is counterproductive if in the process you create even more terrorists; the object of the game isn’t to wipe out every last Islamist radical but rather to contain the virus of Islamist radicalism.

One reason killing terrorists can spread terrorism is that various technologies — notably the Internet and increasingly pervasive video — help emotionally powerful messages reach receptive audiences. When American wars kill lots of Muslims, inevitably including some civilians, incendiary images magically find their way to the people who will be most inflamed by them.

This calls into question our nearly obsessive focus on Al Qaeda — the deployment of whole armies to uproot the organization and to finally harpoon America’s white whale, Osama bin Laden. If you’re a Muslim teetering toward radicalism and you have a modem, it doesn’t take Mr. bin Laden to push you over the edge. All it takes is selected battlefield footage and a little ad hoc encouragement: a jihadist chat group here, a radical imam there — whether in your local mosque or on a Web site in your local computer.

He goes on. I find it all pretty unpersuasive. But we're going to try to work out a bloggingheads session out of it. So I'll reserve my comments until then,

11/22 09:59 AM Share

Obama-logic on Terrorism: Mass-Murder Civilians and You Get Better Rights [Andy McCarthy]

I have an op-ed in the New York Daily News this morning on the Obama administration decision to transfer KSM and the other 9/11 jihadists to Manhattan for a civilian trial. Here's the wrap-up:

Our enemies will be given a full-blown civilian trial with all the rights of the American citizens they are sworn to kill. They will get a year or more to sift through our national defense secrets. They will have wide latitude to turn the case into a trial of the Bush administration - publicizing information about anti-terrorism tactics that leftist lawyers will exploit in their quest for war crimes prosecutions in foreign courts against current and former U.S. officials.

In the military system, we could have denied them access to classified information, forcing them to accept military lawyers with security clearances who could see such intelligence but not share it with our enemies. In civilian court, the Supreme Court has held an accused has an absolute right to conduct his own defense. If KSM asserts that right - as he tried to do in the military commission - he will have a strong argument that we must surrender relevant, top-secret information directly to him. And we know that indicted terrorists share what they learn with their confederates on the outside.

Finally, as policy, the administration's decision is perverse. A half-century of humanitarian law, beginning with the Geneva Conventions, sought to civilize warfare. To receive enhanced protection, combatants must adhere to the laws of war and refrain from targeting civilians. Under Obama-logic, the Cole bombers get a military commission while the 9/11 savages are clothed in the majesty of the Bill of Rights.

So here's the message to terrorists: If you kill thousands of civilians, we will give you better rights than if you attack military assets. That is dangerously irresponsible.

11/22 08:41 AM Share

Read About It [John J. Miller]

Readers of The Corner have contributed to a first-rate discussion about conservative novels on my personal website, HeyMiller.com. As of right now, there are 146 entries in the comment section. Please feel free to add your own or just enjoy the conversation. I've come away with many excellent suggestions for books to read and hope you do the same.

11/22 07:09 AM Share

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Sabato: The Politics of the Cloture Vote [Robert Costa]

So what does tonight’s vote mean? Can the Senate’s week off for Thanksgiving change the politics of the health-care debate? What happens if the debate ends up stretching through December and into 2010?

For answers, NRO asked Larry Sabato, the astute professor of politics at the University of Virginia, for his take.

“Three elections guaranteed the 60 votes: 2006 and 2008, which gave Democrats the White House and large Hill majorities, and 2009,” says Sabato. He continues: “What's that, you say? Didn't Republicans win the day in '09?”

“Yes, and the Republican interpretation of ‘09, as applied to health care, was that the victories of Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell would deter the Democrats from moving forward on the bill,” says Sabato. “But Democrats drew precisely the opposite lesson from ‘09. In their analysis, if they didn’t hang together and re-energize their party activists with a health-care win, they'd hang separately in November 2010. Worried senators and congressmen began to see their names etched on the wall of losers, right after Jon Corzine and Creigh Deeds.”

“The conclusion, as always,” says Sabato, “is that elections matter — and so do the prevailing interpretations of those elections.”

“It is always possible that some new rationale will take hold after Thanksgiving, especially if this debate drags on and on, but there is no compelling substitute for the classroom of elections,” he adds. “Rallies, demonstrations, and protest letters are vastly inferior to the ballot box, if one's goal is to influence legislative behavior. The pro-reform forces have a big advantage in this sense.”

11/21 10:44 PM Share