TOO LATE
“What a difference a month makes!” Camille Paglia wrote Wednesday at www.salon.com.
“When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation, not daring to criticize the Obama administration’s bungling of health care reform lest it give aid and comfort to the GOP. Well, that ice dam sure broke with a roar,” Miss Paglia said.
“Dissident Democrats found their voices, and by late August even the liberal lemmings of the mainstream media, from CBS to CNN, had dramatically altered their tone of reportage, from priggish disdain of the town hall insurgency to frank admission of serious problems in the health care bills as well as of Obama’s declining national support.
“But this tonic dose of truth-telling may be too little too late. As an Obama supporter and contributor, I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration’s strategic missteps this year. I suspect there had been private grumbling all along, but the media warhorses failed to speak out when they should have - from week one after the inauguration, when Obama went flat as a rug in letting Congress pass that obscenely bloated stimulus package.
“Had more Democrats protested, the administration would have felt less arrogantly emboldened to jam through a cap-and-trade bill whose costs have made it virtually impossible for an alarmed public to accept the gargantuan expenses of national health care reform. (Who is naive enough to believe that Obama’s plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?)
“By foolishly trying to reduce all objections to health care reform to the malevolence of obstructionist Republicans, Democrats have managed to destroy the national coalition that elected Obama and that is unlikely to be repaired. If Obama fails to win re-election, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis.”
NEXT STORY
“Here we go again. Another day, another speech on health care,” Dana Perino wrote Wednesday at www.foxnews.com, prior to President Obama’s address to Congress.
“Will this one be any different? By all indications, the answer is no, at least not dramatically so - even though the speech is to a joint session of Congress. So how’s a reporter supposed to write something new when there’s really nothing new being said?
“Well, watch how the media walks its walk on health care coverage in the next couple of days. Many reporters seem just about bored to tears with the policy details. Now they are in full-throated ’who’s up’ and ’who’s down’ political coverage. Unfortunately, most Americans still aren’t satisfied with the policy proposals and are strongly rejecting the Democrats’ plans for a government takeover of the health care system that they believe will hurt them, their families and their country,” said Mrs. Perino, who served as press secretary to President George W. Bush.
“Lost in the coverage is discussion of what Republicans have been trying to get the media to pay attention to. In general, the media has not given much coverage to the well-thought-out, common-sense ideas for health care reform. Yes, the solutions are a bit complex, but so are the problems. It’s easier to duck the substance and instead take a shortcut by saying the Republicans have no plan of their own and that they’re just a bunch of naysayers. …
“The media is itching to write a comeback story after what was, by all accounts, a rotten summer for the Democrats. They’ll want to say that the president has ’found his voice,’ ’reclaimed the issue,’ ’re-energized the debate.’ To do that, they need to set up the piece with a contrast, even if it isn’t true.”
RANGEL’S WOES
“Charlie Rangel waited more than a decade to ascend to the chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which shapes our country’s tax laws, but in less than two years in that position he’s fared poorly in the glare of the national spotlight,” Steven Malanga writes at www.realclearmarkets.com.
“Rangel’s woes, ranging from unpaid taxes to undisclosed assets, shouldn’t be shocking to anyone who has followed his four decades in office. For much of that time, Rangel operated with impunity a powerful patronage machine in Harlem centered around several controversial, government-funded groups, which spent millions of dollars with no records to back up the expenditures, failed to pay withholding taxes on some employees, billed government for a host of questionable expenses, and ’pumped millions of dollars into New York’s underground economy through off-the-books payments,’ according to investigators.
“In a sane world, Rangel’s sad history with organizations like the Harlem Urban Development Corp. and the Apollo Theater Foundation would have raised serious questions about whether he should assume so important a position as head of the House Ways and Means Committee. That it didn’t, that the transgressions at these groups were seen as merely a local matter that passed quietly away, exemplify how since the War on Poverty we have tolerated politicians who create or take over community organizations financed by tax dollars and operate them as little more than patronage mills,” Mr. Malanga said.
“Sometimes these groups are merely ineffective and waste government money, but at other times they work in blatantly questionable ways, as when HUDC ignored tax laws. Is it any surprise that a politician who maneuvers freely for decades in such an environment would be so slipshod about paying his taxes and filing financial-disclosure forms?”
HOT SEAT
“Alan Frumin is the Senate parliamentarian. For now,” Paul Bedard writes in the Washington Whispers column at www.usnews.com.
“Facing the possibility that he’ll have to decide what elements of the Democrats’ health care plan the Senate can consider, he might find himself meeting the fate of several who preceded him: being fired for not going along with the majority,” Mr. Bedard said.
“Robert Dove, the last guy to have the job, was ousted by the GOP in 2001 because he made a decision then-Republican leader Trent Lott didn’t like. The chore: Frumin is the referee who decides if elements of the bill actually have a budget impact, as required when considering a bill under ’budget reconciliation.’ That’s when just a majority of senators - not the standard 60 supermajority - can cut off a filibuster and move to a vote. ’It’s not fun, but he knows how to do it,’ says Dove.”
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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