Copyright © 2009 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2009 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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Tangled up in Blue Cross. Or Cigna. Or Big Pharma. Or the AMA, maybe even. The Washington Post put together an anlysis showing how tight the relationships are between health care lobbyists and senators on the Finance Committee (which is responsible for health care reform). One lobbying firm, Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, hired the Chiefs of Staff of both Senator Max Baucus and Senator Blanche Linoln, as well as the health policy advisor to Senator Grassley. (In fact, Baucus's former chief of staff has his name on the door of that lobbying firm, being Castagnetti himself.) Max Baucus's staff has proven especially fruitful for the recruiters, as lobbying firms have hired seven of his former staffers. A graphic within that link explains:
If you'll remember back to the Vice Presidency of Dick Cheney, there was significant concern when he was crafting energy policy with a lot of hand-holding from those in the energy industry, and giving too little time to environmentalists. This seems just as insidious to me: as Exra Klein points out in his column with that graphic, it's normal human behavior to be more responsive to those you've worked with in the past. Fortunately Harry Reid is adjusting Baucus's compromise priorities; we'll have to see how it sticks, though, as Reid has proven disappointing on a number of occasions.
What a difference a resignation makes. Sarah Palin's decision to resign from governor should be characterized with the real verb: she is quitting. She is a quitter, and along with that goes the territory of the aphorism about what quitters win. It's no big deal for an office holder to announce they're not running for reelection; that happens, happens all the time, and it's happened a lot with Republicans in the Congress who don't like flying without the wind at their backs. (It's recently looked like an epidemic.) But I can't recall a politician just getting up and quitting mid-term without having a reason such a health condition, a need to concentrate on a growing scandal, or the distractions of working with a defense team in a lawsuit. All those are excellent reasons, because you just can't serve your constituency and give them what they elected you for. But none of that applies to Sarah Palin. She claims she can do more for Alaskans by leaving the office and working on some sort of national unity, which she couldn't achieve while being constrained with the day-to-day responsibilities of being governor. Bull. Pucky. Palin's statement smacks of some egotistical, grandiose, conceited view of herself as the necessary spark without which the lower 48 cannot survive. Ridiculous: it's like McCain's claim that the Presidential campaign had to be interrupted, that the debates could not occur on schedule, because HE had to go back to Washington and save the world. It's like Mayor Rudy Giuliani telling candidate Mark Greene that post-9/11 NYC could not survive without his stewardship and he wanted Greene to agree that Giuliani's term as mayor should be open-ended so he could save us all. (Where does the GOP come up with these little Caesars?) It was not for Palin to presume that we cannot get by without her. It was for Palin to understand that she had the honor of serving as the Governor of the State of Alaska, and seeing her state through thick and thin. We saw her in the thick part: with high oil revenues and oil-related taxes feeding the state's budget, Alaska was able to survive with a low income tax rate. Now, however, times are tough with the current economy; and what's she doing? Packing up as soon as she can and high-tailing it. You can read what you want into her statement. If you take it on faith, you're confronting an irresponsible, egotistical politician. If you don't, you have to come up with another explanation. Personally, I think she'd look better if her reasoning were rooted in some medical condition or scandal than to choose a path which, to me, makes her look like a flakey, unreliable hire.
Gordon Wood. You know this guy, I hope: his book The Creation of the American Republic is about as classic as an American history book gets. Link | | | 10:06 PM | Home You tell 'em, Sarah. I see how you're stepping down from being governor of the Upper One, and it is just a very gamey thing you've done, showin' those haters and all that you are really on Top of Your Game; when you start to think of their insecurity wise priorities and how we've all got to align and make this country even greater, why the founders, they knew what they were establishing, it's all right there in the Constitution and Federalist papers, which I have read by the way, Katie, and it's clear that for us to succeed why our priorities have to line up with God's, and I think you, Sarah, may be one of the few candidates who can most confidently understand that when God created the Founders he was creating something special which goes beyond all that liberal establishment in New York, don't get me wrong I love New York,
there's some good salt of the earth people there, kind of like there are some good salt of the earth people even in Iraq, or Iran, or Russia, but they are out there no matter what country you're talking about, and the nay-sayers out there just don't seem to want what's good for America, they'd rather complain complain complain and stay up watching late night so-called "comedians" when good Americans who have to get up and work the next day have already gone to bed so they can get up the next day and pay their too-high taxes so that a strong National Defense won't pal around with terrorists while Mr. Fancy Pants with the Golden Toungue has all these - - I don't know, keeps making all these promises well it's us mavericky people who are doing the Good Work to get the country back on the Right Track, and sometimes you just can't do that while being in an actual position of leadership.
you have to get out from behind the desk, sure, it's easy for them to say and sit behind their policies like they come from God, when we all really know that they don't, they just don't, and I believe in a country (as do my fellow Republicans) who get it and know that they don't, so it's high time, and you've done the right thing and can now go forth or fifth but maybe this time first. So on balance it's apparent that you've done a good thing, is all.
It must have made for an interesting field trip. One of the motifs running through Pierce's Idiot America is the rejection of Darwin, as manifested in Ben Stein comparing Charles Darwin to Adolf Hitler (yes), as well as the Creation Museum in Kentucky, with its animatronix dinosaurs wearing saddles. Well, some paleontologists were in town for a convention, and decided to pop by. "This bothers me as a scientist and as a Christian, because it's just as much a distortion and misrepresentation of Christianity as it is of science," said one.
New Jersey has our fireworks, and I want them back. Normally Macy's launches its fireworks display in the East River, which makes sense if the goal is to be NYC-centric. But this year they're in the Hudson, on the "other" side of Manhattan, and I'm not thrilled. Normally we just go up the stairs and watch from the roof, but now we'd have to get to Manhattan's West side. Not happening. There are a number of things I'd be happy to let NJ keep. The Boss. The Nets, too, if we could turn back the clock on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards development. But I would like the fireworks back. All in all, I guess it's like the Giants and the Jets moving to the Meadowlands: you shall be known by where you play, and I guess this means that Macy's really isn't so NYC-centric. They're just a business, and we know where a business's loyalties lay.
Governor Mark Sanford in lockdown mode? To prove no financial improprieties regarding state funds and his mistress, he had promised the press a look at his finances, but is now backing off that pledge. Even though he's still going to share the records with official investigators, this doesn't seem like a very good way to quash suspicion. Presumably he's learned it's not a good idea to both profess you're working on you marriage and refer to your mistress as your "soulmate," but a sudden about face on the promised openness makes it seems that suspicions arent as risky as the truth. I don't know who's giving him advice, but if "clam up" is the advice it's late.
Glenn Beck is too funny. Says we bought Alaska in the 1950's and hints it was for oil. Try 1867 and other reasons, Glenn. (This is how you become a popular pundit, by making stuff up that appeals to people's "Gut," as Pierce writes.
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