Thursday round-up on health care
Sep 10, 2009 Blogging's Best, Governmental Reach, Health Care, Obama Administration
There are some great pieces that have come out this morning regarding the health care debate, and particularly as President Obama’s speech last night affects it.
We start with Fred Barnes, where he was looking for the answers to five basic questions to see if the president had gotten back on track in the debate. Among them:
4) Did he demonize the health care providers he’s actually made deals with? Well, not all of them, but the health insurers took their usual beating.
5) Did he repeat the false claims he’s made repeatedly in earlier speeches? Yes indeed. He brought up nearly all of them, including the ones on no abortion coverage, no loss of one’s current health insurance, and the “savings” that would come from more preventive care.
Terry Madonna and Michael Young write, today, that not only is the conservative right gaining some momentum, but the left is becoming increasingly impatient with him.
The subtext of these and dozens of similar stories is crystal clear-Obama is in early trouble and the fate of his presidency may be at stake. The presidency that many thought might resemble FDR’s is looking more and more like Jimmy Carter’s. The aspirations of last November are becoming the trepidations of this September.
Madonna and young state that it’s not even out of the question that, among challenges from the conservative right, Obama could even be in store for a challenge from the liberal left come 2012.
The San Diego Union-Tribune, calling the speech a “missed opportunity,” sums up the problem with the president’s claims nicely:
We need to have a full and open debate about these concerns. But based on his speech last night, Obama would have us believe that he has a blueprint for a health care system that miraculously would be both much cheaper and much bigger — and the only thing that those who doubt him can offer is “misinformation.”
Sorry, Mr. President. That’s just not true.
In the end, keep in mind that even Congress “cackled” at the comment Obama made that “there remain some significant details to be ironed out.”
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Tags: Health Care, Obama
Recommended political blog
Sep 9, 2009 Blogging's Best, Governmental Reach
David Carlson has taken his political commentary to a new blog. Please make sure to visit him over at The Liberty Blogger. Of particular interest to me, see his post on school vouchers.
Tags: David Carlson, education, School Vouchers
Ignoring History
Feb 13, 2009 Blogging's Best
Dan McLaughlin points out a story about Boston College and crucifixes in the classroom, and a particularly ridiculous quote from one of its students:
But sophomore Alex LoVerde, 20, believes a crucifix “pushes the Catholic religion” and does not belong in a classroom. “I think the Jesuit tradition is more of openness and tolerance,” LoVerde said. “I think that an overt display of crucifixes is not what the Jesuits would have had in mind.”
Surely the Jesuit tradition is more about Jesus, for whom it is named, than about openness and tolerance. And surely the message of the Jesuit tradition is about openness and tolerance for Christ’s message above all other things. The harm done here is the person, like this sophomore, who are not open to that message. Surely there are other schools, with far less tradition, where a person like LoVerde would not even have to consider this idea. There are plenty of godless state schools to choose from, for instance. Besides, haven’t Jesuit schools historically (traditionally) had crucifixes in their classrooms?
Tags: Boston College, crucifix, Jesuit
“Savior-based economy”
Feb 9, 2009 Blogging's Best, Governmental Reach, Obama Administration
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford thinks that we are better off taking the band-aid off and letting our economy heal rather than lessening the pain (and prolonging it).
We’re moving precipitously close to what I would call a savior-based economy,” Sanford also said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.
The South Carolina Republican said such an economy is “what you see in Russia or Venezuela or Zimbabwe or places like that where it matters not how good your product is to the consumer but what your political connection is to those in power.”
It’s scary to think, but this is exactly the description that fits right now. For instance, the original stimulus package had some unreal amount of money for the D.C. sewer system. Are they the only ones with a sewer problem? I doubt it. But it’s close enough to home for a lot of the people spending our money, and so it goes.
This is precisely the problem with universal health care. I know it sounds nice and fuzzy in a perfect world, but wait until providers that are less-qualified start getting the good gigs because of political connections to high-ranking politicians.
Tags: mark sanford, savior-based economy, Stimulus
Hope for the pro-life movement
Jan 28, 2009 Blogging's Best, Five Non-Negotiable Issues, Obama Administration
The Trog gives us five solid reasons to have hope. I’m particularly encouraged by the varying #3s I’ve read about or heard about recently. It seems that we are getting better leadership from within the Church and even other Christian denominations. Science is also acting as an agent for our cause, and rarely do we hear a play on science vs. religion in the abortion debate anymore. Generally the pro-choice movement sinks to the “don’t tell me what to do with my body” routine because science has gone so far in proving life begins at conception.
In any case, print out The Trog’s list and pin it up. There are bad days in our movement, and we’ve had several of them in the last 3-4 months (including the election, inauguration, and some of Obama’s first actions in office), but we have a lot to be encouraged about, including great grass-roots efforts online and in the streets. And, of course, our true hope is God, Himself.
Tags: Five Non-Negotiables, hope, pro-life, The Troglodyte
Interesting moral question from The Trog
Jan 27, 2009 Blogging's Best
The Trog asks a very interesting moral question about the use of technology as it affects a person’s reputation (of sorts).
In reading last week the story of how a Google bomb of George W. Bush has now been predictably and avoidably redirected to Barack Obama on the White House web site, I was faced with the puzzle of whether Google bombing the president, in general, is morally licit. Typical Google bombings ought to strike any one as a cross between mildly clever and slightly amusing.
As someone once said, “I guess it depends on what your definition of the word ‘is’ is.”
If you don’t already, make sure to frequent The Troglodyte’s blog. You never know what you might find over there.
Tags: Google Bomb, Morality, Obama, The Troglodyte
