Note to GOP: Stay on Message

If the Republicans in Congress have any sense, they’ve taken this week’s blizzard in Washington, DC, as an opportunity to hole up in a conference room somewhere and really think through what they’re going to say at their "bipartisan" health care meeting with the President.

The President has already telegraphed that he intends to call them obstructionists with no ideas, and then argue that we’re way too far down the track with the current bills to even consider starting over. If they’re going to counter him, Republicans will have to be a lot more agile than they have been. They’ll have to know their message and stay on it, which will mean figuring out who is quick enough on their feet to be the talking head. It might be better if they used some bench strength and left the CEO-lookalikes in the cloakroom.

First issue: that they have no ideas. They have to slap that one down, hard, fast, and relentlessly. If the President says it, the President must be mocked—politely, but mocked. They were successful in their last meeting with this technique. “The President says we have no ideas, and then reads from our plan to explain why it's wrong? Didn’t his staff tell him he was reading from our plan? ” Keep it light, but stay on that talking point until the interviewer acknowledges it. Better yet, replace, ‘his staff’ with ‘Rahm Emmanuel’ or ‘David Axelrod’—not likeable figures, but not targeting the President. 'Rules for Radicals' works both ways.

Second: that the train left last year. The American people pulled the emergency cord on that train. They don’t like it; they like it less every day, and Republicans aren’t about to help the Democrats pass something the American people don’t want. Democrats didn’t fail to pass their bill because of Republicans—they had all the votes they needed. Democrats failed to pass their bill because even their own members didn’t like it. Why would anyone with sense sign on to that? That’s like the captain of the Titanic complaining Republicans won’t help him rearrange the deck chairs!

Third: Republican ideas. Pithy, clear, and specific, but it’s also time to be a policy wonk. The ideas have to be completely spelled out, in advance, in legislative language, or it’s a return to issue #1. They can’t be a hodgepodge of “ideas.” They have to be a complete package, one that addresses or refutes every aspect of the Democrats' argument. No weaseling; no deliberate ambiguity; no assuming the American people are idiots. Pound ‘em with substance. To wit:

Cost versus price. Democrats argue they want to keep costs down. A: No, Democrats are trying to control price. That’s not the same thing. Price controls lead to rationing. Everybody knows that. (Don’t forget the “everybody knows that” part.) The solution is really to control costs. Cut costs, and competition will drive down prices. So, the goal needs to be to drive down costs.

Cutting costs. A) Malpractice reform. (Stop calling it tort reform. I took civil law and still think it sounds like we’re talking pastry.) Get some doctors to work through the “But what about…” arguments, or just accept that tough cases make bad law. For that matter, go after the lawyers—argue we should cap their fees. Why does John Edwards deserve $28 million for winning a case? Any case? B) Let insurance companies compete across state lines. How can Democrats oppose that? Their bill requires everyone to buy insurance from those companies, so why wouldn’t they want everyone to get the best deal possible? No weaseling here—defend the insurance companies? Yes. “Folks, the President want you to think the insurance companies are evil. He’s been demonizing them and their profits. We recognize they may drive you nuts, but the reality is their profit margin is about 2%. 2%. If you make them completely non-profit, that isn’t going to save you any money. They aren't the problem, but they can be part of the solution.” C) Time for “the vision thing.” Here goes—

Vision. Health care ‘costs’ are climbing, with no end in sight. Democrats’ solution is to cap prices, and guarantee rationing. Even the President has acknowledged that we might have to cut back on end-of-life care. (“Maybe your grandmother should just take the pain pill.”) No, no, no. Republicans absolutely do not, will not, must not ever agree that the solution is for government to ration care, or for government to suggest that doctors ration care. Wrong approach. Dangerously slippery slope. Immoral. But…what about cost?

Here’s where it comes full circle, and Republicans haven’t yet answered the mail. Yes, end of life care is the most expensive, so pretending there isn’t a cost issue suggests this is all just cynical political positioning (or naiveté). And the answer is…Capitalism. With a capital C.

The solution to making end-of-life care more affordable is to make all care more affordable. To encourage research and development into new, cheaper drugs; new, cheaper treatments. To allow patients to pick insurance plans that only cover what they need. To figure out whether there are real things government can do to help out—say, by encouraging new medical research reactors to bring down the cost of radiopharmaceuticals. (You think radioisotopes grow on trees? Why do you think Iran claims it wants one?) Or, by allowing hospitals to depreciate new equipment faster. Or (gasp!) by making all hospitals tax-exempt. There's more, but this is getting long enough already.

On that last idea—cutting business taxes on hospitals—here’s the real trick. When Democrats argue, “But how will we pay for that?” do not accept the premise of the argument. This discussion is not about keeping tax dollars rolling into the Treasury. It’s about getting medical costs down. “How will we pay for that?” is a deliberate distraction.

Stay on message.

Democrats: The Party of "No"

No sooner had Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts, pundits began rerunning their schtick that the Republican party was, "The Party of No."

Actually, they have that backwards.

Brown's election means that the Democrats no longer have 60 seats in the Senate. Since 60 votes are required to cut off debate and call a vote, they must now get at least one Republican to agree with any legislation they intend to pass.

One Republican seems a pretty small requirement. When the Republicans controlled the Senate in a 50-50 tie, they needed 10 Democrats to invoke "cloture," and the people's business still got done.

The difference was that the Republicans listened to the Democrats' cries about the "rights of the minority." They had to, even if they thought those cries were disingenuous. But, Democrat Senators have gotten in the habit of saying, "No," every time the Republicans wanted that legislative body to perhaps consider something that some of them could support.

Democrats didn't need Republicans over the last year, so their answer was, "No. No, we won't consider your ideas; no we won't reach a compromise the American people might prefer; no, we won't even acknowledge that you have ideas." They ran with that last comment to every journalist they could find, pretending that the other side didn't even offer ideas. Sadly, too many journalists let them get away with it.

So, when your opposition won't listen to you, about all you have left is to say, "No. No, we don't agree with where you're going, and, no, we can't stop it, but, no you can't make us vote for it, either."

Republicans have had ideas all along, and have been offering them. Whether they're the best ideas ever, or utterly foolish, isn't the point. Democrats will now, at least, have to stop saying, "No."

Time to Reconsider the World View

Although I have some rather substantial policy disagreements with President Obama, I don't doubt that he's an intelligent person. Furthermore, I think he's spent a lot of time thinking about his world view--how he sees the world; how he sees others; what he thinks others think of him and, by extension, what they think of the United States.

Unfortunately, I don't think he's subjected that world view to a lot of criticism. My sense is that he is surrounded by people who either aren't his intellectual equal or simply don't think carefully about what their world view is. As a result, the President seems lost when others act in ways he doesn't expect.

I saw this pretty clearly when he tried to rethink his Afghanistan strategy--it took 100+ days to come up with a strategy that didn't seem particularly coherent, and that wasn't sold particularly well. It's almost as if his advisors can't communicate with a military that they think is still living in 1985. In fact, the military leadership today probably understands nuanced diplomacy better than the State Department.

But, we saw a similar incoherence this week, in the wake of the failed Northwest airline attack. The President stayed on vacation--that makes sense; you don't want to encourage the enemy by making this larger than it already is. But, his advisors seemed to stay on vacation, too. It took 3 days for Secretary Napolitano to admit security had failed--seriously? Now a group is claiming credit. Are they involved? We have the terrorist in custody--what does he say? If the group did it, we should've been blaming them first, to send a strategic message that we know. If the terrorist acted alone, we should already be ridiculing the Al Qaeda group's claim. But, we're not doing either. We're letting the other side set the communications agenda.

No one in the administration seems to have thought about what the world is really like, and the fact that the administration is expected to have answers for everything, all the time. That's not fair, and it isn't even reasonable, but it comes with the office. They aren't just a domestic administration; they have to deal with foreign policy, too. And that means more than platitudes about how everyone loves us now that George W. Bush is no longer President. It seems like there are a lot of people who hated us under Clinton, and it seems that they still exist.

Love him or hate him, Bush had a clear world view, that he intended to make "Islamo-fascism" simply unacceptable to civilized peoples everywhere. Pretty heady; maybe arrogant. But, at least he knew what he wanted the world to look like when we were done. Any military planner will tell you that's the first step in outlining a strategy--define the end state.

Time for the Obama administration to start thinking a little more about what they want the world to look like, or some very unpleasant "others" are going to offer their version, instead.

Climate Shame

So, thousands of emails between climate scientists are either hacked or released by a whistleblower. What to make of this?

First off, a caveat--I'm not going to offer my opinion on climate change, since by remaining anonymous, my opinion is no more or less authoritative than any other layman's. But, I will say this--I was taught the scientific method in school, and I read. A lot.

A couple weeks ago, Paul Krugman assured us on ABC's "This Week" that this was just the normal course of academic discussion--that we need to understand academics get fired up when they are arguing their case internally. I'm not clear why an economist's opinion is any more valid than mine on climate change, but I'll take that for what it's worth.

Which is not much.

Sorry, Mr. Krugman, I've read the emails. Not all of them; I have a day job. But to claim this is just the normal course of scientific research is to damn all science. Saying you will delete data before releasing it isn't hyperbole; it's misconduct. Refusing to honor Freedom of Information Act requests because you believe you're just being harassed? I can't speak for the UK's version, but in the United States, the whole point of FOIA is that the holder of the data doesn't get to decide whether you're worth the bother. They want it, you've got it, hand it over. Period. That's the law. Or, to put it a bit more indelicately, it's NOT YOUR DATA. Unless you personally funded your research out of your own pocket, IT ISN'T YOURS. It isn't yours to withold, and it isn't your position to pass judgement on anyone asking for it--whether they have a Nobel Prize or are a kook in the basement.

Since we're talking about scientists, not lawyers, I could perhaps excuse their lack of understanding. What I can't excuse is the very idea that a scientist would find it acceptable to pressure others to boycott opposition, suppress research, or hide behind anything in a quest to keep data hidden. The whole point of scientific research is that it has to be repeatable. Once is a fluke, and if data doesn't fit the theory, then the theory has to be reworked. Perhaps the underlying hypothesis is still correct, but your desire on the matter is irrelevant. If you want to prove the doubters wrong, you'll have to give them your data, publish their research, and then demolish it. Anything else simply encourages conspiracy theorists.

So, forgive me if I don't just relax, now that the Associated Press has read all the emails, sent them to "experts," and concluded that these scientists were "overly generous" in their interpretations, but that we shouldn't conclude they were wrong about climate change.

It doesn't work that way. They have demonstrated a lack of ethics. As a result, I can't believe any of their conclusions anymore--all the more so because I'm not a climate scientist, so I can't personally verify their data, methods, and conclusions. Neither can these "experts" in the course of a couple weeks--so they are simply siding with colleagues, whether they know them or not. Until all the research is meticulously, laboriously reviewed--decades worth, by experts from both sides, in open forums, which will cost billions--then we are simply taking it on faith that the underlying science must still be sound. After all, there's consensus on this, right?

Just like there was a scientific consensus, for about a thousand years, that the Sun went around the Earth. Until someone took another look at the data.

Conspiracy and Absurdity

First, let me allay any concern that I can't praise President Obama when he does something right. In that, I am wholeheartedly agreeing with Dana Perino that the President did an admirable job calling out Iran on their second, hidden uranium enrichment facility. Despite Iran's attempt to preempt the news cycle, and their attempt afterwards to change the subject with missile tests, the President, along with the president of France and prime minister of Britain, did a nice job.

Next, on to former President Bill Clinton, who has decided that the right wing conspiracy is back, and it's the cause of all President Obama's problems, just as it was the cause of all his. Really? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the whole point of the 9-12 Tea Party protests is that there is no leader of the opposition. It's just a popular movement--which is ironic, since President Obama's schtick is to be a populist. ("I'm the only one between you and the pitchforks." Remember that warning to the banks?)

Right wing conspiracy. Okay, just for fun, let's play along. In that case, I suppose Mr. Clinton would agree that there's a vast left wing conspiracy that was opposing former President Bush? No? Then, is it a vast left wing conspiracy that's preventing President Obama's 60 vote majority in the Senate and huge majority in the House from attaining his goals? Again, no? It's...the right wing? The Republicans? Who don't have the votes to stop anything?

Sorry, Bill. That's so silly, it's not even up to Jimmy Carter standards. In fact, it's so absurd, I have to wonder, why you would even say such a thing? Is it simply that you assume the press will dutifully report whatever you want? In that case, shame on both of you.

ACORN: Slavery Is Okay

Nothing quite like an incendiary headline to make the point--as long as it's accurate. I think it is.

The current blowup between ACORN, a couple undercover journalists, and Fox News (who simply reported a story interesting enough that it got immediate action in both houses of the US Congress) utterly misses the point.

The journalists and Fox point out that the hidden camera video shows ACORN is corrupt. ACORN insists the journalists are somehow entrapping them. There is a ridiculous charge that the journalists broke the law--if that's the case, then the law is so obviously unconstitutional, its supporters should be embarrassed. Neither is asking the most important question.

Why do the ACORN employees seem to think human trafficking--a.k.a. slavery--is okay?

Serious question. The undercover journalist/activist said he was going to bring underage El Salvadoran girls to the US to be prostitutes. And, by "underage," they didn't mean seventeen-and-a-half. They said 13 to 16. THIRTEEN. There's a word for that--SLAVERY. But, the ACORN employee (who was interestingly enough, black) didn't seem to have a problem with that.

I am truly stunned. I have long concluded that most racism exists on the left. I have always accepted that the left has different standards of acceptable conduct, and that maybe they could consider prostitution a victimless crime. Reasonable people can disagree about that.

But, to blithely accept the idea of sex slavery as something that doesn't even merit a comment? A remark? The slightest objection? What kind of person could do that?

That, frankly, is a lot more interesting to me than some corrupt organization. No one seems horrified. Why not?

Maybe that explains why human trafficking still exists. It's much more popular to talk about a slavery that ended 150 years ago than it is to talk about the slavery that's still going on. Easier, too--because there are things, besides talk, that can be done to end something that's still occurring.

I think they call that an inconvenient truth.

Dissent is Racist? You can't be serious.

I normally prefer the long form for blogs, but this one is just too infuriating not to just vent.

So, former President Jimmy Carter says that opposition to President Barack Obama is racist? Are you kidding me? Let's see where that logic goes: If I oppose President Obama's ideas, I'm racist. If I oppose Hillary Clinton's ideas, I suppose I must be sexist. And if I oppose John Edwards, I'm...against big hair? Against philandering? Against having affairs with your wife when she's in remission from cancer?

Are you kidding me?

I recall then-Senator Clinton arguing that, "We have the right to debate, and to disagree with any administration!!!!!!!" I add the screamers because--well, because she was yelling. But, she had a point, it works both ways, and I've since adopted her comment as this blog's subtitle. So, I will politely respond...

President Carter, if you have racist guilt about your Southern upbringing, I'm sorry. But, please don't project that guilt on me. I lost several bets in 2008 because I was certain Condi Rice would be the Republican VP candidate. If that's not enough for you, let me make it crystal clear:

Rice/Cheney 2012.

Is that enough?