April 28, 2009

4/28: Sue And The Swine Flu

We certainly wouldn't have predicted that the swine flu outbreak would end up putting Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) on the defensive. But liberal bloggers are slamming the moderate GOPer for leading the effort to remove funding for pandemic preparedness from the economic stimulus bill. In the eyes of the netroots, the sudden relevance of this provision (and Collins's role in killing it) illustrates "how utterly absurd and non-substantive her stimulus posturing was." Meanwhile, conservative bloggers are pointing out that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also criticized the pandemic preparedness funding.

The good news for Collins? It appears that a different moderate senator will be dominating the blogosphere's attention for the next few days...

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (McCarter, Singer, Sudbay, Benen, Partridge) are criticizing GOP senators for threatening to filibuster Pres. Obama's nominee for HHS Sec, KS Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, at a time when the swine flu outbreak has been declared a "public health emergency."
• Liberal bloggers (Dayen, Beeton) are urging their readers to call their members of Congress and tell them to open an impeachment inquiry into Jay Bybee, the former DoJ attorney who wrote one of the controversial interrogation memos and who now serves on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, another lefty blogger is criticizing Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for issuing a statement pointing to Bybee's "good professional reputation."
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Reynolds, Geraghty, Cianfrocca) are criticizing the Obama admin. after a DoD photo op involving low-flying planes frightened NYC residents. Although WH Military Office dir. Louis Caldera has apologized for the incident, at least one conservative blogger is urging Obama to fire Caldera.
• Conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Mirengoff, Lopez, hogan) are pleased that conservative Harvard law prof Mary Ann Glendon is refusing to accept the Laetare Medal at Notre Dame's commencement in order to protest the university's decision to give Obama an honorary degree.

COLLINS: The Strange Logic Of Moderates

Liberal bloggers are slamming Collins for leading the effort to remove funding for pandemic preparedness from the stimulus bill:

• Firedoglake's Teddy Partridge: "Susan Collins bragged about stripping pandemic flu preparation money from the stimulus bill in February. Doesn't seem so moderate now, does it?"
• MyDD's Josh Orton: "Remember when self-anointed Senate 'moderates' made a big show of wringing their hands about the size of Obama's stimulus package? The political media loved it, partially because such alligator-concern offers the requisite 'he-said she-said' narrative found in most reporting. But it's mostly posturing -- protest about the size of Obama's stimulus package was arbitrary -- Collins would have demanded a reduction no matter the size of the proposal. How else could she inject themselves into the debate as a 'serious moderate?' So what did the moderates slash? Flu preparedness. Of course. Of course."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Hmm. What's the flu pandemic got to do with the economy? For starters, Reuters reports it's already having an effect: 'Oil prices fell more than 4 percent to below $50 a barrel as investors feared a new blow to an already fragile global economy if trade flows are curbed and manufacturing is hit. [...]' What was that question Collins asked about the flu pandemic again? Oh yeah, 'What does that have to do with an economic stimulus package?'"
• The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman: "It seems as if every time Republicans oppose some bit of 'wasteful big-government spending' the Man Upstairs makes them look stupid. [...LA Gov.] Bobby Jindal sneers at spending money on monitoring volcanoes, and a month later Mt. Redoubt blows. Susan Collins, cheered on by [ex-Bush strategist] Karl Rove (and, to be fair, abetted by Chuck Schumer) insists on taking money for pandemic-flu preparedness out of the stimulus package, and two months later we have swine flu on our hands. Everyone knows that the best way to ensure rain is to leave your umbrella home."

Obsidian Wings' publius: "It's nice to see Senator Collins scrambling to note her support for pandemic flu funding. And I'm sure she's telling the truth about that. The point of the Collins snark, though, wasn't so much to accuse her of endangering public health. It was to illustrate how utterly absurd and non-substantive her stimulus posturing was. It's one thing for people to oppose the idea of fiscal stimulus in general. [...] It's quite another, though, to agree to spend $838 billion, but pull back from spending another valuable $80 billion simply to preen about cutting 'waste.' There was no coherent principle here at all -- indeed, the provisions cut were actually some of the most stimulative in the entire package."

Meanwhile, Jane Hamsher and Markos Moulitsas are mocking Collins after a Wall Street Journal article detailing her opposition to the pandemic preparedness provision disappeared from her website.

SCHUMER: Two Can Play That Game

Conservative bloggers are pushing back against the criticism of Collins by pointing out that Schumer also criticized the stimulus bill provision for pandemic preparedness, calling it "porky":

• Michelle Malkin: "Schumer opposed flu pandemic funding in stimulus, too, you morons."
• RedState's Moe Lane: "Back in the day, Senator Schumer bragged about removing the [pandemic preparedness] funding, in fact. He thought that it was 'bipartisan.' [...] Of course, the people that will scream loudly about [the removal of this provision] will say not a word about Schumer if they can possibly help it. That's because they don't actually care about swine flu. Well, that's not quite true: after all, the more people that die, the more they'll feel justified and righteous about screaming about the Republican party. Sure, it's a tragedy, but the really important thing for them is to elect more Democrats."

Hot Air's Allahpundit: "I can't figure out which prefab lefty narrative Collins's opposition to putting flu prep in the stimulus is supposed to vindicate. Is it that conservatives don't take biological threats seriously? The meta-narrative about us for the past eight years was, I thought, that we take threats too seriously and spend our days in the icy grip of hysterical fear (except over global warming, natch). Is it that Collins symbolizes the GOP's mindless 'party of no' opposition to spending? Can't be -- she voted for the stimulus, of course, and in any case, Chuck Schumer shed no tears about the flu money being stripped out."

Meanwhile, NRO's David Freddoso argues that Collins was right to strip funding for pandemic-flu preparedness from the stimulus bill: "The argument made by Sen. Susan Collins (R, Maine) is that some activities, even worthy ones, do not belong in a stimulus package because they are not stimulative. [The Nation's John] Nichols argues that flu spending is stimulative because a flu can disrupt economic activity, but this sort of loose reasoning justifies any kind of government spending whatsoever as 'stimulative' and could further justify any number of spurious complaints against lawmakers. (Where are the funds, for example, for preventing asteroid collisions, just one of which could bring an end to all economic activity?)"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Time To Start Worrying?

The Atlantic's Megan McCardle offers some thoughts on the swine flu outbreak (h/t Andrew Sullivan):

"How worried should we be about the Swine Flu? The mortality in Mexico is shockingly high: 81 cases out of 1300, or about 6%. The great Spanish Flu pandemic, on the other hand, had a mortality of about 2.5%. Normal rates for flu are less than a tenth of 1%, with most of those deaths occurring in people who are already weak: children, the elderly, the immunocompromised. [...]

The bright side is that mortality here seems to be a lot lower -- nonexistant so far. People living in poorer countries tend to have weaker immune systems for the obvious reasons. And the strain that's arrived here may just not be as deadly as the one still in Mexico. Still, this seems more worrying than SARS was, and SARS was pretty worrying. And if it gets much bigger, it will deal a heavy blow to an already struggling world economy, because this will have deep impacts on global trade flows."

LEST WE FORGET: How To Motivate Your Students

From Overheard in New York:

Professor: Not only will I take off points, but I will go and TP your house.
Student: It's a really long drive...
Professor: It's worth it to me.

Posted by Ian Faerstein at April 28, 2009 12:31 PM