September 01, 2009

9/1: The End's Not Near, It's Here

Has the end arrived for Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus's (D-MT) "Gang of Six"? Liberal bloggers think (and hope) so. Tensions between the Obama admin. and two of the GOP senators in the group (WY Sen. Mike Enzi and IA Sen. Chuck Grassley) appear to be growing. First of all, WH Press Sec. Robert Gibbs asserted that Enzi had decided to "walk away" from the negotiating table following the latter's attack on the Dem health care proposals. Next, Ezra Klein reported that Grassley had bragged about his efforts to help defeat "Obama-care" in a fundraising letter. Lefty bloggers see Grassley's and Enzi's conduct as further evidence that Baucus was never going to win their support for health care reform.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Singiser, Moulitsas, Marshall, Sudbay, desmoinesdem) are criticizing VA GOV candidate Bob McDonnell (R) after The Washington Post reported that McDonnell criticized working women, feminists, and gays in his master's thesis. Conservative blogger Jim Geraghty complains that the Post is trying to damage McDonnell's campaign in order to justify its endorsement of Dem candidate Creigh Deeds.
• RedState editor Erick Erickson argues that TX Gov. Rick Perry (R) -- "if he is truly a conservative's conservative" -- should appoint RR Commis. chair Michael Williams (R) to the Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison (R).
• Conservative bloggers (Kagan, Hewitt, Lowry, Wehner, Kristol) are criticizing righty pundit George Will for writing an op-ed arguing that the U.S. should withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan. On the other hand, many liberal bloggers (Aravosis, Dayen, Orton) share Will's doubts about Obama's Afghanistan policy.

ENZI: Giving Up His Seat At The Table?

Lefty bloggers were pleased that Gibbs declared that Enzi had decided to "walk away" from the negotiating table following the latter's attack on the Dem health care proposals in the weekly GOP address:

• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "[Enzi's] role in the process won't be missed. The idea of including Enzi in the talks in the first place never made any sense. [...] If that quest is over, and I sincerely hope it is, it's a very positive development. The less Enzi is involved in the process, the better the chances of a quality bill becoming law."
• Atrios: "I've never quite figured out the point of getting Mike Enzi to support a shitty bill. If instead they'd put their weight behind a good bill about which, whatever the precise details, could be summed up as 'You want health care? We'll give you all the fucking health care you want.' Support something which could be popular with, you know, people, instead of insurance company executives and really horrible Republican senators. So hopefully this farce is over..."

The Washington Post's Klein thinks the "gang of six" negotiations are effectively over: "Everyone I've spoken to in the Senate believes, strongly, that this process is about to break down, and the Democrats are going to move forward on a more partisan basis. Presumably, the Republicans in the Gang of Six process have heard the same and have no interest in looking like fools when that happens. And so they're beginning to use their positions in the negotiations not to further the cause of a final bill, but to enhance their stature as spokesmen for the opposition. Grassley, as noted earlier, is sending out fundraising e-mails attacking 'Obama-care.' Enzi is lacerating Democratic ideas under the banner of his party. As far as I can tell, the Gang of Six process is already dead. What's happening now is that the participants seem to be raiding its corpse."

GRASSLEY: All Right, Chuck, This Time You've Gone Too Far!

Liberal bloggers are angry that Grassley bragged about helping to defeat "Obama-care" in a recent fundraising letter. They see this letter as further evidence that Grassley isn't negotiating in good faith:

• Klein: "The question of whether Grassley wants to compromise on health care is increasingly being overtaken by the reality that Grassley is not leaving himself political room to compromise on health care. He is creating a campaign premised on his role in stopping Obama's health-care reform effort. It is not clear how he could pivot to save it, even if he wanted to do so. And given the unique role Grassley occupies as the senior partner in Max Baucus's bipartisan process, the bare-knuckled partisanship of Grassley's letter does not suggest that his political team is readying itself to sell a compromise."
• TAPPED's Tim Fernholz: "It it wasn't already, it should be clear at this point that Grassley isn't negotiating in good faith and is actually spreading bad information about the bill."

Daily Kos' mcjoan didn't buy Grassley's subsequent claim that his fundraising letter referred to his opposition to a public option, not health reform as a whole: "When questioned about this rather extreme position Grassley has taken on a bill that he is actually supposed to be finding some compromise on, a staffer told Greg Sargent that it's not really all of 'Obamacare' that Grassley objects to, just the public option as it exists in all of the bills so far produced. [...] Given that Grassley keeps reiterating that he won't even vote for the Baucus debacle bill if it doesn't get more than three or four Republican supporters, and there's no way three or four Republicans are going to support any healthcare reform bill (note that Grassley is not actually suggesting that he'll be one of them), I think we can be pretty certain that letter encompasses more than just the public option."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why Is There So Much Horse-Race Coverage?

Ezra Klein:

"Paul Krugman wonders why the media is dominated by horse-race reporting rather than substantive inquiries into policy. His hypotheses, however, all assume agency on the part of the reporter: Maybe horse races are easier to research, he wonders, or simpler to write about. But I'd suggest that the problem lies more with the reader. The media likes having an audience. And the audience likes horse-race coverage. [...]

This is the market getting more efficient. This is the market learning how to deliver more of what people want (Sarah Palin) and less of what they don't want (the difficulties of adjusting Medicare payment rates). If policy stories begin swamping servers, people will hire more policy reporters. But there's not much evidence of that happening. That's not to say there's no room for substantive policy coverage. But the more eyeballs matter, the less substantive coverage there'll be, and I don't think it'll be the fault of reporters. A lot of the policy coverage that happens right now exists not because the audience wants it, but because the media decides they need it. As the market becomes competitive, that type of reportorial paternalism will become less and less viable."

LEST WE FORGET: Kids Say The Darndest Things

From Overhead in New York:

Little girl with brand new doll: Mommy, what should I name her? I think I'll name her "Pussy"!
Mother: Uh!
Little girl: Pussy! Like "pussycat"!
Mother: Okay... maybe we should think of a different name!
Hipster sitting next to them: I'm going to have to send a few texts about this.

Posted by Ian Faerstein at September 1, 2009 12:31 PM