Coolest President Ever

Kanye West is a jackass and to hear Obama say it, priceless. Honestly, for as much as I like Obama when he's giving speeches and answering questions, I like him all the more when he's got his guard down and is just chatting. Because he's not just some scripted machine who's brilliant when he stays on-message; he's a real dude who really thinks about what he's saying.

And that's the thing: Whenever I seem him described as some fascist monster by conservatives, I honestly have no clue what person they think they're describing, as he always comes across like a genuinely nice guy with good intentions. And they still crack jokes about how he stutters and fumbles every time he doesn't have a telepromter, all evidence to the contrary. And what the hell are they talking about? Compared to Bush, Obama's fricking Cicero from the moment he wakes up in the morning. Bush can't even order coffee without committing major grammatical errors and sounded like a moron even with the teleprompters.

And even the far-left progressives have him wrong. They think he's some schemer who needs to be boxed into a liberal position, but I see none of that. The few times I've seen him in off-mode, he comes across like a real person who's trying to make the best of a bad situation, and I genuinely believe that's the case. And why wouldn't he be? The schemers have it wrong. Obama isn't in need of campaign cash and he's bright enough to know that all he's got is his legacy. He's going to give us the best policies he can, not because he's pressured to, but because he takes pride in what he does and wants to be remembered as a great man. And the only way to do that is to give us the best policies he can.

And that's the right way to be. There aren't a lot of people in this world that I think of as being honest, open, real people, and Obama is most definitely one of them. And seeing as how I've always thought Kanye West was a punkass bitch phony, I definitely got a big kick out of hearing Obama express a similar sentiment.

Presidential Profanity

Oh, and as far as it not being "presidential" for him to use the word "jackass," come fucking on, that's not even a dirty word. There was a fricking TV show and two movies with that word as the title, for christ's sake. And we KNOW that Nixon, LBJ and many other presidents said much worse things. And that's not to mention Bush's "major league asshole" or Cheney's "Go fuck yourself," which they used because they were personally upset that the target of their insult wasn't an adoring sycophant.

Had he referred to Kanye has a "punkass bitch," there might be some issues there (though I think those words are now TV-friendly), and I certainly don't want to hear Obama calling Kanye a jackass in a presidential address (no matter how satisfying that would be to me). But in a casual conversation? That just shows how fucking awesome our president is.

Frankly, I would have been a tad disappointed had he not used such language. For example, had he simply referred to Kanye as a "jerk," I would have been mildly let down. Jackass was exactly the right call and I'm proud to have a president who knows his insults.

The Bush Doctrine: Weakness Through Strength

Over at American Nihilist, I wrote a great post explaining what really happened regarding the commando strike of Al Qaeda operative Saleh Ali Nabhan. I suggest you read it. But at Carpetbagger's I saw a comment regarding this and other anti-terror incidents, in which Carpetbagger was being taken to task for not writing a post complaining about this "continuation of Bush foreign policy under Obama."

And this is just insane. Bush didn't invent anti-terror operations, nor was he the originator of our pro-active international strength. After all, Clinton sent missiles after Osama a few times, regularly shot missiles at Iraq, and even bombed the hell out of a certain balkanized portion of Europe. In fact, I seriously doubt there's a president in modern history who hadn't taken a strong hand in other countries.

Even the great JFK took us deeper into "Indochina" for a craptacular quagmire that hurt us for decades, and that's not to mention all the screwing around we did by installing America-friendly dictators who eventually dragged our name through the mud with brutality. No, by historical standards, a few commando raids and drone assassinations are pansy-assed child's play.

The Bitch Doctrine

And of course, the real Bush legacy wasn't strong military actions against individual bad guys. That's to be expected, and as long as we have the permission of the country these guys happen to be in, there's not a problem. And that's the real issue: The Bush Doctrine involved us screwing around with other countries, and that's the problem. It was about acting like a big bully and bluffing everyone into obeying us.

But of course, that was the biggest bluff of them all, as we only bullied a small handful of countries while bribing everyone else. The empty posturing was just done for domestic purposes, while the rest of the world laughed at us. Republicans could pretend to be STRONG for American audiences, but we were never able to export the rhetoric.

And because we totally telegraphed our intentions to everyone, we were stuck in the horrible position of having to cajole everyone else to join in. And so the so-called Coalition of the Willing was a horrid joke, as we gave up the store in exchange for a minimal force and a name to add to the list. As far as negotiations go, we got reamed. The neo-cons believed that everyone else would want to join in for the plunder, and ended up paying premium for every little bit we could get. It was a disaster.

And that was what the Bush Doctrine was all about. Pretending to act like a bully while getting horrible results. We invade Afghanistan to get Al Qaeda from the Taliban, then act like Pakistan's bitch while they protect the very people we were trying to get. We invade Iraq based upon intel provided by Iran, and topple our enemy's arch-enemy. And so we ended up doing everything backwards. By acting like bullying badasses, we lost power.

Why Neo-Cons Suck

The Neo-Conservative theory of power was completely repudiated, not because they underestimated the needs of fighting Iraq, but because the theory was moronic and antiquated. That's the ultimate irony of WWI and WWII: The modern global culture that allows world wars completely negates military power. National boundaries are now little more than out-dated fantasies, which only apply to those without enough power to overcome them. A Mexican corporation has a much better chance of making money here than a Mexican citizen does.

And getting back to the point: It's obvious that while Obama is engaging in some of the same activities Bush did, he's doing the right ones. There's nothing wrong with targeting individual bad guys and if a drone plane can kill a murderer who can't easily be stopped otherwise, great. I support that. And in no case are we limited to only killing terrorists if they happen to be in our country. That's stupid.

Overall, as long as we're not adopting phony bully postures which end up weakening us, then we're not following the Bush plan. Because that was the main problem with the so-called Bush Doctrine. If it worked, I would have supported it, as I'm a pragmatist who believes that you go with what works. But it didn't work. It was dumb. It lost us power, so I was against it. And I'm confident that Obama feels the same way.

The Bullying Underdogs

As a follow-up to my last post, I'd just like to mention that I think one of the things driving conservative insanity is the cognitive dissonance between their fantasy of being the underdog and their desire for being in the majority. So, while they like to see themselves as a growing movement that's slowly educating America about what Obama is up to, they also like to imagine they're already in the majority. And you can pick up on both of these narrative threads within the same post, even if they're entirely contradictory.

And they're absolutely thrilled to see 70,000 like-minded people while pretending it's two million people, and will insist that this is a mass uprising which bodes ill for Obama and his evil minions. Yet, McCain won over 58 million votes last year, which wasn't enough to defeat Obama. And Kerry won over 59 million votes in 2004, yet they considered him to be a major loser who flamed out in defeat.

So, while two million people is a large protest, it's fairly meaningless in terms of a political movement which requires more than thirty times more people; particularly if all two million were part of the 58 million which suffered a major defeat. For as much as they're imagining this to be some massive uprising against Obama, this is nothing more but a continuation of an election that is long over.

And so they're powerful underdogs who insist that some game-changing event has happened in D.C., even though they're just a small fraction of a much larger group which still isn't big enough to win. And all the same, no matter which fragment of their grand narrative you're listening to, and whether they're the rebels fighting the emperor or the victors reaping the spoils, one thing is clear: It's all an epic struggle with them as the good guys and us as the bad guys. Rest assured, they will prevail; even if they can't figure out the plot.

Best Wingnut Advice: Get Involved Politically

One encouraging development stemming from the so-called 9/12 Tea Party yesterday is a sense of empowerment that it's giving conservatives. I read a whole lot of conservative comments about the event and one general theme among them is that the people at these protests were happy to be there and happy to see each other. And more importantly, even the people who weren't there feel empowered and as if they're part of something big. And that's a nice shift after all the angry shouting they were known for throughout August.

I think this comment from Tom the Redhunter at American Power gives a good sign of where I'm hoping things go:

Fantastic post and great photos, Donanld. Just as in WDC it seems like all of you had a great time.
[....]
The question is where does this energy go from here? If all people do is go home and holler at their TVs then it will have made little difference. So please get involved politically. Find a candidate or cause and get involved. This is the only way you can effect change.

And good for them, I hope they do it. Because my biggest fear in all this is that Limbaugh, Beck and the others don't want these people to find a good outlet for their concerns. They want these people to feel trapped and powerless, as that puts them in the pocket of the demagogues. But having an outlet to their frustrations is the exact sort of thing they need.

And the last thing we need is for them to take all their pent-up energy and go back to hollering at their televisions, or their Congressmen, or worse. Desperate people do desperate things. We need these people to feel enfranchised again, and getting involved politically is the exact way to go.

"We Can't Stop Them"

Here's an example I quoted from James Dobson back in May:

"I want to tell you up front that we're not going to ask you to do anything, to make a phone call or to write a letter or anything. There is nothing you can do at this time about what is taking place because there is simply no limit to what the left can do at this time. Anything they want, they get and so we can't stop them."

Hear that? There's nothing you can do, as there is no limit to what the left can do, and we can't stop them. It was all about disenfranchising conservatives. About making them feel powerless and as if the system just couldn't work for them. And that worried me greatly. Rather than seeing last November as a short-term defeat, they were interpreting current events as some sort of apocalyptic doom, requiring drastic measures, which the normal letter writing simply couldn't handle.

But now, these people are sounding a lot more rational. It's all about trying to convert this energy into victory next year, and channeling their energy into productive activities. And I support that completely. Please, conservatives, donate money to your favorite politicians. Work the phonebanks. Knock on them doors. Anything, just as long as it's part of democracy, and none of this Coup by Election nonsense Glenn Beck was peddling recently.

The idea that we're "stealing" America "in the guise of an election" is entirely repulsive to democracy. Sorry Glenn, but if we win the election, it's not theft. That's the system of government you purport to defend.

Letting Democracy Work

Democracy doesn't mean you always win. Hell, it doesn't even guarantee good government. It merely guarantees that you get some influence in how your life is governed and if you don't win this time, you should stay on board, because you'll get another shot at the brass ring soon enough.

If they feel encouraged by 70,000 or even the supposed two million people they claim showed up yesterday in D.C., they need to remember that there were over 58 million folks who voted with them last year. They're not alone. They just lost an election and there will be other elections. And the best answer to Obama's healthcare plan isn't to scare everyone into believing they're going to be killed at the hands of Obama's "death panels," but merely to let democracy do what democracy does. And if the plan is as bad as conservatives believe, they should have no problem kicking our butts next year and repealing the law. That's how our system works and that's what these people need to keep their eyes on.

It's healthy for people to disagree with us. It's not healthy for them to lose hope in the process. So it's in all of our interests that conservatives learn to focus this energy into constructive measures. Go ahead, beat us at the polls. Anything's better than the vague threats of violence and revolt we've been getting. It's better for my congressman to lose an election than for him to get chased out of a parking lot. Voting is democracy; anger isn't.

Obamacare Ruins Market-Based Rationing

Per the AP:

The need for more primary care doctors comes as the country's shortage of all doctors is expected to worsen, according to a study by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which found the rate of first-year enrollees in U.S. medical schools has declined steadily since 1980.

If current patterns persist, the study shows the country will have about 159,000 fewer doctors than it needs by 2025.

But...this can't be. Don't they realize that the US has the greatest medical system in the world and that doctors from other countries flock here because they can charge market rates for their services? But to hear this, our markets aren't solving this problem, so we're paying far more than other countries yet still face healthcare shortages. As it is, we're already short doctors and that, were all Americans able to pay for their own medical care, we'd have an even worse medical problem. Why, it's almost as if we're (GULP!) rationing care! (Cue scary music.)

Curiously, the article acts as if this is going to be a major "hurdle" for Obama's healthcare plans, without mentioning that part of his plan is directly designed to fix this problem. It quotes Obama saying that we need more primary care physicians and later suggests that one solution would be to increase pay for physicians, yet somehow fails to mention that this is part of the plan.

So, the tone of the article is that there is a flaw with Obama's plan, even though this is a problem we already have, which Obama's plan is designed to fix. I'm really not surprised to see the AP logo on this one.

What's Wrong With Massachusetts

The article also mentions that Massachusetts has a similar problem, as if to suggest that it is inherently flawed to attempt to give everyone healthcare, as money-based rationing is required. As they say:

As Massachusetts' experience shows, extending health care to 50 million uninsured Americans will only further stress the system and could force many of those newly insured back into costly emergency rooms for routine care if they can't find a primary care doctor, health care observers said.

Massachusetts, home of the nation's most ambitious health care law, has seen the need for primary care doctors shoot up with the addition of 428,000 people to the ranks of the insured under a 2006 law that mandates health care for nearly all residents.

Wow, sounds horrible, right? A further stressed system which (yikes) might force people to have the same emergency care they get now (without the big bill). Just wait until you see the numbers, which were much further down in the article:

In a 2008 survey of physicians, the Massachusetts Medical Society found the average wait time to see an adult primary care doctor was 50 days, with some doctors reporting wait times for new patients of up to 100 days. That's compared to 2005, before the law was signed, when the average wait was 47 days and the longest was 87 days.

The society also found a drop in the number of primary care doctors accepting new patients. In 2008, 42 percent had closed their practice to new patients compared with 33 percent in 2004, before the law was signed.

Soooo, the average wait time went up three days, from a horrible 47 day wait to a slightly worse 50 day wait, and we're supposed to be imagining that universal healthcare totally stressed out their system? And doctors not accepting new patients went up by nine points. And sure, that's not good, but...they were also giving lots more people healthcare. And we're now to imagine that this is so bad that we should think twice before doing it.

And mind you, as the article already said, our healthcare system is already short doctors, while our population is naturally growing. So we should already expect to see these numbers get worse after four years. And hey, maybe Massachusetts really does have a big mess on their hands from all this healthcare they're giving to everyone, but the article never established that.

And so in the end, we're left with an article which tries to scare us away from "Obamacare," with very little data backing up those claims, and which doesn't mention that Obama's plan is designed to fix a problem we already have. After all, we're not talking about bringing fifty million new citizens into the country to require healthcare, but merely to provide care for the folks we already have. So giving them insurance only calls attention to a problem we already have; it doesn't make the problem worse. Hopefully, Obama's plan will become law and the problem will start to get a little better. And after that, it's Death Panels for everyone!!!

9/11 as Tragedy: Terrorist Victory

Apparently, 9/11 was NOT a tragedy, and if you suggest that it was, the terrorists win. According to conservatives (supported by Mr. Semantics himself, Dr. Donald Douglas), the attack on 9/11 was a terrorist attack and "terrorist attacks are terrorist attacks," which presumably means we can't use any other word to describe them. So while Dictionary.com tells me that "tragedy" can refer to:

6. a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; calamity; disaster: the tragedy of war.
[....]
3. A disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life: an expedition that ended in tragedy, with all hands lost at sea.
[....]
Note: In common usage, disasters of many kinds are called tragedies.

...none of this applies to 9/11, because it was a terrorist attack. And if you dare question the logic of that, then you're insulting the victims of 9/11, as well as the people who died in a war unrelated to 9/11. And the completely obvious reason for that is, of course, 9/11.

Blame Obama First

And who is the "source" of this horrible whitewash of 9/11 as "tragedy"? Who else: Barack Obama. Apparently, Obama was the first person to ever refer to 9/11 as a "tragedy," which he did in a column he wrote as an Illinois state senator on September 19, 2001.

And while most conservatives, including Doug Powers, only quote the part where Obama says that the 9/11 terrorists lack empathy (which conservatives all mock, as every sensible person knows that the "true" cause of terrorism is "evil," a term so well-defined that they never bother explaining it), here's what Obama wrote in the preceding paragraph which they never bother to quote:

Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.

Indeed. So while Obama did lament the terrorists' lack of empathy, as well as suggest that we root out the cause of terrorism; he had already suggested that we increase security, fix our intel deficiencies, find the perps, and attack the organizations that caused it.

Yet somehow, out of all the conservatives I saw who quoted Obama's piece, none of them actually included the previous paragraph. Why, if I didn't know any better, I'd think they were some sort of monolithic authoritarians who only know how to attack what they've been told to attack, while ignoring anything that refutes their attack.

And because Obama suggested that there was some other solution to fighting terrorism beyond killing Muslims, it was the equivalent of an abused wife "telling everybody she needs to learn how to cook better." But in reality, we all know that if a wife is abused, she needs to kill her husband's relatives and neighbors, as well as anyone of the same religious persuasion as her husband and people entirely unaffiliated with her husband in any way. And yes, it's 2009 and people are still writing such insanities without any sense of shame.

Terrorism as Tragedy

Sadly, after Obama whitewashed 9/11 a mere week after the event, it appears his brainwashing has taken hold of others. Not only does the phrase 9/11 Tragedy bring up over 7 million hits on Google, but he was also able to force this Marxist construct on to Republicans, the true defenders of 9/11. Witness this disgusting whitewash of terrorism as tragedy.

"This is an American issue, and this is an American tragedy, and we should not politicize that, and we've been very successful in keeping it from being politicized over the years." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sept. 11, 2008

"I, like all Americans, will never forget the defining moment of recent American history, the tragedy of 9/11." Senator John McCain. Jan. 30, 2008

"We can't do anything to rid ourselves of homegrown 9/11 con artists, but legal permanent resident aliens such as Kendall can be deported if convicted of crimes involving fraud or deceit in an amount exceeding $10,000. Kick them out and keep them out. These callous scavengers of tragedy don't deserve to call America home." Numbnut Michelle Malkin, July 16, 2003.

"I can imagine few sentiments more repulsive to our brave fighting soldiers and the victims of the 9/11 terror tragedy than to think the U.S. government deliberately allowed the events of 9/11 to occur." Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri), Sept 4, 2009.

(To be fair, Bond referred to this as a "terror tragedy," which might be an acceptable term, as long as "terror" is used to modify tragedy. And note, it's offensive to the victims of 9/11 and our soldiers if you accuse the government of doing something wrong.)

And of course, Obama's powers at manipulation know no bounds, as President George W. Bush himself was inexplicably forced to refer to 9/11 as a "tragedy," not once, but twice during a speech to both houses of Congress on September 20, 2001; one day after Obama inflicted the world with this Marxist monstrosity.

Behold!

I thank the Congress for its leadership at such an important time. All of America was touched on the evening of the tragedy to see Republicans and Democrats joined together on the steps of this Capitol, singing "God Bless America."
[....]
I ask you to continue to support the victims of this tragedy with your contributions.

The horror! (But perhaps he was referring to the tragedy of seeing Congresspeople sing.)

Bush Hearts Muslims

Even worse, while some conservatives properly understand that Islam dictates that all Muslims must Jihad their way to world domination, Bush actually said things like:

The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics, a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.
[....]
I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.

Yes, even in post-9/11 2001, Bush was showing his Obama-influenced liberalism, which would explain why our bombs were unable to destroy terrorism forever. Obama is the root of all evil. 9/11

Better Crime Names, Please

Via AP:

Delaware State Police said a woman punched a gas station clerk in the face and held scissors to his throat in a dispute over how much money she had given him.
[....]
As the woman drove away, police said she found the $20 bill in her purse and returned to the gas station. Police said she was arrested and charged with offensive touching and aggravated menacing.

Offensive touching and aggravated menacing? Damn, if I were that clerk, I'd be too ashamed to show up to court to testify that either of these crimes had been done against me. These sound more like rule violations in a kindergarten classroom than criminal charges.

Honest Weblog Awarded to ME!!!!!

Holy shitball, people. I won an award! No, I'm not referring to the Carnival of the Liberals #96, which I also won. No, I'm talking about a much more personal award. That's right, as the title suggests, I won the Honest Weblog Award. And let me tell you, I was so awed by this win that it took me a whole week to bother mentioning it. The great and powerful Broadway Carl bestowed this great honor upon me and six lesser blogs and now I'm stuck blessed with having to do the same to seven other lucky bastards.

Here are the rules of this esteemed award, as copied-and-pasted from Broadway's own blog:
1. You must brag about the award.

2. You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to that blogger.

3. You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.

4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with the Honest Weblog Award.

5. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself.

And yeah, it's obvious I already did the first one. I mean, any award I'm gracious enough to acknowledge is clearly bragging material. But if that's not self-evident, I'll give another "yippie!" to express my gratitude for this chain letter great honor. And I've also done number two, though not in my trousers (yes, pun intended).

Ten Honest Things About Myself

Because things about me are clearly more to my interest than things about other people, I'm skipping numbers three and four and heading right into number five: Ten honest things about myself. But as it turns out, to stay truly "honest" with myself (and honesty is the name of the award here), I'm forced to add an eleventh entry. I'm sure you'll agree.

So here are eleven honest things you might not know about me.

I'm smarter than I pretend to be.

I'm even funnier in person.

I'm so handsome that you'll assume I'm joking when I say that I really am incredibly handsome.

I've advanced enough to have moved beyond basic humility.

I cook.

Women want me.

Men want to be me.

My breath smells like sex.

I'm really good at video games.

I play the guitar.

And lastly, I really am incredibly handsome.

Blogs I Respect

As for number three, I'm in a bit of a bind, as I don't actually read seven blogs. I only have time to read three blogs on a regular basis, none of which, I suspect, would be the least bit interested in receiving this award. But hey, rules are rules, so let's see if I can find seven bloggers to name.

First up, I'll just take the easy road by naming the American Nihilist blog. Yes, it's cheating, as I actually write for this one, but it really is the most brilliant blog around. Why else would I deem it worthy of my best material?

My second choice was going to be Cannablog, written by longtime reader (and some time nemisis) Mahakal (aka, Mike Goldman), because I liked the blog's theme, but I see he stopped blogging about a year ago. So instead, I picked the most interesting link on his page (except my own, of course), and went with Dr. Frank Lucido's Bully Pulpit: Everyone's Entitled to My Opinion, solely based upon the name. It looks like Dr. Lucido has posted a total of seventeen entries on his blog, so perhaps this grand victory will encourage the good doctor to get off his stoned ass and write a little more often.

Nextly, I decided to look through my blogshares account, to see who the important people linking to me are, so I could return the favor. But fuck me if most of the important folks linking to me aren't blogging anymore. I feel like I'm Highlander here. But I found Capitol Annex, which is a local Austin blog which happens to feature me prominently on their blog list, and since anything associated with Austin is inherently superior to anything outside of Austin, it made my list.

And let's see, where else can I take this. How about Neural Gourmet? He started the Carnival of the Liberals, which makes him fairly awesome. And his blog really is pretty cool (not that I've ever read it), so I guess I'll just pretend I find it "brilliant" and move on. There, that gets me over the halfway point.

Here's one you wouldn't expect. It's Beth's New, Improved Austin Bloggery. I actually know this person. Sure, there are no politics involved with this blog and I generally don't read it, but hey, it's an Austin person and that makes up for everything.

And since I'm desperate, let's just go with Publius' old blog, Legal Fiction. Sure, nothing's been posted there since Pub sold out in 2007 and moved to a blog which shall remain nameless, but I still get a fair amount of traffic from Legal Fiction, so I thought I'd include it here for old time's sake. As a sidenote, I only got added to his blogroll because I kept pestering him so much about it while drunk. Drunken harassment is way underrated.

And that leaves me with one last blog, so what else could I go with but my own. That's right, bitches, I'm picking And Doctor Biobrain's Response Is... as my seventh brilliant blog. So suck on that!

And for all you loyal readers who were hoping I'd pick your blog, trust me, you didn't deserve it.

Michael Steele for President

Carpetbagger has a post in which RNC clown Michael Steele attacks Obama for disrespecting Ted Kennedy's death by reading a letter that Kennedy had requested be read after his death. And if this came from any other Republican, I'd just stare at the screen in disbelief that anyone could make such a stupid point. But coming from Steele, I can only nod my head in approval and say "touché."

Without a doubt, Michael Steele is my favorite Republican. While crazies like Bachmann and Palin are always good for a laugh, nobody goes straight for the clowning like Michael Steele. I'm not sure if he's ever failed to entertain me. Here's a highlight reel from back in May that the kind folks at Think Progress put together; and mind you, this was before he defended Medicare while attacking it.

No other Republican is as adept as he is at completely faking it while simultaneously believing every word he says. He steps in the dooty the moment it spills from his mouth and then feels compelled to smear it around on his face, just in case you thought he said it by accident. And when forced to backtrack, he refuses to acknowledge that he has changed position in the least; though even a small child could see immediately through his hopeless charade.

And while most Republicans share these traits, none are as hapless in their execution as Steele, who never met a talking point he couldn't accidentally trample into oblivion. Michael Steele is a clown act all the way.

Obama Indoctrinates Congress

So the president gives a big healthcare speech to both houses of Congress. I don't know about y'all, but I really don't feel comfortable with Obama indoctrinating Congress like this. If Obama wants to make this speech voluntary, by putting it on YouTube for Congresspeople to view at their discretion, that's perfectly fine. But by forcing himself upon impressionable middle-aged folks, he's really stepping into Hitler territory.

And from what I understand, he's going to be giving a strictly partisan speech, urging Congress to act upon his goals; and even going so far as to request that they write legislation to send to him for his approval, and probably have him send back messages of his own...at taxpayer expense, no doubt.

And that's just wrong. No other president in history has gone so far as Obama in forcing his will upon us, and now that he's trying to indoctrinate Congress into being a sort of Hitler Youth for old powerful dudes, I fear he's gone too far. Obama must be stopped at all costs.


Update: It appears that Obama completely changed his speech at the last minute, in order to avoid the most egregious of the indoctrinal rants I had predicted. I'd bet dimes to dollars that he did this specifically because of the message I posted above. You're welcome, people. You're welcome. I may have just saved America from the brink of ruin.

Obamacare Question of the Day

This is, I'm sure, a stupid question, but I needed to post something, yet the post I'm working on is getting too long and I need to go to bed; so here goes.

Now, this is probably the wine talking, but...will "Obamacare" insure homeless people? That seems like it wouldn't be such a bad idea, particularly if we can get them on the meds that might make them think twice about their lifestyle. But I wasn't sure if it worked like that. Anyone know?

Oh, and I just read the part in the bill in which it mentions that anyone who has insurance will automatically lose that insurance, and instead will pay for insurance premiums of someone in a Muslim nation; preferably Iran. Of course, I didn't technically "read" that in there. Nor did anyone even paraphrase it. But what the hell, the current accusations of what's in the "bill" are insane enough, so why not this too? We're also paying to abort all babies, too; including the ones who were already born. Pass it on!

Invasion of the Brain Snatchers

Great. My mom is now into Obamascare. I just had a lengthy phone conversation with her which somehow got into healthcare reform and she's repeating all the same lies that all the other freaks are saying.

Not only is she convinced that government bureaucrats are going to come to her house on a regular basis and try to pressure her to sign away her rights to full healthcare on her deathbed, but she insists that she read this in the bill. I assured her repeatedly that she couldn't have read that, as there wasn't anything like that in the bill, but she insisted it's there and that I had insulted her intelligence by suggesting otherwise.

And without a doubt, she repeated the exact phrases that all the anti-Obama nuts are repeating. This is being "rammed down our throats." How are we going to pay for fifty million new patients? Government bureaucrats shouldn't interfere with our healthcare. The shouting people at townhalls deserve better answers than the only ones they can possibly receive. The AARP is an insurance organization that makes more money when government gets involved, and doesn't care if their members die. And of course, she's read the bill, which she insists is extremely confusing and nebulous, yet which she knows contains all these nasty provisions which will intrude in her healthcare and kill her off early.

And sure, I had good responses to all of this, but she refused to even listen to any of it. And as the big irony, my dad was a career military guy and she's now in Medicare, which means she's had government healthcare for most of her life. And when I was pointing out that people really like Medicare and that Republicans oppose Medicare, she refused to even believe that. At best, she insisted that Republicans were only interested in cutting waste out of Medicare, and that Dems wanted to destroy it. Shortly after that, she insisted that she had to go and gave an unusually curt goodbye before hanging up.

And what's sad is that I thought she was better than this. Sure, she's been politically insane in the past. But after last year's elections, she swore off political news. She insisted that she wasn't watching Fox News or listening to Rush anymore, and I believed her, as I never saw her watching it during my visits earlier this year. Even last month while visiting, I was able to have reasonable discussions on this and even laughed at many of the ideas coming from rightwing nuts. And I specifically talked about the end-of-life stuff and how insane it is for anyone to imagine that this is somehow a bad thing.

But it's like the Pod People came and replaced my mom with a robotic replica. And while before, she was scoffing when I was telling her how nutty Obama's critics were (she couldn't believe that anyone could be as crazy as I was describing them), now she's repeating all their claims and insisting that I can't possibly be right when I correct her. After all, she's read the bill.

Why Sarah Palin Ain't Ronald Reagan

It's amazing to see reporter-types who are so caught-up in conventional wisdom that they actually imagine they're refuting the groupthink while continuing to perpetuate it. Here's a piece from Walter Rodgers, some former CNN reporter, who asks the pertinent question: Can Sarah Palin be more than a political celebrity?

And of course, the answer is a resounding: No. She can't. Even if she inexplicably won the presidency in 2012, it'd be due entirely to her celebrity status, as there never was a real "Palin" beyond the fakey conservative celebrity she pretended to be. And while this guy clearly has his doubts about it too, the fact that he even wrote the piece as he did suggests that he's still stuck in the conventional wisdom about Palin.

He might be flirting around the edges of doubting it, but for him to consider this to be a serious question is enough to undermine his credibility.

Exonerating McCain

And then there's this humdinger:

The McCain campaign scarcely had five days to find their man a running mate. Palin was effectively forced upon a reluctant Senator McCain in a risky campaign move designed to reverse Barack Obama's momentum.

But that wasn't really the case, as McCain clinched the nomination in early March and had over five months to find a VP, and he wasn't forced to announce his pick immediately after Obama's acceptance speech either. Plus, there were far better choices than Palin. That was all just stupid stupid stupid and was yet more proof about how completely unprepared McCain was for the bigtime.

And the fact that McCain originally wanted Lieberman for the job only shows how clueless he was. For as bad a choice as Palin was, forcing "Sore Loserman" on the Republican base would most definitely have sucked the air out of the party. He was a poor choice for Gore in 2000 and would have been a complete joke for McCain. Had he picked Joe, he might as well have just removed his name from the ticket and headed back to his day job.

While Rodgers realizes that selecting Palin was a risky move, nobody forced it upon McCain. He took the risk because he wanted to take the risk. He had five months to pick a VP, not five days, and still blew the call. This all smacks of historical revisionism by people who want to exonerate McCain for his part in creating the Palin monster.

Re-Remembering Reagan

But Rodgers saves his biggest turds for the Gipper:

Republicans now in search of a new messiah might ask themselves if Palin is truly another Ronald Reagan, as more than a few would like to believe. It wasn't movie star glitter that made President Reagan so effective but rather his political genius, which rivaled that of Franklin Roosevelt.

Reagan charmed scores of congressional Democrats into embracing his points of view on dozens of issues. In 1981, I watched big-spending Democrats walk out of the West Wing completely "Reaganized," happily confessing they were converted to his spending reductions and other presidential initiatives.

Setting aside his two terms as governor of California, presiding over what would become the world's seventh-largest economy, Reagan had a biblical talent for making "even his enemies to be at peace with him."

Yes, and we all know how spending went down throughout the 80's as Congressional Dems embraced Reagan's small government mantra and ended up throwing all those welfare queens out on their asses as we balanced the budget and started paying off the debt with our huge surpluses. Oh wait, that was Clinton who did that. While Reagan oversaw huge deficits while government spending ballooned. And this is all just part of the Reagan revisionism, in which Reagan didn't raise taxes many times, or reverse course on key issues like his desire to privatize Social Security.

As I've mentioned before, the reason Reagan remained popular wasn't because he "Reaganized" his opponents, but because he was pragmatic and listened to the polls. After all, the infamous euphemism of Social Security as the "third rail" was coined after Reagan got burned for trying to change it, and he ended up saving a program he had long opposed. As a reminder, Reagan's lowest approval rating came after his second year as president; with a 41% approval, 47% disapproval in January 1983. For as much as he made "peace" with his enemies, it was because he joined them.

The miracle of Reagan isn't that he made peace with his enemies, but that conservatives ever made peace with his betrayal of them. And for as much as Palin isn't the next Ronald Reagan, it's because she's embraced the conservative myth of Reagan, which pretends that Reagan remained a hardcore conservative who forced his critics to bend to his will; rather than vice versa. Unfortunately, dopes like Walter Rodgers only help perpetuate that myth.

Government Interference Helps Innovation

In my last post, I quoted Megan McArdle saying "I'm not defending Big Pharma--I could care less if Pfizer stays in business. I'm defending market pricing for drugs."

Yet, this only showcases what a complete nimrod she is. Because there IS no proper market price for new drugs. And that's because the government grants a temporary monopoly to drug manufactures as a reward for making new drugs; as a way of spurring more innovation.

And were it not for this government-based intrusion into the free market, anyone would copy their drugs, thus lowering the price to the point that you could never make a profit if you were the one who created it. Your competition could always under sell you, because they didn't need to pay research costs. And so that's why drug makers have such large profits: Because the government gives them a monopoly which basically allows them to set their prices. And as we all know, the government interferes with the free-market like this in countless ways, and conservatives never complain about patents, copyrights, and trademarks either. Yet they're very anti-competitive.

And the solution to this is for the government to essentially negotiatate drug prices on our behalf, thus using their vast buying power to force these drug companies to sell their drugs for less. In other words, they're using a market-based mechanism to offset the monopoly-power they gave to the companies; thus restoring market forces. This is really no different than what Walmart does to hold prices down, and I don't hear conservatives complaining about them stifling the free markets. And hey, if conservatives like Megan McArdle want to support the drug industry by negotatiating directly with the drug manufacturers, nobody's stopping them.

And so free-marketers like Megan McArdle have this entirely backwards. They support the government stifling free-markets by granting government-enforced monopolies, while opposing the government using market forces to keep costs down, and calling this a monopoly. But of course, this all just shows that, for as much as these people love the free market, it's quite obvious they haven't a clue what it really is.

Megan McArdle's Homework

Via TNR, I see that conservative Megan McArdle continues her "moderate" wingnuttery by pretending to take an open-minded view of why she opposes healthcare reform, before insisting that she's forced to oppose it based entirely on shit she just made up.

Her post says her primary reason for opposing government healthcare is because America is the last major market that hasn't socialized medicine, and therefore, we're supporting all the drug profits that keep the innovation pump flowing. And so she thinks we need to keep biting the bullet and subsidizing the rest of the world or we won't be getting any more new drugs.

And surely, if she's so open-minded about all this, she's readily providing the factual basis for her claims, right? No. She provides none. She merely asserts repeatedly that America is subsidizing the Pharma profits and, without us, there wouldn't be enough profits to make it worthwhile for them. And it's not even enough that she can't possibly provide proof of the second half of that claim, as it's a hypothetical with no real basis for objective analysis; she can't even support the first half of her claim...you know, the fact part.

TNR has a real catch, as she wrote in a comment at that post:

The United States currently provides something like 80-90% of the profits on new drugs and medical devices. Perhaps you think you can slash profits 80% with no effect on the behavior of the companies that make these products. I don't.

But as TNR points out, McArdle later admitted in a chat that "It wasn't a statistic--it was a hypothetical." It other words, she pulled this matter-of-fact rebuttal completely out of her ass. But it wasn't just that comment. She made that 80% claim a second time and repeated the basic assertion endlessly, often citing her earlier assertions as support for her later assertions; as if repeating an assertion makes it come true.

And the main assertion is absurd: McArdle is resting on the idea that price controls force drug companies to sell barely above their costs, and that we'll do the same if we control prices. Is there any basis for this bizarre idea? I don't know, as Megan never provides one. But as we'll see, there's good reason to believe she's wrong.

Megan Asserts

Here are a few of her other comments on that post (ellipses indicate separate comments):

1) Socialised systems in Europe use price controls and rationing to reduce the profits in providing medical care, discouraging innovation, and then free ride on innovations that are primarily aimed at the US market.
[....]
B) Even for foreign companies, we provide most of the profits.
[....]
Actually, the bulk of the profits are from the US. Look at the financial statements of any company that breaks out its international operations. The bulk of the sales often comes abroad. But all the margin is here.
[....]
As pointed out above, the issue is not that no company outside the US innovates. It's that they make the bulk of the money off of their innovations in US markets.
[....]
But those biotechs get funding largely because there's an exit strategy through an acquisition or IPO. If you slash the future profits on drugs 80%, the capital will dry up.

I'm not defending Big Pharma--I could care less if Pfizer stays in business. I'm defending market pricing for drugs.
[....]
Look at the financial statements of any company that breaks out its numbers by region.

And mind you, I wasn't selectively editing her facts out of this. She never provided any. She merely kept asserting that her position was factually correct and kept telling other people to cite their evidence and research her claims. Frankly, I can't conceive of any reason why these people tried to debate this ninny.

Crunching the Numbers

But hey, I'm a CPA who knows his way around numbers, so I decided to take Megan up on her challenge and actually read these financial statements. If she insists on having us do her research for her, I guess I'm up to the challenge. And the first drug company that came to mind was Pfizer, so I looked at their financial statements for 2008 (pdf).

And sure enough, Megan is totally full of shit. As page 59 clearly shows, Pfizer made far more money from international markets than from the USA. In fact, for 2008, Pfizer lost $1.7 billion in the US, due to a Justice Department settlement, while they made over $11.4 billion internationally. And over the last three years, they made over $30.2 billion internationally, compared with $1.7 billion domestically.

And mind you, these are profits before taxes; not total revenue. So not only did the US not account for 80% of Pfizer's profits, as Megan stated twice, they accounted for less than 6% of their profits. And sure, this is just one company, but this already refutes Megan's claim that we'd see this on "any" drug company. (Disclosure: I also researched GlaxoSmithKline's financials (pdf), but they only break-out revenues by country, and not profits, so I couldn't do that one. Plus, they use weirdo Europe-talk that I'm not familiar with, and the whole experience creeped me out.)

Ridiculous Profits

And so that shoots down the first part of Megan's premise. And the second one is even easier. Her claim that American profits are the only thing spurring innovation is completely destroyed once one realizes that a company like Pfizer spent $23.6 billion in research over the past three years while making $32 billion in profit. Meanwhile, GSK spent €6.7 billion on research in two years to make €16.2 billion. So they can spend billions on research while still raking in tremendous fortunes. Seems to me that they could be doing a whole lot more innovating, if they wanted to.

Needless to say, a price cap here in the US isn't going to break these guys. After all, it's not as if these caps will make them sell at a loss. And that's the thing, for as much as conservatives accept on faith that the US is subsidizing drug profits, it's obvious that they're doing quite well without us. And so Megan is left with a faulty premise with no factual basis as the primary reason she opposes our healthcare plans.

Of course, as with most conservatives, I suspect she reached her conclusion first, which is why she never bothered giving any actual facts. Not only did she not need them, but they would simply have refuted her point. After all, no one with half a brain could possibly assert that our current system reflects "market pricing for drugs," as she asserted in a comment. Thanks to temporary monopoly status granted to new drugs, drug companies pretty much get to set their own prices.

And based upon their tremendous marketing budgets (roughly double their research budgets for both companies above), I suspect that quite a bit of flim-flam also goes into supporting these "market prices." After all, new drugs aren't tested to see if they're any better than the old drugs, and that's why they pay more to sell the snake oil than they do to make it.

And so, for as much as Megan would like to imagine that America is the last bastion of innovation and that her faith in the all-powerful Profit Motive forces her to oppose healthcare, reality tells a different story.

Thou Shalt Not Promote Equality

Carpetbagger has a post in which he finds it ironic that the states where people most need "Obamacare," (ie, residents in Southern and Western states), are the most likely to oppose it. But I really think this all makes sense, as one big reason these places are so underinsured is because they're lacking in much of the advanced infrastructure that makes more progressive states more progressive.

They're conservative to their core and that means rejecting the progressive policies that give "blue" states advantages over these other places. And so it's just natural that they'd also oppose this progressive policy too. The establishment in these states have convinced the poor and middle-class that the status quo is the only quo for them, and these people will fight for their right to be kept down.

They believe they have a god given right to be screwed over by the powerful and to screw over those less powerful than themselves, and they'll be damned if they let anyone take that freedom away. And if that means that they get paid sucky wages and aren't offered real insurance by their employers in order to ensure that the powerful stay powerful, that's what has to happen; even if these policies harm the overall economy. It's better for a few ships to do good in low tide than to allow a high tide to improve everyone's ship.

Death Panels Dumbed Down

Someone linked to my last post in a comment on a post titled "Got cancer? Heart Problem? and Medicare? Meet the death panel!" in which someone named FuzzyGold actually dumbs down Sarah Palin's "death panels" smear into meaning that the government is reducing certain Medicare payments. No longer are we talking about having Trig Palin stand before a panel in an attempt to justify his worth for receiving healthcare, we're now simply referring to any time the government wants to pay doctors less.

And amazingly, the guy who wrote that gets even dumber. Here are two separate comments he wrote on his own blog:

OH you are one of the people that will have services cut. Read the article. 10% cut means 10% less service.

See how good life is for you when 10% of your heart is gone.

It saddens me greatly to think that such idiots might be on the winning side of this argument. My faith in humanity simply refuses to believe that we won't prevail. For as much as I expect people to disagree with me on important issues, I at least expect them to do a better job than this. 10% of your heart gone, indeed.

Blogger Cries Foul Over Biased Article

The Associated Press sucks so much that when I read an article titled Cardiologists Crying Foul Over Medicare Cuts Hurt Obama Revamp, which spent most of it's time featuring unchecked claims from cardiologists; I naturally assumed it was from the AP and was surprised to learn it came from Bloomberg. But all the same, the article sucks.

Here's an example of them outsourcing their research department to cardiologist Zia Roshandel, a doctor who receives two-thirds of his patients from Medicare:

Medicare would reduce reimbursements for some of Roshandel's most common procedures, raising the amount patients will need to pay up front, he said. The government would cut the $251 it pays for an echocardiogram, a sonogram of the heart, by 40 percent, he said. The rate for a cardiac catheterization, another test, would drop by a third to $249.

Those reductions include an additional across-the-board cut of 22 percent for all physicians mandated by federal budget rules. Legislation passed by three committees in the House last month would eliminate that cut, at a cost of $200 billion to U.S. taxpayers. Even so, if Medicare goes ahead with its tilt toward primary care, cardiologists will suffer, Roshandel said.

And so they spend a paragraph repeating Roshandel's claim about how much his payments will be cut, before mentioning that his numbers include a 22% cut which was mandated by federal budget rules and looks like Congress will eliminate. And are these numbers even correct? I have no idea, because the journalists who wrote this didn't bother doing the research, but are merely repeating Roshnadel's claim. So we're stuck doing the math in our heads, to determine what the real cuts might be, if they go through as indicated. Great work, guys!

Saving the Best for Last

And only at the end of the article are we given this little factoid:

Cancer specialists made similar warnings three years ago when reimbursement was cut for the drugs they used, said Nancy M. Kane, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, a panel of outside advisers to Congress.

“As far as I know we have not seen a drop in the number of oncologists since then,” Kane said. “People are not screaming that they don’t have access to oncologists.”

In other words, specialists in a similar situation said the same thing three years ago, yet the sky didn't fall. And if the reporters knew this, shouldn't it have behooved them to have included more actual reporting in the article, rather than just taking dictation from the doctors who don't want their pay cut?

And then there was this factoid:

The pay shift would help right a financial imbalance that keeps young physicians out of family care, said Epperly, of the family doctors’ group.

Average total compensation for family doctors ranged from $150,763 to $204,370 a year, according to a 2008 survey by Modern Healthcare magazine. Cardiologists fetched from $332,900 to $561,875. Radiation oncologists, cancer doctors who specialize in radiation therapy, earned $357,000 to $463,293.

So, according to a healthcare magazine, cardiologists can make up to half a million a year. And yet, we're to imagine that these Medicare cuts are going to either force them to work for free (a claim Roshandel made in the article) or put them out of business. Something here doesn't add up.

And sure, perhaps Roshandel's situation is different and his rural clinic couldn't run on these reduced payments. Yet, we're left with the overall issue that the article continually suggests that this is a problem for cardiologists as a whole, yet their income is still twice as much as that of primary care physicians. Call me crazy, but I suspect this is an issue of doctors not wanting a paycut, and not one of them being put out of business. Perhaps some day we can have a media which realizes that their job is to report facts, not merely repeat assertions.

And let's not forget something in all this: For as much as folks complain about government-run healthcare being wrong, even to the point of dissing Medicare itself, it's quite obvious that it is the only thing sustaining doctors like Roshandel and his partners. After all, he says that even a cut in his fees will put him out of business. Imagine how bad it would be if we listened to conservatives and got rid of Medicare all together.

Conservatives Heart Demand-Side Economics

When the issue of tax cuts arises, one of the favorite conservative attacks is to insist that it's hypocritical of us to complain about tax cuts, while also accepting them if they pass. They argue that, if we think the government needs more money, we should be happy to go ahead and pay it.

But of course, that's bulldooky because our point is how high the deficit gets when large quantities of tax revenues are lost; so the small amount that we could pay as individuals would make no difference. Even a richie rich like Warren Buffet's tax cut isn't enough individually to make any dent in the deficit. Hell, he could donate his entire fortune to the government and it would barely make a blip on the radar. But all the same, conservatives LOVE to make that point and imagine it to be one of the cleverest things they've ever been told to repeat.

And so now Carpetbagger's got a post where he points out the Gollum-like nature of conservatives in regards to Obama's stimulus: Conservatives HATE the stimulus; Conservatives LOVE the stimulus. And so conservatives are now commenting there about how this is no different from how liberals oppose tax cuts, yet still accept them as individuals. Similarly, conservative politicians opposed the stimulus, yet will still accept them for their constituents.

Here's a comment from Bruce Bartlett:
(no clue if it's that Bruce Bartlett)

This is a non-story. All politicians do the same thing. For example, Democrats who voted against the Bush tax cuts still touted their benefits to their constituents. Nor do I remember hearing of any prominent liberals sending their tax cut back to the Treasury.

Except, that's not how it works. Because liberal opposition to tax cuts isn't that they're unpopular or don't help the economy, but that they're too expensive because they drain off too much tax revenue. And even then, most liberal politicians are willing to give tax cuts to the poor and middle class, under the idea that they need the assistance. It's tax cuts to the rich that we oppose. And I've never heard a liberal tout the benefits of tax cuts to the rich.

But the opposition to the stimulus wasn't just that it was expensive and would increase the deficit, but rather, that it couldn't do any good. The government can't fix the economy or create real jobs, we were assured. And yet, here they are trying to grab stimulus funds because they know it will help their districts. This isn't hypocrisy; it's a complete refutation of their prior statements. And while it's possible that they had a change of heart recently, it's more likely that they were outright lying when they made these absurd claims.

One commenter there tried to defend conservatives, saying that it would be "stupid" for them to reject the funds now that they've been approved. And while I agree that this IS stupid, that's exactly what many of them did anyway; including the governors of South Carolina, Louisiana, and Alaska. And the base lionized them for it. Apparently, it's now unfair to remember what they actually said.

(On a side note, do you think Jindal's a little nervous about that little wingnut group he was in, or do you think he's happy to be the last crazy governor standing?)

Thoughts on Ted Kennedy's Passing

First off, for anyone wanting to read a horrible post about Ted Kennedy's death, you can read my post about how nihilist hitmen assassinated the dude because he was going to tell the truth about what happened at Chappaquiddick. But don't say I didn't warn you.

And after re-reading what I wrote last night and recoiling with indignation that such irreverent words were typed by my hands, I decided to check out what ol' Donald Douglas was saying about Kennedy, to see if he at least had some sense of decorum about the whole thing. I've generally found that Ted Kennedy drove conservatives absolutely bonkers, for reasons I've never quite understood, so I wanted to see if they could act restrained now that he's gone.

As an example of Teddy Derangement, one commenter at Donald's actually wrote "No person, living or dead, has done, or did more, to push this nation to the very edge of its financial and economic destruction than did Edward M. Kennedy." Another commenter referred to him as "a drunkard/drug addict, womanizer," who was "the stupidest manboy in Congress" and will "always be an embarrassment." A third commenter wrote "This lying sleazebag deserves not one bit of sympathy or respect." In fairness, not all Don's commenters were rude.

And fortunately, Donald wasn't too bad about it at all. Overall, he's taking the tone that Kennedy's passing is a solemn event, and then uses that to attack the very type of people that Kennedy was. Here's a post where he blasts us for "exploiting the liberal icon's death for political gain" by naming the healthcare bill after him. Because yeah, conservatives never exploit death for political gain.

BTW, that first link is quite funny, as it's a guy who posts a "shocking and disgusting" video of a three year old Palestinian girl who was indoctrinated to believe that Jews are evil, yet he repeatedly refers to Islam as "the religion of murder," Muslims as "savages," and insists that liberals are anti-American socialists who are as lowly as the Muslim barbarians we embrace. But yeah, this is waaay different than teaching people to believe Jews are evil. After all, we're the good guys, so calling Islam the "religion of murder" is simply a factual claim.

As for Donald, his latest post on Kennedy has him say that, while Kennedy deserves the high praise Obama paid to him, Kennedy's influence "has long been overrated," and laments that we might use this as a way of passing a bill that had been one of Kennedy's life-long goals. Not that Donald ever mentions that this was a big goal of Kennedy's, and one might even get the impression that we were simply opportunists who were attaching Kennedy's legacy to a bill that he wasn't championing. So sure, Kennedy wanted to use his influence to pass this bill, but now we're imagine that it's wrong to continue to use his influence to support a goal he wanted continued even after his death.

But that's just Donald for you. It upsets him when people use sympathy to push goals he disapproves of, yet he's the first one to use sympathy when it helps his side. I wonder if Donald made any attempt to reconcile his "Kennedy's influence was overrated" statement with his commenter's statement that Kennedy did more to hurt America's economy than anyone in history.