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Rush Limbaugh Would Fit Right in With NFL Owners
Tweet Share on Facebook October 13, 2009 Comment (10)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Rush Limbaugh's bid to buy the NFL's St. Louis Rams has raised some concerns about such a high-profile and outspoken conservative joining the league. As Peter noted earlier, the head of the NFL Players' Association is trying to galvanize his members in opposition to El Rushbo. But judging by the way NFL owners, executives, and players give money already, the conservative yakker would fit right in in the league. The indispensable Center for Responsive Politics crunched the campaign finance contribution data for the league and found that in terms of political contributions, "NFL" could well stand for "Not For Liberals."
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Barney Frank Disses Gay Equality March
Tweet Share on Facebook October 12, 2009 Comment (18)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Barney Frank caught some grief a while back when he told a protester at a town hall meeting that trying to talk with her was like trying to argue with his dining room table. Give Frank credit—he is equal opportunity with his acid wit. The openly gay House member from Massachusetts told the Associated Press that Sunday's National Equality gay rights march would be "a waste of time at best." His best line:
"The only thing they're going to be putting pressure on is the grass."
He is of course right. There have been a handful of national protests that have galvanized movements, catalyzed moments and made a difference. And then there are countless protests whose main function seems to be an exercise in fulmination, self-congratulation and grass-pressuring, but which ultimately produce little. Frank goes on in his AP interview to say that the gay rights movement should eschew protests and model itself after one of the two most powerful lobbies in Congress—the NRA and the AARP.
Ask yourself: When was the last time one of those groups held a rally on the national mall? And how many members of Congress dare cross them?
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Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: Why Put the Call Before the Action?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 9, 2009 Comment (742)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Three things struck me about the reactions to President Obama's surprise Nobel Prize victory.
First, the take-away line from Obama's speech—that he views the prize as a "call to action"—sums up the problem most everyone sees with the award. As I tweeted, shouldn't the Nobel Prize come as a result of action rather than as a call to it? Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan and supporter of the president, but it just seems like the Nobel committee put the call before the action here.
And that's a fairly common, fairly bipartisan reaction.
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Obama's 2016 Olympics Bid Was Inept Politics
Tweet Share on Facebook October 2, 2009 Comment (21)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
What exactly were the folks in the White House thinking? Granted that President Obama's Olympic tumble will quickly fade into the realm of "remember that?" trivia, but it's a fundamental rule of politics that you don't make high stakes long-shot bets without a requisite payoff.
In the case of the 2016 Olympics, the payoff—the president's home town hosting the Olympics—was not big enough to justify the prestige of a full court presidential press. The only way his trip to Copenhagen would have made sense was if the fix was in. Why, with literally the world watching, send the president vaulting over a bar if you aren't absolutely sure he can clear it?
Or to put it in terms that former members of Congress like Obama and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel might understand, congressional leaders don't send a bill to the floor without whipping it and knowing that either they have the votes or can get within a few arm-wrangles of them. This was the Olympic equivalent of a high profile but symbolic resolution going down on a procedural vote: big embarrassment over something that would have had little payoff anyway.
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A Strong Defense of the Public Option, and Active Government
Tweet Share on Facebook October 1, 2009 Comment (20)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne today gives one of the more concise, effective rebuttals I've seen to the notion that a public option would destroy private healthcare, and specifically the idea voiced by GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa that government is a "predator."
Grassley was then forced to explain how he felt about Medicare. Is it predatory for government to pay health bills for the elderly? Is Social Security, which lives side by side with private pension and savings plans, predatory? Is it predatory for government to regulate, well, predatory lenders or stock swindlers or bank boodlers?
Democrats have been far too timid in taking on the right wing's arguments against government. They have been defensive when they should be going on offense by insisting that government can expand human freedom and give people options they would not otherwise have.
Consider universal K-12 education, loans and grants to help students attend college, clean water systems, and unemployment compensation so people can get by while they look for the next job. A public insurance option lies squarely within this American tradition of using government to open new avenues of choice and opportunity.
Preach, brother Dionne! There are legitimate questions about a public option—how, for example it would be constructed to prevent employers from dropping their own health coverage and dumping everyone onto the government plan—but he's right that Democrats have become far too accepting of the premise that activist government is ipso facto a problem.
