cont'd..

But Newt also did cut perks (Dole referenced Newt once, in 1996, showing up at the Dole campaign office with an empty bucket, which Newt did to make the point that Newt had ended the daily delivery of a bucket of ice to each House office as part of his perk-cutting modernization efforts -- the point of which Dole seems to have missed).

Those changes included  upending the seniority system to install his choices for committee chairs (eg Bob Livingston jumped over four more senior members of Appropriations) and passing the Shays Act (applying laws to Congress). 

There was a group of conservative congressmen who opposed Newt as insufficiently conservative, and didn't understand why conservatives couldn’t get what they wanted.  My hazy memory is that they were more interested in the purity of their position than in accomplishing what they could, and seemed to be uninterested in three facts which led other conservatives to different strategies:

.l. We had a GOP but not conservative majority in the house.

2. The senate was less conservative and Dems could filibuster.

3. The president had the veto and was from the other party.

Newt's record on earmarks isn't pretty, but as I recall, it wasn't his idea -- it was then-Majority Whip Tom DeLay's idea. (You'll recall, DeLay was not Newt's choice for that post -- he wanted Bob Walker, but refused to campaign openly for Walker, saying he wanted the House GOP Conference to "work its will.") But DeLay won that contest over Walker and Bill McCollum, and went on to turn earmarks into a major operation, geared to redirect pork to GOP crony capitalists. In those days, House conservatives wanted both Dick Armey and DeLay in top Leadership posts, to keep an eye on Newt. Little did we know how DeLay would turn out (Medicare Part D etc.)

It is not evidence, it is reasonable inference.  

1) We know Romney has a team working on overdrive doing oppo research. We also know, per the effort gone to to track down the special order and find the quotations, that they were unbelievably obscure and would have required untold hours to unearth, even beyond the hours entailed if one knew exactly where to look.  

2) We also know that campaigns as a matter of course are very busy trying to get third parties to say and write useful things, and try to make it easier to secure their doing so by producing first drafts and other forms of facilitation.  

3) We know that Elliot is a very busy man, who would be incredibly unlikely to be spending hours of his time doing this level of research, so almost certainly had it given to him.  

Could he have done so himself?  Sure.  At all likely? Nope.  

Yes, Newt's more likely to repeal, as he has already changed his mind on the mandate and other features, and he gets that you can't get real reform by building off of what is an inherently broken model.  

BTW, Newt has taken the Repeal Pledge, as has Santorum, but Romney despite repeated requests has not.

Does that mean that every alternative idea will be a good one? No.  But are you more likely with Newt to get the scale of change to the system that's required? I think so, because - as a great generality - Newt starts with an idea of what something ought to look like, then tries to work out how to get there, while Romney is not animated by ideas, but seems to look backwards at the data  and wants to make it work within that existing framework.

Moreover, Newt for one doesn't care much about adhering to "the way it's done" - much of the complaint from his contemporaries in the House was very valid, but a lot of it was driven by his running roughshod over their self-indulgent perks and entitlements, which earned him great enmity.

Continued... -

If Romney doesn't think them worth mentioning, even if Ann does, then I think we have to assume they were merely academic, not an indicator of core conviction.  

That he doesn't want to create any distance between himself and what passed, and that he doesn't apparently understand that laws by definition will be implemented by the other team at some point and so had better be crafted to withstand perverse incentives, is another discouraging reflection.

Like you, though I hear him say he will repeal ObamaCare, I am both dubious that it would be full repeal, and leary of what he might deem an acceptable substitute, as Romney strikes me as a man driven by data and problem solving, while oblivious to any underlying philosophical principles.

And yes, I was in the WSJ editorial page's camp then, and disagreed with Heritage, though fortunately they have since come around on both the mandate question and on exchanges (which would be wonderful if they actually were free markets, but seem in practice to be about collusion between large insurance companies and bureaucrats.)

Leslie, I haven't had a chance to listen to the podcast, but my understanding of the history is that indeed what Mitt offered was far better than what passed.  What seems odd, and deeply disturbing, to me is that key provisions that he argued for that would have mitigated Romneycare he now ignores and does not mention.  

If Rick Perry wanted these to work for him, he needed to find someone else to throw the punch.  First rule of a multi-candidate race is that if you go negative on one of your opponents, both of you will suffer -- and a third candidate will benefit.  In this case DrewInWisconsin is correct: Herman Cain should send a thank you note to Rick Perry.

Phooey, wrong weekend for me. Rob, come back over the long Columbus Day weekend - taking the boys and Delany down to hunt and restock the freezer :)

Bravo Richard, and concurrence w/ Liberal Jim. This relates to Blitzer's debate question, about the 30 year old who opted not to get insurance and suddenly needs intensive care -- the right question is not whether he gets care, but who pays, and the proper answer, one lived by friends who have made similar choices and then experienced medical crises -- is who pays?  And the answer, assuming the 30 year old lives, is he does, and he will work out a payment plan for the  (ridiculously expensive, see Liberal Jim's observation) care which he received.

The other rich irony is that while universal coverage is sold on the admirable wish and premise that everyone should have high end medical care, the reality of cost constraints lead such bureaucracies to then systematically deny those things we would consider routine - whether because a sight-saving medicine is too expensive, a patient is "too old" for a new hip, and woman is "too young" for mammography, etc.. If one wants to be "fair" (defined as providing only identical treatments universally) above all, it is worth remembering that  those desperately poor countries where has been no medical care for anyone qualify in spades.

Caricature would be a good description of post #5.  I fully realize that despite the position taken in Dittoheadadt's posts that there is likely some level of measures that even dittoheadadt would consider excessive, as genuinely unpleasant as it is to consider that tradeoffs exist even in humanitarian efforts.  But having been caricatured myself, taking the defenders' positions to their logical conclusion seemed illustrative.

I apologize for not posting sooner, and didn't realize that actually being busy dealing with the pending hurricane invalidated sharing a widely felt sentiment that pre-existed it by days as we all watched all the forecasts.

The damage incurred, through wind and flooding, would have been incurred regardless of evacuation order and transit shutdown; but the costs of those orders were real and additive.  I'm all for reasonable government measures taken for public safety, but I think we have great differences both over what constitutes "reasonable", and in seeing that each of these measures have broadly dispersed but in aggregate huge costs borne, but never accounted for, by the public.

As best I can tell, for the defenders of the evacuation order, all storms are unpredictable and have a slight probability of becoming extreme disasters, and there are therefore no measures, or attendant costs, that aren't justified, however expensive, and however ineffectual, because the intentions were good.  As it stands, can we agree that in result we seem to have evacuated, and largely shut down commerce, in one area that didn't need it, and largely left people in the areas that did get severely affected?

Some people will be stupid - I believe at least one of the deaths was a surfer -- but my recommendation is to let people make their own best decisions about whether to stay or go, and to have government do its best to continue to provide necessary services on which people depend.

But if our friends, given the unpredictability and risks of severe weather, want to counsel evacuating the whole of the east cost next time, (the logical conclusion of asserting that no cost is too great, and no probability sufficiently remote), then that is their prerogative.

My thanks to Mollie and Kennedy, who I think may share my sense that there is risk in all events in life, and cost calculations made for each, as well as consequences to decisions that may not be obvious, and that by and large we are better off if we assume that a people who are capable of self governance are also capable of making their own best decisions about their unique circumstances.

The hubris refered to was the assumption that Bloomberg's evacuation decision had benefits which outweighed consequences and costs; the "seen and unseen" is a reference to the work of the economist Lord Bastiat, who like Molly would have noted the real, vast but yet uncalculated cost of all the people who couldn't get to work, who couldn't sell anything for days, who had to spend time and money traveling out of the city and staying perhaps someplace likely more dangerous.

(continued...)

Dittoheadadt, Instugator, and perhaps StickerShock seem to think those of us who are critical of the evacuation calls are: 

--Oblivious to and callous about the hazards and harms of the storm (not so: I am on Long Island and was in the thick of it, complete with two days of reasonable preparations based on worst-case Category One expectations, without needing-- mirabile dictu -- government mandates compelling those adjustments, and have been housing and helping those without power ever since), 

--Operating based on hindsight (no, those of us who have lived through many such storms thought, starting several days previous, as we watch people get panicked by media hype, that much of the media commentary was driven by desperation for drama, and misfocused on their own back yards, and that the political calls were largely driven by individual political calculation, rather than greater public good)

--And, (with sarcasm), believing ourselves to have infallible predictive ability about weather (which, if we believed that, would be worthy of sarcasm, but we don't.)

(continued...)

As for pushing "to force feigned displays of moral rectitude and decency from a network that obviously cares nothing for any of that", let me remind you that intent is not the standard, action is.  If one waits for purity of motive that is sufficiently satisfactory, we will have very little good behavior, very little consideration, and very little charity.  Human beings are fallen, their motives many, and I'm with Adam Smith, moral philosopher, on this: while we may more loudly applaud the virtuous heart, I'll take action over intention, and accept that tribute that vice pays to virtue, hypocrisy.

I cannot guarantee that getting people to "like" FireEd will accomplish anything.  What I can guarantee is that your approach, of not pushing back while our side is actually slandered, will accomplish nothing.  Indeed, it will perpetuate the double standard -- low or no standards for the left, and thought-police subjective standards for the right.  I'm for objective professional standards of civil conduct for the major news networks, achieved not because they've discovered moral rectitude (that would be a miracle), but because their audience cares. And I'm doing something about it.  

Mr. Thompson, if the above sentence meant to imply that you actually thought there were broadcasting standards that ought to apply, however impaired you find my reading comprehension, I believe you failed to convey that thought.

Thank you StickerShock.  I know Laura, she is tough, and she did laugh this off.  But practicing chivalry on her behalf, and against all demeaning defamation, is called for, regardless of whether she's fainting or standing tall.

The lowest standard, the one to which we've largely devolved, is whether something is legal, and the assumption now, for fear of being "judgmental", is that if it's legal then you oughtn't complain.(Or BThompson's standard, which apparently is that he doesn't know where the standards ought to be, so lets just chuck the concept.)  But legality is only the beginning; there are objective standards which predate political correctness regarding what constituted civil discourse, and what did not.  

A vibrant public square is more effective with civility; maintaining it requires a willingness to say when something is shameful.  Will MSNBC care and fire Schultz? No.  But if enough people Like it, will their hosts perhaps think twice about what they say, and would that be a good thing? Yes.