Republicans Speaking Out FOR Health Care Reform

In the past week, a few big republicans and independents (Bloomberg) have spoken out in favor of getting healthcare done. Took them long enough.

Their names carry weight. They include former Senate majority leaders Bob Dole and Bill Frist, a heart surgeon; Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a health policy expert; New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, now an independent; and Mark McClellan, former administrator of Medicare and Medicaid from 2004-06.

As former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards, currently a lecturer on public affairs at Princeton, puts it: "The grown-ups are beginning to speak up." Read more at USA Today

Bobby Jindal urges republicans to join in. Jeb Bush is NOT one of those grown up republicans speaking out for health reform. He aims all of his criticism at Obama. But Bush is "pleasantly surprised" about Obama's education efforts.

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Palin Punctuates the Bush Administration

Imagine if Palin wasn't attractive. 

Just sit there and imagine her looking homely. Does anyone think that Palin would be getting away with a lack of intellect? The answer is clearly no. She wouldn't be getting away with anything. She knows she is beautiful (she is a former beauty queen participant) and she knows how to use it to compensate for what she lacks. Her visual appeal is as shallow as McCain's judgement.

And here's Bob Herbert with another great observation:

Sarah Palin is the perfect exclamation point to the Bush years.
We’ve lived through nearly two terms of an administration that believed it could create its own reality:

“Deficits don’t matter.” “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere.”

Now comes Ms. Palin, a smiling, bubbly vice-presidential candidate who travels in an alternate language universe. For Ms. Palin, such things as context, syntax and the proximity of answers to questions have no meaning.

In her closing remarks at the vice-presidential debate Thursday night, Ms. Palin referred earnestly, if loosely, to a quote from Ronald Reagan. He had warned that if Americans weren’t vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their “sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.”

What Ms. Palin didn’t say was that the menace to freedom that Reagan was talking about was Medicare. As the historian Robert Dallek has pointed out, Reagan “saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would ‘invade every area of freedom in this country.’ ”

Does Ms. Palin agree with that Looney Tunes notion? Or was this just another case of the aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning?

Here’s Ms. Palin during the debate: “Say it ain’t so, Joe! There you go pointing backwards again ... Now, doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I’m glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?”
....
Where is the evidence that Governor Palin even understands these complex and enormously challenging problems? During the debate she twice referred to General McKiernan as “McClellan.” Neither Ms. Ifill nor Senator Biden corrected her.

But after Senator Biden suggested that John McCain’s answer to the nation’s energy problems was to “drill, drill, drill,” Ms. Palin promptly pointed out, as if scoring a point, that “the chant is ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ ”

How’s that for perspective? The credit markets are frozen. Our top general in Afghanistan is dialing 911. Americans are losing jobs by the scores of thousands. And Sarah Palin is making sure we know that the chant is “drill, baby, drill!” not “drill, drill, drill.”

Palin Makes a Great Public Affairs Rep

Palin was well rehearsed. She proved she can stuff a lot of facts in her head. She stayed on message (McCain's the great maverick) and is a terrific spinner, making her a perfect public affairs representative. Vice president? eh.

CNN: Only 26 percent of those surveyed said that Palin was more intelligent in the debate compared to the 57 percent who chose Biden, according to the poll of 611 adult Americans, who tuned in to watch it. The poll had a sampling error of 4 points.

Overall, 51 percent of the debate watchers said that Biden did the best job in the debate, while 36 percent gave the nod to Palin.

More fact checking. More lyin' from Palin and some things just wrong. McKiernan McClellan, whatever.