Terrorists and Their Super-Powers & Kung Fu Grip

Michael Scherer writes at Swampland:

Obama's aides felt stung by the press criticism after Christmas, when Obama initially opted to hold off public comments, work behind the scenes and, to the dismay of several columnists, play golf. So after returning to Washington, by contrast, Obama gave two public addresses, abandoning his uber-cool façade and twice appearing visibly aggravated at the failures in U.S. intelligence that allowed the attack to take place.

Well, thank God "several columnists" were on hand to express "dismay". Lord knows where the nation would be without "press criticism" of the effort politicians need make towards the appearance of "muscular, public and dutiful demonstrations of authority"....probably a whole lot less comforted while our public integrity-bound press-corps maximizes anxieties over a kid with explosives in his underwear, that's where! Where would we get our desperately needed demonstrations of authority to calm and soothe our raging fears over terrorists and their super-powers and kung fu grip?



With a press corps like ours, it's certain that the terrorists will fail miserably...to terrorize...the American people...Yes, that's right. We're just like the British during the battle of Britain...apart from facing the Luftwaffe nightly, and remaining calm, courteous and courageous in the face of huge bombs exploding in all our major cities, and citizens evacuating to subway tunnels year after year, and the literal threat of invasion by a vast army of Nazis. That's just like how we are right now with our superb press corps! How could the terrorists possibly win?

Also, isn't it just super that we have people like the "aides" who "felt stung by the press criticism" in charge of national affairs? Isn't that the most awesome display of strength there is, when the most powerful administration in the world jumps up and down in fearful reaction to the "dismay of several columnists"? What aides were these, Michael Scherer? Who told you about this episode in these terms? Why, surely such honest dealers would put their names to their claims, right Michael Scherer?

All I can say is that having a President who will, at a relative moment's notice, abandon an "uber-cool façade" for the façade of visible aggravation just fills me with total confidence that the focus of this Administration is problem-solving, not posturing. Fan-tastic.
I'm also supremely heartened by a press corps that focuses on real problems to solve, not the political posturing of the new Daddy-Figure-In-Chief to demonstrate his "ability to take charge", and its moment-by-moment effects on public perception.

Thanks for this substantial review and critique of the Administration's security image handling and public relations efforts, and subsequent polling of attitudes, Michael Scherer. I'm sure we're all much safer as a nation for your efforts...at least I feel 2/3rds safer, anyway.

Can We Talk Price?

Over at Swampland, someone helpfully provided a link to National Geographic post in support of my arguments that graphically demonstrates the fact that the US consumer is getting ripped off by her/his profiteering health care system ( link to NatGeo ), but unfortunately, the copy then had to go like this:

The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year. Why the high cost? The U.S. has a fee-for-service system—paying medical providers piecemeal for appointments, surgery, and the like. That can lead to unneeded treatment that doesn’t reliably improve a patient’s health. Says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies health insurance worldwide, “More care does not necessarily mean better care.” —Michelle Andrews

No, no, no, no.

Thanks Michell Andrews!

Thanks for the graphic, but it's unfortunate that National Geographic had to explain the discrepancy in cost as a function of use, as opposed to a function of price.

It fits a very neat storyline that contains a great deal of truth, but the fact that fee-for-service leads to unnecessary, i.e. wasteful costs doesn't explain the difference between the price of an MRI in Japan and the price of that procedure in Texas.

It isn't just that there is an abundance of inefficiency in delivery, it's that what's being delivered costs more here than anywhere else.

Take, for example, prescription drug pricing ( link to Kaiser Foundation ):

In a comparison of the 20 prescription drugs most commonly prescribed to Medicare beneficiaries, Families USA found that the lowest prices available through the Medicare cards for 10 of the medications were at least 50% higher than prices negotiated by VA, according to Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack.

The study also found that the lowest drug card price for Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering medication and the most frequently prescribed drug for seniors, was 59% higher than the price available through VA. According to the study, the Medicare drug card price was 46% higher than the VA price for cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor, 56% higher for acid reflux treatment Prevacid and 65% higher for blood pressure medicine Norvasc. VA discounts also exceeded Medicare drug card prices for the other 10 drugs, although only by 7% in one case (Hartford Courant, 6/3).

Even within the United States, even within Federal entitlement programs there are discrepancies between the prices paid for identical prescription drugs.

Extending the price comparisons internationally, even to our close neighbors, leads to more evidence of inflationary US prices:

One of the most important differences between the two countries is the much higher cost of drugs in the United States. In the U.S., $728 per capita is spent each year on drugs, while in Canada it is $509.[82] At the same time, consumption is higher in Canada, with about 12 prescriptions being filled per person each year in Canada and 10.6 in the United States.[84]

The main difference is that patented drug prices in Canada average between 35% and 45% lower than in the United States, though generic prices are higher.[85] The price differential for brand-name drugs between the two countries has led Americans to purchase upward of $1 billion US in drugs per year from Canadian pharmacies.[86]

But it's not just Canada, and it's not just prescription drugs.

In every other OECD country almost every type of health care consumable, e.g. hospitals, medical procedures, prescription drugs and laboratory tests is less expensive than in the US, while their use is as high or higher than ours.

If we simply over-prescribed, and over-tested, and over-treated because of fee-per-service inefficiencies, then we would probably see exemplary countries like Japan doing far less in comparison, wouldn't we? But that just isn't the case ( link to the Washington Post ):

The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.

Unfortunately, the idea that there are wide price discrepancies between what Americans pay and what everybody else pays seems to be very, very confusing for reporters. It's as if they believe that it's still 1980, and the dollar should buy them vast quantities of quality merchandise in quaint old Europe, and when it doesn't anymore, when even the Canadian Loonie has been worth more than the dollar for almost a decade, they can't get their minds around it.

The problems with the United States' system are many, from an over-abundance of paper-pushing to a wildly uncoordinated supply chain, and yes, fee-for-service is a part of the high cost equation.

But the basic facts of the matter are that a health care apple in one part of Texas can cost $10 compared to a health care apple in Hawaii costing $7, while a health care apple in Japan costs them $3.60. It's not the cost of insurance against the cost of health care apples that's bankrupting Medicare and the private system, just the price of the apples themselves.

Prices are what's wrong with health care in the United States. Prices are what make fee-for-service unsustainable here. Prices are what will ultimately drive all insurance --Medicare and private-- into the ditch.

The question is: why is it so hard for reporters to say the word "price" when talking about health care costs? Why is it so hard for them to comparison shop for MRI's around the wealthy world, and then tell the American people if we're actually getting a good price --or if we're getting ripped off?

Confusion

Jonathan Chait has a justly widely cited TNR post summarizing the defense of the Senate health care bill. While he frequently does a fine job of presenting the arguments, he also says this:

Young people will have to pay for insurance that is, actuarially speaking, a bad deal, so that older and sicker people can get a good deal. That’s how insurance works. Fire insurance is a terrific deal for anybody whose home burns down and a bad deal for anybody whose doesn’t. The healthy and young who must overpay can be consoled by the knowledge that one day they may become the sick and old free-riders.

There is a serious bait-and-switch going on here. These arguments apply to a national health insurance plan, run by a government. They apply to plans like Social Security and Medicare. (The fire insurance argument is just a canard. Fire insurance is a good deal even if your house doesn't burn down. Insuring yourself against catastrophic risk at low prices is always a good deal*.) These arguments do not apply to a for-profit insurance company, even when people are forced to buy the company's policies.

The correct arguments, in support of forcing people to buy health insurance they don't want from for-profit firms are

1) Adverse selection: only people at risk will buy insurance.

2) Free riders: Citizens are implicitly insured against catastrophic health events. EMT doesn't leave you in the street after an auto accident if you are uninsured.

These are much less compelling arguments than the national insurance argument above, and imply different policy regimes. For example, limiting the mandate to buying (or paying taxes toward) a government-run, high-deductible catastrophic policy does a much better job of addressing these bits of market failure than does forcing people to buy a managed care plan they don't need.

Aetna, on the other hand, does not offer the consolation that when you're 64, someone 24 will be overpaying for her insurance so that you can be covered at a lower cost. In fact, it is in Aetna's interest to find a way to get you out of their pool by the time you are 64, while continuing to sweep up the taxpayer-subsidized premiums paid by unwilling participants. In fact, it is Aetna's fiduciary responsibility to do everything they can to get you out of their pool before then.

The way the Senate bill deals with this incentive to drive people out of the pool as they age is to let insurers charge older people 3 times what they charge other people. This provision, of course, means that the young are not going to subsidize the old. They are both going to contribute to shareholder profits and senior executive compensation at Aetna.

What this bill really amounts to are large increases in insurance company revenue, through higher premiums and more policyholders, subsidized by taxpayers. In return for this revenue increase, the companies are supposed to comply with new regulations regarding the acceptance and retention of potentially high-cost policy-holders.

This is much like the finance sector bailout deal, where taxpayer funds were used to capitalize bankrupt institutions so they would lend to businesses and individuals so that the economy could be revitalized.

We know how that worked out.

-----------------------

*Part of what is going on here is the degradation of the meaning of the word "insurance." When "health insurance" meant "coverage of in-patient treatment" while other expenses were out-of-pocket, the definition matched the coverage. When "insurance" came to mean "managed care," the definition no longer matched the coverage.

I Defend Tweety from Accusations of Liberalism

Over at Swampland, one of the rightist regulars pipes up:

anyone who worked for Tip O'Neal or Carter...can be considered anything but liberal.

Hmmm...so people don't change?

David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer, thinker, and policy advocate. The son of two life-long members of the Communist Party, and a former supporter of Marxism as well as a former member of the New Left in the 1960s, Horowitz later renounced his "left-wing political radicalism" and became an advocate for conservatism.

Chris Matthews probably was a Jack Kennedy liberal back in the 1960's, when it was cool, "ask not what your country can do for you", marching against segregation, youth-y stuff. The second Reagan took office, whatever remained of Tweety's old liberalism was hurriedly thrown into the garbage with his bell-bottoms. He was probably one of the very first Villagers to be painfully embarrassed by connections to Jimmy Carter's "malaise". It's that same silly, late, desperate trendster-ism that led to that "tingle up my leg" Obama bandwagon-jumping moment of shame.

Tweety plays the part of Reagan Democrat...or at least the Village's thirty-year old image of it. He assumes the persona of Tip O'Neill Democrat, whose working-class, Irish-Catholic roots inform his "radical middle", everyman-style low Broderism.

Matthews' public image isn't of movement conservative, it's of the centrists' mythical "regular guy" moron who likes his politics marketed to him like his Bud Light. Saint Russert was from the same cloth, so is Brian "working class background" Williams. It appears GE's NBC broadcast network has a technique for branding its news division's product in the laughable formula of a "regular Catholic guy interviews savvy reporters and fiery conservatives" premised sitcom. They work hard not to let the idiot public in on the joke that they all summer on Nantucket with the rest of the swells.

You'd be correct to say that Tweety isn't Chuck Norris to Mike Huckabee, but that's only because Chris Matthews is fundamentally a creature of the old, industrial, urban North East political machine --not the Baptist South. Tweety's fading memories of the Reagan revolution and the decline of his old boss are the last pre-Beltway images he has of ordinary people, before he started to live in the establishment journalists' privileged bubble. Tweety's no rightist, because he doesn't see movement conservatism as "normal", and therefore doesn't believe that adding that recent, somewhat alien patois helps his "regular voter" schtick --for which GE pays him 5 million dollars a year.

You'd be an idiot to say that Tweety's a dirty fucking hippie, though. He's as left-wing as Tom Daschle, or Dick Gephart, or Hillary Clinton...or Barack Obama.

Madeleine Albright's Friends Need Your Money to Fight Terror

I got an email from Maddy Albright today.

In it, she warned me about how those big, bad Republicans are coming to get me:

Dear Stuart,

Double your impact. Help the DSCC fight the lies and save 20% on items in the DSCC store! Deadline: Midnight tonight. Contribute.

I believe in diplomacy - but sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Tea-partiers and other ultraconservatives are pushing the Republican Party perilously far to the right. They have no interest in working with President Obama as he leads our nation in a way that reflects our highest values and our deepest hopes. They are committed to making sure our president fails - and to regaining control of the U.S. Senate.

We face a choice. We can allow the right-wing radicals to reverse the long overdue progress we have made in the past year, or we can fight back.

Wow...extremism and dishonesty have come to the Republican party! I had no idea!

Thinking back, I guess it first crossed my mind that the GOP had become slightly..."radical" when they admitted to "the sale of weapons via intermediaries to Iran, with the profits being channeled to the Contras in Nicaragua." That sort of struck me as a fairly strange theory of how government should be run, but since there were no consequences for the participants, and nobody in the establishment political press corps talked about it ever again, I guess it just stayed an inkling.

I was reminded of this inchoate impression again when the Republican Congress took the opportunity to impeach a Democratic President over a blowjob. It somehow seemed odd to me that this took place during a period of almost nonstop accusations of (and Congressional investigations into) alleged criminality on the part of the Executive, including the First Lady's involvement in murder.

I just had to wonder a little bit about the Republican right when one of them wrote a best-selling book during wartime in our country called "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (Paperback - Oct 5, 2004)," in which I (and millions of my terrified, shoeless-in-line-at-the-airport, duct tape-purchasing fellow Americans) was informed “Everyone says liberals love America, too. No, they don’t.”

I couldn't help but notice that things might have gotten a little bit out of hand on the right when one of their leading online voices published a book entitled "In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror (Hardcover)," which was not some kind of perverse metaphor, but literally concentration camp apologia that detailed "how both Japanese American and Arab/Muslim American leaders have united to undermine America's safety." I don't know; somehow, when it was proclaimed by Maglalang's blurb-writers at Regnery that these books were meant to "outrage, enlighten, and radically change the way you view the past-and the present," I just wasn't able to put it together that the right was, you know, radical.

But...no more. Maddy Albright has opened my eyes.

And, do you know what else? As incomprehensible and shocking as this might seem, apparently the rightists have some kind of organized "message machine," as it were:

Click here to make a donation of $5 or more to the DSCC. Every dollar you give will be matched, doubling its impact, and you will receive a coupon code for 20% off items at the DSCC Store. Give today. Victory depends on it.

Unfortunately, in today's political environment, it is not enough to have better ideas; it is also necessary to get our message across to our fellow citizens. Thus, in order to defeat our right-wing opponents, we must also back our principles with our wallets. The DSCC's November deadline is today, and the committee must raise $98,765 or risk losing Democratic control of the Senate in 2010. Since it is so crucial that we meet our goal, a group of senators will match your timely gift, effectively doubling its impact. In return, you will receive a code worth 20% off items at the DSCC Store, where every purchase helps our candidates.

"Necessary to get our message across"? I had no idea! I thought that folks like Maddy were supposed to go on Meet The Press every once in a while, sit genially next to Huckleberry, and talk hopefully about the Republican President laying out "benchmarks" for the Iraqi government to meet, instead of a deadline to get the crap out. I couldn't have known that, all along, Maddy was just itching to get "our message across" to folks who'd had enough of our kids getting blown up just so that the bipartisan, Serious Foreign Policy establishment could save face.

...And when I think of defeating "our right-wing opponents", the first battalion of unconquerable warriors that comes to mind is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Isn't that everyone's Family Feud Lightning Round answer?

Q: Name something you stand in line for...

A: Ahhh...Roller coaster ride...?

Q: Name something you'd bring a teacher...

A: Umm...An apple...

Q: Name an organization supremely dedicated to the political annihilation of the lunatic, rightist opposition...

A: The DSCC!

Yes, for every dollar spent, a "a group of senators will match your timely gift." Hmm...a "group of Senators" somehow so recently flush with cash that they could give up their own money to help the cause of re-electing other incumbent Senators...would that be members of the Finance Committee, perhaps? The Gang of Six?

Our reputation abroad is finally beginning to heal. Each day, President Obama is sending a message that America wants to work as a partner with friends around the world to build a future based on law, justice, human rights, and a commitment to peace. We cannot afford to lose all that we have gained. We have a duty to show the world that the real America - the best America - is back.

Holding the line will not be easy. The Republican Party is more energized now than it has been in years. Only three times since the Civil War has the party holding the White House gained congressional seats in midterm elections. We cannot let the Republicans surge ahead.

Please click here to make a donation of $5 or more to the DSCC and receive your coupon code. It must raise $98,765 by midnight tonight to defend our Democratic majority in 2010. Every dollar you give will be matched, doubling its impact. Progress depends on your donation.

The president is doing his part to move our country in the right direction; we need to do ours. President Obama needs help from Congress to bring about the change that he promised. He needs a Democratic Congress.

Oh! I get it!

How do we finally know after all this time that the Republicans are radical rightists?

They're preventing Democratic Senators from helping President Obama "bring about the change that he promised."

"Energized" Republicans are undermining our brave President's plan to...er, message that he wants to someday "build a future based on law."

"Progress depends on your donation"..."We cannot let the Republicans surge ahead"..."we can fight back"...

Get used to it. Get just as accustomed to this line of attack as you've become to taking your shoes off at the airport. Get used to being afraid --very afraid-- of Democrats "losing control of the Senate" because you fucked up and didn't support centrists like Blanche Lincoln through your contribution to the DSCC.

Get used to being blamed for your lack of enthusiasm for President Obama, because you were stupid enough to read his "hope n' change" message too literally, you stupid ideological purist, you. Stupid! Purist! He never said that! You obviously heard what you wanted to hear! How could have possibly done all of those things? He's not suicidal! What about those terrifying, radical, right-wing Republicans? Aren't you afraid enough of them to shut up right now about our President Obama?

Didn't you watch Olbermann or Maddow last night? They bring guns to political rallies...to support the radical idea that the Second Amendment applies to them! They are scared of the federal government that invaded the wrong country and killed a hundred thousand innocent people! "Tree of Liberty!" "Blood of Tyrants and Patriots!" Normal people who are angry enough to become political activists! Be afraid! Be tribally afraid of these other Americans!

Don't criticize your own. Hate the other. Be afraid. It's your fault that they're winning.

Get used to being told to shut the fuck up, lest you blow it for everyone. Get used to being told to put your principles in the back drawer until we get 2010 wrapped up --then told to "back our principles with our wallets."

What if you were to linger a moment too long on what exactly Maddy means by "our principles?" What if you fail in your responsibilities as an ATM for the DSCC? Don't you realize that "Victory depends on it?" You and your shameful, negative, perhaps unconsciously racially motivated ideological purity and stubborn naivete are the reason why the Democratic base will be insufficiently enthusiastic for the midterms! You simply aren't afraid enough of Republicans to properly appreciate just how wonderful Democratic Senators are!

Thanks, Maddy, for these terror-inspiring...sorry, sober and pragmatic words of political wisdom. To think that I might have forgotten how radical and right-wing the Republicans have become in the 13 months since they started to criticize President Obama! They're so much scarier than the Democrats who won't do what we elected them to do...

There is no other option.

Sincerely,

Madeleine Albright

That's right. With the New Democrats fully in control of the Democratic leadership, there really is no other option, is there?

We go to war with the Democrats we have, not the Democrats we wish we had. It's not like we can, you know, somehow change the Democratic party's leadership with all of our money, and effort, and time, and words and votes...correct? We need to be more terrified of the Republican right...not the Democratic center?

I'll be sure to send my hard-earned money to the DSCC right away.

Won't you?

Branding

SZ's view that that "moderate" and "centrists" are not synonyms, even though they are used that way in the traditional media, is something I have found a hard time wrapping my head around. There is, for me, cognitive dissonance in the phrase "radical centrist," which makes the argument difficult to understand.

This is, of course why this brand is used. How can "centrist" be a radical position? It also feeds directly into the media's love for the "center" and for "balance."

But what are we talking about here? We are talking about a public/private partnership between large oligopolies and the Federal government. The goal of the is partnership is to hold down wages, set prices at monopoly levels, and increase the share of productivity growth going to capital holders and senior management.

They have largely succeeded in the endeavor:

But in recent years, the productivity gains have continued while the pay increases have not kept up. Worker productivity rose 16.6 percent from 2000 to 2005, while total compensation for the median worker rose 7.2 percent, according to Labor Department statistics analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group. Benefits accounted for most of the increase.

This is a profoundly unbalanced policy regime, one that could indeed be fairly described as "radical."

In fact, what we call a public/private partnership to create monopolies that operate at the expense of workers and consumers is "fascism." Since this word is normally associated with the Nazis, it is a label seldom used.

Of course, the Nazis also engaged in foreign aggression and made scapegoats of a religious minority group as a populist distraction, using media sources like Bertelsmann to distributed propaganda on the part of the government.

So unlike the United States...

Oh wait!

There is still the Holocaust, of course. But "fascist" is a much more accurate word than "centrist" for these radical policy positions.

Can We Stop with All the Self-Congratulatory "Crazy Right" Crap Now?

Commenter shepherdwong at Swampland says this about the difference between our threats to primary centrist Dems, and the rightists' dissatisfaction with the comfortable establishment GOP:

Anyway, "conservative" "ideological purity" just makes the Republican Party even crazier and less responsive to middle class issues, our purges make the Democratic Party more responsive to average voters and more small "d" democratic. That's no eff-up.

I respectfully disagree. I think that the Republicans do speak to middle class issues, and very effectively in comparison to most Democrats. It is probably only that they've been such naked, catastrophic failures over the past eight years that they've lost credibility and majority power.

I believe that there is a large constituency that is sympathetic to populist conservatism, mostly because liberals have yet to effectively address that population. Liberals haven't had the opportunity to speak, have our ideas debated and prove ourselves through successful governance because the Democratic party is controlled by a centrist faction (the DLC and New Democrats) who are largely hostile to liberalism, liberals and popular accountability in general. We can't get a fair hearing. The people who speak "for us" on Meet The Press are centrists --either politicians or journos-- matched up against movement conservatives.

Also, the right has an established messaging infrastructure all to themselves, while we largely depend on institutional media, which are dominated by centrists or their corporatist allies. The left has nothing analogous that's that large and organized...yet. Liberals who do make their way up the establishment ladder do so by appealing to elites, and looking the other way when press corps hierarchy and conventions damage our interests.

The whole "crazy Republicans" thing is a way for the centrists who control our discourse to demean populism, period. The only reason they're "crazy" now is because they're accountable to their base, which the political-media establishment despises and fears.

We fucked up, because "our purges" will be portrayed by our populism-fearing political press corps as identical to the right's, and indicative of our decline. The whole idea of being "responsive to average voters" in a way that doesn't come from Madison Avenue techniques is alien, and will be denounced as subversive, just like the tea party movement ultimately was --not because it was portrayed as inauthentic astro-turfing, but because it was portrayed as authentic, angry people demanding things from politicians.

It's not that the people at the Post and NBC hate the right and believe they're wrong on the merits when they mock the tea partiers, it's that they don't have respect for normal people expressing themselves in an unmanaged way --right or left. When they mock the tea partiers, it's just another version of their contempt for us.

Does anyone really imagine that elites like Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell, or David Gregory and Brian Williams, or Joe Klein and David Ignatius, or Rick Stengel and Ruth Marcus think there's any difference between the "activist, liberal base" of the Democratic party --people who opposed the Iraq war in 2003, for example-- and the firearms-at-rallies popular right?

We fucked up.

When the rightists demanded the Republican party be accountable to the folks who reliably turn up and vote, and who donate their time and effort to elect candidates and spread messages, and who show up across the country and in the capitol at political rallies, we should have cheered, not screamed "Oh my god, look at the crazy people carrying signs and demonstrating!". We should have said "Good for them! That's democracy in action," not "They're crazy to think that politicians should be accountable! They're sure to lose elections!" We should have talked about how it would motivate the Republican base in 2010, instead of reciting the anti-populist, centrist CW script about how people "naturally gravitate toward the center."

We took our eye off of the ball, and let ourselves be manipulated. Look, how can we call the GOP crazy, and then say that the goal of legislation should be "finding common ground" with their representatives in Congress? Let's not kid ourselves: the Republican Party isn't being called crazy on our behalf --Krauthammer, Gingrich, the Cheneys & co still have platforms, don't they?-- it's that ordinary people are being called crazy again, and this time they're Republicans.

We fucked up because, when it comes right down to it, so many of us just love to hate the right, so much so that we forget about the center who hates us even more. We so predictably love to hate the right so much that we just can't seem to get our minds around the notion that such reactions are being manipulated largely to keep us out of power.