Last night on FNC Charles Krauthammer talked about the health care protests and he is pretty down on some of what he sees.*

The Democrats are pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and the Republicans (or conservatives) are handing the Democrats the rabbit. The Democrats have no argument. They have no facts. They don't even really have a bill.

And if people were just to stand up and quietly and civilly raise questions — "the money doesn't add up," "the CBO has said that you say it is going to control costs, but it increases it by $1 trillion," all of this stuff, it's really out there — they would be winning this debate as they were before the town halls.

What's happening is this is causing a backlash. It's completely unnecessary. It is shooting yourself in the foot. If you want to demonstrate, you want to shout, you do it outside carrying signs. When you walk inside [the town hall meeting], you ask questions.

This is going to have two effects. Public opinion will make people, if anything, rather unsympathetic to those who oppose the bills.

And secondly, it's going to give a great excuse for the Democrats, when Congress returns, to push a partisan bill with no Republican support and say it's because the opposition is not — is simply oppositionist without any arguments and is acting in an irresponsible way.

It doesn't take a genius to know that's going to upset conservatives and it did generate quite the reaction here on whichever thread was live at the time.

Writing seperatelyMichael Barone had a different take after reading yesterday's Pelosi/Hoyer Op-ed. His "tentative conclusions"(via Jim Treacher):

The Democrats’ health care bills have stirred widespread and deeply felt opposition. While some of the protests are organized, the turnout and strong feeling expressed indicate that we are watching something that is largely spontaneous. Try organizing such a protest when almost no one cares much about your issue: no one will show up. It’s the supporters of the Democrats’ health care bills, not their opponents, who are astroturfing—and spending plenty of moolah on television ads and the like.

The Democrats are spoiled because they are used to a mainstream media who spin things their way and a general public whose only expressions of spontaneous enthusiasm in 2006-08 were opposition to (if not hatred of) George W. Bush and support of Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates. Now the spontaneous enthusiasm is all on the other side, with the Democratic astroturf efforts producing pathetic turnouts and largely spontaneous opposition to the Democratic health care plans producing large turnouts.

tmi3rd emailed me about Krauthammer's take, I'll leave it to him to lay out his own thoughts but fwiw, I'm more with Barone. This is part of my email to tmi3rd (made up words and all).

Personally, I think CK is wrong on this. It seems to me he has a little Beltwayitis going on. Most people don't hold Congressmen and Senators in such high esteem that they are above being yelled at. This isn't a CATO or Heritage forum. It's real people who are mad and they aren't thrilled with the talking points they get fed back.

I don't think there's a rule that town halls have to be respectful, two way dialogues. Voters can go with their minds made up and a desire to make sure their reps know how they feel. They are under no obligation to allow their rep to 'educate' them or persuade them. It can be a one way event.

It's funny, I'm usually anti-populist but mostly I'm pro-republican [on this issue] (even though I don't like Jefferson that much). If people want to yell at their government, fine by me. We should demystify and deroyalize it more.

As for the utilitarian/image angle...I think the anger and spontaneous booing shows how real this stuff is and that it's not manufactured and scripted the way it so often is in DC. Do I think it can go to far? Sure, it can go too far (that's one of my beefs with Palin, everything is so personal and goes to 11) but on the whole I think the overreaction it has goaded the Dems into offsets any costs to us.

For those who want to write Krauthammer off over this, don't. Let's not put litmus tests on our guys. He was offering an analysis, that's all. It may or may not reflect where his sympathizes lay but he owes people his best and honest take on issues, nothing more. He's one of the best, if not the best, spokesmen for conservative on many issues. So please don't kill the guy over this.

*Apologies to NRO for lifting the whole quote but I didn't want to leave anything out and risk misrepresenting Krauthammer.

More: Since tmi3rd started this with an email last night, I thought I'd post his thoughts which are a bit more inline with Krauthmammer's and are generally on the role of comportment at this events. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:25 AM | Add Comment
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Bonus: As Mary Katharine Ham predicted, SEIU disappeared its "drown out their voices" memo from the internet. But she got a screengrab.

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 AM | Add Comment
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It's working.

Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. ThatÂ’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.

More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate began.

...As for the protesters at congressional town hall meetings, 49% believe they are genuinely expressing the views of their neighbors, while 37% think theyÂ’ve been put up to it by special interest groups and lobbyists.

Lot's of other stuff in there as well, including 51% think it's still somewhat likely that something will pass.

I hate posting poll reports because given all the variables of sampling, the wording of questions and other elements, it's hard to tell what they mean but you can certainly see the trend of support for the whole enterprise eroding.

Obama didn't pick his August deadline out of thin air. He knew what this month would mean.

BTW-for those Democrats who say they want an 'honest and respectful debate'...bullshit. If Obama, Pelosi and Reid had their way, the bill would have been passed and signed by now with no chance of debate. If people are mad at what you are trying to do and how you tried to do it, too bad.

(I found this via Rasmussen's Twitter feed)

Posted by: DrewM at 07:52 AM | Add Comment
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I wrote yesterday about an article in the Wall Street Journal with the headline "Taliban now winning". The article was based on an interview w/ Gen. McChrystal and contained a number of direct quotes from him. It also contained several paraphrases purporting to represent his thoughts, such as.

I also sent an email to the Public Affairs team to see if this was an accurate representation. It doesn't sound like it was.

Gen. McChrystal is about to deliver a report on the status of our fight in Afghanistan. This will generate considerable discussion about what our efforts should be going forward. We faced a similar situation in 2006 and 2007 as to whether we should "end" the war in Iraq and fortunately we did not. As a result the Surge worked and we have been able to turn more and more control over to the Iraqis.

Afghanistan represents an even tougher challenge, but the stakes involve it's next door neighbor and nuclear weapons. The combined Af-Pak theater is a tremendously difficult mess, but once again we face the choice of ceding control to the extremists, or helping a nascent democracy to grow it's security forces to face the challenge. Let's get this one right as well.

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 07:41 AM | Add Comment
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You can tell a lot about someone by the people they hold in esteem. Obama's decision to honor Mary Robinson doesn't say anything good about him.

Barack ObamaÂ’s decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson has generated unexpected but emotionally charged opposition. Appointed by then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as high commissioner for human rights in 1997-2002, Ms. Robinson had a controversial but ineffective tenure. (Previously, she was president of Ireland, a ceremonial position.)

Criticism of Mr. Obama’s award, to be officially bestowed tomorrow, has centered on Ms. Robinson’s central organizing role as secretary general of the 2001 “World Conference Against Racism” in Durban, South Africa. Instead of concentrating on its purported objectives, Durban was virulently anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and at least implicitly anti-American.

So vile was the conference’s draft declaration that Secretary of State Colin Powell correctly called it “a throwback to the days of ‘Zionism equals racism,’” referring to the infamous 1975 U.N. General Assembly resolution to that effect. President George W. Bush (whose father led the 1991 campaign that repealed the U.N.’s “Zionism is a form of racism” resolution) unhesitatingly agreed when Mr. Powell recommended the U.S. delegation leave the Durban conference rather than legitimize the outcome.

Ms. Robinson didn’t see it that way then, and she has shown no remorse since. In late 2002, she described Durban’s outcome as “remarkably good, including on the issues of the Middle East.”

There's more on the Robinson award here.

It's going to be a long 3.5 more years.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:25 AM | Comments (1)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:17 AM | Comments (8)
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(Apologies if anyone covered this already...wasn't sure if it somehow got lost in the middle of all the health care debate news))

You may recall the horribly bungled “Air Force One” photo-op about three months ago that scared the living shit out of a large portion of New York City (yes, yes…I know it’s not Air Force One unless the President is actually in it. Shut up.) A few days ago the Air Force released the remaining photos from the shoot along with numerous documents detailing events leading up to it along with the fallout.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- And now, the rejects.

Three months after the White House released a single photograph taken during a photo op of "Air Force One" flying over New York -- a flight that caused panic on the streets below -- the U.S. Air Force on Friday released the remaining 145 photos taken during the flight.

The photographs show the Boeing VC-25 -- a military version of a 747 -- making three passes by the Statue of Liberty, at one point accompanied by an F-16 fighter jet and at another point making a steep bank not usually seen with passenger aircraft. That latter move may have contributed to the chaos below.

""We...need to construct some sort of timeline on when folks became aware of it if that is possible," one Air Force official wrote, responding to the public interest.

"I agree we... need to accomplish damage control, but we aren't the POC [point of contact]," the response reads. "Nor do I want to become a belly button for NORAD to push on this one."

Wrote one top Pentagon spokeswoman: "Nothing like having everyone point the finger at someone else so we ALL look like a big bunch of buffoons... can you say Moe, Larry & Curly!??!?!"

This sentence seems a little puzzling:

"The Pentagon estimated the cost of the flight at $328,835, which includes the Boeing aircraft and the two fighter jets that accompanied it. But, they said, "the hours would have been flown regardless, and the expenses would have been accrued on a different mission."

However, I think at the time the Pentagon (a talking, 5-sided building in Washington D.C.) said something about the photo-op being doubled-up as a training mission. However, I don't see that mentioned in the article.

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Posted by: Open Blog at 05:57 PM | Comments (3)
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Hillary jumps some poor college kid in the Congo for asking her what Bill thinks (or the interpreter goofed up, who knows? She still goes apeshit). Way more fun to see it than read about it.

The sneery condescension at the end is Hillary! awesomeness too.

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Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:29 PM | Add Comment
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Okay, that's not a quote but follow the logic...

This morning Speaker Granny Botox said, "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."

Now the SEIU is calling for patriotic union thugs to show up and confront opponents of health care reformat a townhall in Stamford, CT saying, "It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices"

Therefore Pelosi must think the SEIU is "un-American.

Q.E.D.

More: Obama spokesman passes on the whole "un-American" thing.

"The President thinks that if people want to come and have a spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it, that's a part of the American tradition and he encourages that, because people do have questions and concerns ...And so if people want to come and have their concerns and their questions answered, the President thinks that's important. Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesnÂ’t think that that's productive. And as a country, we've been able to make progress when people actually talk out what our problems are, not try to shout each other down."

Hey Nanc, how is it under the bus?

Posted by: DrewM at 01:25 PM | Add Comment
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It's been awhile but it's good to see bad assuming room temperature (well, they will once the fire dies down). It takes a bit to get to the grand finale but it's worth the wait.

Posted by: DrewM at 12:30 PM | Comments (9)
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