Obama does it...with Integrity

Ten weeks ago, as the Democratic nomination fight teetered on the brink of its really ugly phase (with Wright and bittergate yet ahead), David Brooks mocked the Obama campaign's purported belief that "they can go on the attack, but in the right way. They can be tough and keep their virginity, too. " Strange for a conservative to denigrate and sexualize a politician's attempt to restore a measure of integrity to public discourse, but Brooks did rather pungently frame the task Obama has set for himself.

Now we're in the end game, and guess what -- Obama has beaten Clinton, and maintained his integrity. In fact, he's beaten Clinton in large part because he's maintained his integrity while she has publicly sacrificed hers, shred by shred. The contrast in the way each has handled the other's gaffes has been dispositive.

Recall Hillary's gleeful seizure of Obama's "bitter" remarks -- remarks betraying a measure of condescension that she's more than matched on multiple occasions -- as a campaign bludgeon. This was at the height of their endless Pennsylvania slugfest. Here's CNN's account on April 12:

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (CNN) - Hillary Clinton sought on Saturday to fan the flames surrounding Barack Obama's controversial assertion that voters in some small towns are "bitter."

Clinton told an audience of automotive workers here that she was "taken aback by the demeaning remarks Sen. Obama made about people in small town America."

"Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist and out of touch," she said. "they are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans, certainly not the Americans I know, not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York."

Clinton aides said they planned to make Obama's comments central to their message on the campaign trail this weekend. The New York senator will campaign across Indiana Saturday, and will return to Pennsylvania on Sunday.

In a soft-spoken denunciation of her Democratic rival that lasted several minutes, Clinton played up her own faith and Midwestern roots before attacking point by point Obama's claims that people who feel disenfranchised in small town America "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

"Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith," she said, to periodic applause. "People of faith I know don't cling to religion because they are bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor but because they are spiritually rich."

On the issue of guns, Clinton said: "People of all walks of life hunt, and they enjoy doing do because its an important part of their life, not because they are bitter."

By that date, the Clinton campaign was already clothing supporters in "I'm not bitter" tee shirts.

Now contrast Obama's response to Hillary's bizarre, disturbing, overdetermined reference to RFK's assassination on Friday. As soon as the news broke, the campaign did stick the shiv in. It was an arthroscopic cut, unimpeachably appropriate, tightly restrained, and not repeated:

Sen. Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign.

The New York Post that very swiftly poured gasoline on the fire, misleadingly headlining its scoop, "Hillary Raises Assassination Issue." But the understated Obama campaign statement struck the match (a one-match fire, as we liked to shoot for in summer camp). Hillary's comment is impossible to interpret -- yes, she was illustrating that primary fights have often stretched into June, but why illustrate the case with an assassination? -- and the Obama camp did not pretend to. But their statement did validate most readers' and viewers' impression that there was something deeply creepy about the RFK allusion.

Obama himself waited a day to respond directly. When he did, speaking to Radio Isla Puerto Rico, it was with the magnanimity that's become a personal signature. Yet that very magnanimity drew a sharp if unstated contrast to Clinton's response to his own longest-resonating gaffe:

I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make and I think that is what happened here. Senator Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it and I will take her at her word on that.

The Obama campaign's two-step response to the assassination allusion culminates a pattern established over many months. Repeatedly, Obama's attacks -- occasions on which he has called out the Clinton campaign tactics -- have been precisely calibrated to highlight flaws that Hillary (and Bill) were displaying day-by-day on the campaign trail. But these rebukes have been modulated by statements of praise, validations of the overall Clinton effort, even excuses for their excesses. A few occasions on which he's killed with kindness:

March 30 news conference in a high school gym in Johnstown, PA:

My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants. Her name is on the ballot. She is a fierce and formidable opponent, and she obviously believes she would make the best nominee and the best president.

Beaufort, S.C., Jan. 24: Playing the adult in the Clinton sandbox:

Black voters shouldn't blame Senator Clinton for running a vigorous campaign against me," he said. That should be a source of pride. It means I might win this thing. When I was 20 points down, I was a 'person of good character' and my health-care plan was 'universal.' The fact that we've got this fierce contest indicates I'm doing well, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that....

Let me sort of dispose of the whole issue of President Clinton. I have said this repeatedly. He is entirely justified in wanting to promote his wife's candidacy," Obama said. "I have no problem with that whatsoever. He can be as vigorous an advocate on behalf of her as he would like. The only thing I'm concerned about is when he makes misstatements about my record. That's what I'm seeking to correct.

Good Morning America, Jan. 21:

You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling...He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts -- whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas.

Obama's attacks on Clinton have not been any the less effective for their soft edges. From January on, he has used her attacks to argue that her immersion in Rovian politics -- her willingness, as he's said at his sharpest, to "say anything to get elected" and "calculate and poll-test" positions -- has distorted her judgment and limited her power to reform the political process, as he has pledged to do. In a sense, that's a character attack, as Geoff Garin charged in an April 25 op-ed. But it's one that resonates, as Hillary has demonstrated these limitations over and over. Obama has simply added accents to the self-portrait she's drawn.

Surprise, Mr. Brooks: Obama has managed to "attack, but in the right way." And "virginity" is your hangup. Obama does it with integrity.

Related posts:
Pause, refresh: Obama's core case against Clinton
Obama endorses Hillary!
Changing 'the rules' on Clinton
Debunked! Obama spanks the Clinton Kids again
Truth and Transformation
Obama Praises Clinton, and Buries Him
Obama: Man, those Clinton Kids are Something

A more perfect speech draft: Obama edits "our" national story

Editors of the world are agog at a close-up of Obama's mark-up of a draft of the speech on health care he delivered to both chambers of Congress on September 9. It's an extraordinary window into Obama's mind.

What did Obama do to the draft? Repeatedly, he added agency, attributing acts, feelings and thoughts to specific people or groups of people.  He added nouns and pronouns and active verbs, converting verbal nouns in the original draft to active verbs with human predicates(Teddy, our seniors, members of Congress, I, we, etc.).  He drew individuals, members of Congress generally, and the American people as active agents into a joint national project of compassion and positive action.  He reminded Republicans that they had been part of this national project (extending from social security to Medicare to the current health reform) in the past.

His additions of this sort are boldfaced below. Text in blue appears neither in the typescript nor in Obama's handwritten edits -- it was apparently added later

But those of us who knew Teddy and worked with him here -- people of both parties -- know that what drove him was something more.  His friend Orrin Hatch -- he knows that.  They worked together to provide children with health insurance.  His friend John McCain knows that.  They worked together on a Patient's Bill of Rights.  His friend Chuck Grassley knows that.  They worked together to provide health care to children with disabilities.

On issues like these, Ted Kennedy's passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience.  It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer.  He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick.  And he was able [orig: or his ability]  to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance, what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent, there is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it.

That large-heartedness -- that concern and regard for the plight of others -- is not a partisan feeling.  It's not a Republican or a Democratic feeling.  It, too, is part of the American character -- our ability to stand in other people's shoes; a recognition that we are all in this together, and when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand; a belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgment that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise [orig: "...security and fair play that only government can ensure"].

This has always been the history of our progress.  In 1935, when over half of our seniors could not support themselves and millions had seen their savings wiped away [further edited before delivery], there were those who argued that Social Security would lead to socialism, but the men and women of Congress stood fast, and we are all the better for it.  In 1965, when some argued that Medicare represented a government takeover of health care, members of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans -- did not back down. They joined together so that all of us could enter our golden years with some basic peace of mind.  

You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem.  They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom.  But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited.  And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter -- that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges.  We lose something essential about ourselves.

That was true then.  It remains true today.  I understand how difficult this health care debate has been.  I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them.  I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road -- to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term. 

But that is not what the moment calls for.  That's not what we came here to do.  We did not come to fear the future.  We came here to shape it.  I still believe we can act even when it's hard.  (Applause.)  I still believe -- I still believe that we can act when it's hard.  I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress.  I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history's test.

Because that's who we are.  That is our calling.  That is our character.  Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. 

One addition -- not the warmest, but one that opens a window onto how Obama conceives of government -- deserves an additional spotlight. At the end of  a complex sentence, he added a clause to change this:

It, too, is part of the American character -- our ability to stand in other people's shoes; a recognition that we are all in this together, and when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand; a belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play that only government can ensure.

 To this:

It, too, is part of the American character -- our ability to stand in other people's shoes; a recognition that we are all in this together, and when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand; a belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgment that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise. 

Talk about "active government" -- you have here a seven-word active verb phrase: "has to step in to help deliver."  Note how qualified government's role is: it steps in only when it has to, and it only helps deliver on the promise that is part of the American character.  That is liberalism chastened by Reaganism -- a conservative superego imposed on a liberal id.

UPDATE: In a look at Obama's rhetoric, Jonathan Bernstein suggests that Obama defines American greatness as the capacity for creative political action:

We, in the United States, do not accept history, or live through history -- we have the capacity, Obama (and Biden) say, to make history, through collective action, whether it is in the Revolution, the Constitution, the Civil War, the civil rights revolution, or now, in tackling the challenges that face us in the 21st century.  America, therefore, is self-created, and continues to be self-creating, by political action. 

The changes noted above reinforce this theme by naming and crediting the actor. See also 'We've been here before': How Obama frames our history.

Update, 10/4/12: In a similar vein, see the changes Bill Clinton ad-libbed in his speech at the 2012  Democratic National Convention.

The Obama Rhetoric Series

• The great myth about Obama's soaring rhetoric
• Obama denounces Holocaust denial, loses Arab students
• 2029: Look back in wonder
• The gospel according to Obama
• What Will.i.am had to work with
• Killing McCain with Kindness
• We've been here before: How Obama frames our history
• Obama does it with integrity
• Obamanomics: rebalancing the national portfolio
• Breaking the commander-in-chief chokehold: Obama maps a strategy
• What Obama owes to Reagan II
• Obama praises Bill Clinton, and buries him

Does Goldman's "it's perfectly normal" defense hold water?

In a reading of Goldman's September letter of defense against the SEC investigation into the synthetic CDO it created at Paulson's behest, one question stands out: is it really true, as Goldman's claims, that investors in a synthetic CDO would accept as a matter of course that short as well as long participants might have not only an active but a formative role in shaping the portfolio? Paulson initiated the CDO, suggested the initial portfolio to the selection agent ACA, and ultimately approved every bond in the portfolio, more than half of which were in its initial selection. Is that business as usual? Goldman says yes:

There is no industry definition of "Portfolio Selection Agent" that implied that ACA would operate within an ivory tower or refuse to consider suggestions made by interested parties in exercising its independent judgment. In fact, it was a customary feature of the market that participants (including those here) often offered their views on potential securities to be included in referenced portfolios, so no one would have been surprised that Paulson was doing so.

Depending on industry norms, this could either be a particularly brazen bit of sophistry or an effective defense. 

Killing McCain with kindness

Perhaps the most effective riff in Obama's convention speech was his attack on McCain's policies anchored by the refrain, "It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it."

A lot of Democrats have been wringing their hands because they feel Obama isn't Rovian enough. But Obama's counterattack is double-edged: full frontal attack on McCain's "failed policies of the past," and a pointed contrast between his own policy-based criticism of McCain and McCain's character-based assault on him.

The policy attack is straightforward: McCain is offering to continue the failed policies of the Bush Administration. The character issue is a bank-shot: contrast the way my opponent speaks about me with the way I speak about him.

The convention made plain that Obama has put his stamp on the party. The Democrats all attacked his way. Bill Clinton, Kerry, Biden, and then Obama himself killed McCain with kindness. Their tributes went far beyond the obligatory attack preface: "John McCain is a great war hero, but..." They emphasized personal friendship, paid tribute to McCain's love of country, noted past stands he's taken that Democrats could admire. Then each pivoted to McCain's recent flip-flops (on taxes, immigration, climate change), fervent early support for invading Iraq, descent into Rovian attack politics, and 90-95% support of Bush.

First, Bill Clinton:

The choice is clear. The Republicans will nominate a good man who served our country heroically and suffered terribly in Vietnam. He loves our country every bit as much as we all do. As a Senator, he has shown his independence on several issues. But on the two great questions of this election, how to rebuild the American Dream and how to restore America’s leadership in the world, he still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented.

They took us from record surpluses to an exploding national debt; from over 22 million new jobs down to 5 million; from an increase in working family incomes of $7,500 to a decline of more than $2,000; from almost 8 million Americans moving out of poverty to more than 5 and a half million falling into poverty - and millions more losing their health insurance.

Now, in spite of all the evidence, their candidate is promising more of the same: More tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that will swell the deficit, increase inequality, and weaken the economy. More band-aids for health care that will enrich insurance companies, impoverish families and increase the number of uninsured. More going it alone in the world, instead of building the shared responsibilities and shared opportunities necessary to advance our
security and restore our influence.

Kerry:

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let's compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain. Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against theimmigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you're against it.

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself. And what's more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same "Rove" tactics and the same "Rove" staff to repeat the same old politics of fear and smear. Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.

Biden:

John McCain is my friend. We’ve known each other for three decades. We’ve traveled the world together. It’s a friendship that goes beyond politics. And the personal courage and heroism John demonstrated still amaze me.

But I profoundly disagree with the direction that John wants to take the country. For example, John thinks that during the Bush years “we’ve made great progress economically.” I think it’s been abysmal.

And in the Senate, John sided with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Give me a break. When John McCain proposes $200 billion in new tax breaks for corporate America, $1 billion alone for just eight of the largest companies, but no relief for 100 million American families, that’s not change; that’s more of the same.

Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history — a half trillion dollars in the last five years — he wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks. But he voted time and again against incentives for renewable energy: solar, wind, biofuels. That’s not change; that’s more of the same.

Millions of jobs have left our shores, yet John continues to support tax breaks for corporations that send them there. That’s not change; that’s more of the same.

He voted 19 times against raising the minimum wage. For people who are struggling just to get to the next day, that’s not change; that’s more of the same.

And when he says he will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq when Iraq is sitting on a surplus of nearly $80 billion, that’s not change; that’s more of the same.

The choice in this election is clear. These times require more than a good soldier; they require a wise leader, a leader who can deliver change the change everybody knows we need.

And finally, Obama:

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

Lest the contrast between these clean-cutting attacks and McCain's middle school taunts be lost on anyone, Obama took it upon himself to spell it out. As in his fight with the Clintons, he positioned himself as the adult in the campaign:

what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America.

So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

Back in March, as Hillary was ratcheting up her attacks on Obama's readiness to be commander in chief, David Brooks mocked the Obama campaign's purported belief that "they can go on the attack, but in the right way. They can be tough and keep their virginity, too. " But that's more or less what Obama did. Successfully.

When the Clintons went fiercely negative, Obama said they were mired in the same old "say-anything, do-anything" politics that Americans were tired of. While Hillary renewed and ratcheted up her attacks at intervals, Obama managed to shame her into shutting them off for long stretches, during one of which -- from late January to the end of February -- he essentially wrapped up the nomination.

It was hard for Obama to go on the offensive against Hillary because there was so little policy difference. Against McCain, he and his party have got a literally clean shot -- as the four-barrelled assault showcased above makes clear.

At the same time, eschewing character attacks, Obama style, constitutes the most devastating character attack. That's what happened in the primary: the long fight evoked the candidates' characters, and in Hillary's case it wasn't pretty. As she threw everything she could get her hands on at Obama, he was pointedly magnanimous at strategic intervals: praising Hillary as a "fierce and formidable competitor," asserting that she should stay in the race as long as she wanted, dismissing her bizarre allusion to RFK's assassination as a product of campaign fatigue.

At Denver, Obama started sculpting a similar character contrast between himelf and McCain. This time, he had the whole party carving with him.

Related posts:
Obama does it with Integrity
Changing "The Rules" on Clinton
Truth and Transformation

Three-point shot: Obama hits McCain on healthcare, social security, Wall Street

Obama sank a three-point shot against McCain's claim to be an effective economic reformer today. Speaking first at Bethune-Cookman University and then at an outdoor rally in Jacksonville, he simultaneously hit McCain on three closely linked fronts - wanting to privatize social security, being a longtime advocate of bank deregulation, and proposing further deregulation of our chaotic health insurance system. He exposed as completely bogus McCain's newfound zeal for tough regulation.

Here's ABC's account of the healthcare-banking connection:

At the end of a week of Wall Street bailouts and government negotiations to take over hundreds of billions in bad loans, Obama contends McCain is a newcomer to government regulation of Wall Street.

Speaking before a crowd of 2,500 at an event focused on women’s issues – Obama called McCain out for once suggesting deregulation of the health care industry like the banking industry.

Obama used McCain’s words – and the financial crisis against him – reading a quote from McCain which was published in "Contingencies" magazine last year.

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation, McCain said in the magazine in their September/.October 2007 issue.

Today, Obama read back the quote to the crowd and in astonishment said, “So let me get this straight – he wants to run health care like they’ve been running Wall Street. Well, Senator, I know some folks on Main Street who aren’t going to think that’s such a good idea.”

And here is Reuters on the banking-social security connection:

[Obama] attacked McCain for supporting some privatization of Social Security retirement funds, a proposal President George W. Bush made a centerpiece of his 2004 White House campaign but was unable to push through Congress.

"I know Senator McCain is talking about a 'casino culture' on Wall Street -- but the fact is, he's the one who wants to gamble with your life savings," Obama said at a rally in Daytona Beach in Florida, a state with a large population of seniors and retired workers.

"That is not going to happen when I'm president," the Illinois senator said, asking the crowd to imagine the fears of retirees who found their Social Security funds tied to the current market.

The common thread, of course, was deregulatory zeal:

"There's only one candidate who's called himself 'fundamentally a deregulator' when deregulation is part of the problem," Obama said.

These thrusts are going to sink deep into McCain's reformer posture. Democrats have long run on claims that Republicans want to destroy Medicare and Social Security, and sometimes those claims have had a demagogic edge. But Obama's claim that McCain wants to do to healthcare and social security what Phil Gramm (a.k.a. Dereg) and his wrecking crew did to banking has the advantage of being true. McCain was zealous for bank deregulation; McCain himself has drawn the analogy between bank deregulation and unfettering insurers from state healthcare mandates; McCain's ridiculous healthcare plan would indeed free insurers to riddle health insurance with ever more coverage restrictions and exclusions. As for Social Security, McCain has been pushing privatization since the late '90's; he supported Bush's privatization proposal; and as recently as March he disavowed the plan on his own website to establish private accounts separately from the existing system, insisting that the privatization should be built into a portion of each person's current social security set-aside.

At the darkest hour of McCain's post-Convention bump, I confess to worrying that McCain might win -- as I still do. But I never lost my faith that Obama and his chief campaign architects understood better than all his critics -- better than anyone -- how to conduct an effective campaign. That faith is redoubled now. Obama has brilliantly, patiently, meticulously positioned himself for full frontal attack -- now, when the nation's attention is riveted. He has seized and held the high moral ground, nurturing the meme that the McCain campaign has set new standards for viciousness and dishonesty and letting it take hold before concentrating his fiercest fire.

Now, as he binds McCain ever-tighter to discredited policies (more tax cuts for the wealthy) and bankrupt ideas ("I'm always for more deregulation"), he maintains the moral contrast by continuing to make clear that he is faulting McCain on policy and outlook rather than on character. At the convention, Obama's keynote was, "it's not because John McCain doesn't care, it's because John McCain doesn't get it." This fleshed out his months-old claim that McCain would continue the failed policies of the last eight years. It also contrasted pointedly with McCain's scurrilous character attacks on Obama. The party heavies followed his lead, collectively killing McCain with kindness.

As the market tsunami broke last week, Obama continued the two-step, making the gesture of fairness before launching a pinpoint strike on McCain's approach to economics:

I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It’s a philosophy we’ve had for the last eight years – one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. It’s a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise, and one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises. Well now, instead of prosperity trickling down, the pain has trickled up – from the struggles of hardworking Americans on Main Street to the largest firms of Wall Street.

Again, the attack has the supreme virtue of being true -- and giving the lie to McCain's vociferous promises to reform Wall Street. These calm, precise charges contrast beautifully with McCain's ridiculous charges that Obama was closely tied to former Fannie Mae CEOs Johnson and Raines and somehow personally responsible for the market meltdown.

McCain's chickens are coming home to roost. The more he flails at Obama with charges of being vapid, all talk, unpatriotic, and motivated solely by ambition, the more gravitas he lends to Obama's attacks on McCain's governing philosophy and support of Bush policies. The debate that Obama has always said he's eager to have -- over policy -- will play out on his terms.

Related posts:
Killing McCain with Kindness
Obama does it with integrity

Michelle Obama took the high road to lay Donald Trump in the dust

Michelle Obama pulled off a Houdini trick in her magnificently distilled framing of the choice in this election in her convention speech last night.

On the one hand, she articulated a humane, inclusive vision of what America is and of what's required to lead America. At the same time, she framed the choice in this election as absolutely Manichean.

She managed at once to take the high road -- "our motto is, when they go low, we go high"--  while
leveling the most devastating attack on Trump yet articulated.  It was devastating because she didn't deign to name him. She refrained not out of delicacy, but to demonstrate that she didn't have to. He was so instantly recognizable -- as were his dual alter egos, Obama and Clinton. as she had earlier portrayed them:

In which I agree with a Dish reader

I more or less agree with this Dish reader, sloppy writer though he be:

I am a wimp and Romney tries to have everything both ways, and he should have proudly owned the full spectrum of Bain's investments at any given time, including '99-02. But still, the Obama attack path makes me queasy, for two reasons 1) there's nothing really wrong with offshoring (though there is something wrong with loading companies with debt and driving them into the ground while you clean up), and 2) while I could be proved wrong sometime soon, I think the basic Romney/Bain narrative for '99-02 holds together.

Some bitter pills to swallow in Trump's ACA prescription

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Raise that subsidy cap...

It may be a fool’s errand to write about reported features of a now-stayed Trump administration plan to extend the enhanced ACA premium subsidies for two years, with various conditions and haircuts imposed.

Since House hardliners have stayed the plan, it’s likely to get worse if it ever sees light of day. But as outlined in the various media reports, the pending plan is full of poison pills — or, shall we say, enrollment-inhibiting side effects. The features already floated raise a question we may well be confronted with: If Republicans do coalesce round a plan something like what’s been floated, would Democrats (most, some, a handful) get on board? Should they?

Let’s consider the constraints imposed on the enhanced subsidy schedule in the Trump outline.

Caucasus Belli: Russia's Rhetorical Blitzkrieg

Not only has the Russian military overrun Georgia's. Now a Russian media blitzkrieg is rolling over Western handwringing. Op-eds by Russia's minister of foreign affairs Sergei Lavrov in the Financial Times (Aug. 13) and Wall Street Journal (Aug. 20) and by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in the New York Times (Aug. 20) mount a point-by-point assault on the Western narrative of Soviet-style aggression against"a beautiful little country" and its "wonderful people," to quote Saakashvili's enabler-in-chief, John McCain.

Since that idiot Saakashvili attacked first, bombarding and invading a province where the overwhelming majority no more wants to be part of Georgia than the Georgians want to be part of Russia, it's been easy for Russian leaders to turn the Western tale of "Soviet-style aggression" that "has no place in the twenty-first century" on its head -- and to do the same with Western threats to cut the Russians out of various forms of membership, collaboration and consultation with the West.

This is not to suggest that Russia's response to Georgia's rash grab was "proportionate," or restrained, or benign. As Putin's probably-murderous meddling in Ukranian politics made plain, he and his proxies do not want functioning democracies in Russia's near abroad to offset his bogus "managed democracy." That's what makes Saakashvili's miscalculation so catastrophic. He handed the Russians a sword, not only to gore him, but to terrorize the entire neighborhood. And the opening was not only military but rhetorical, legal, moral -- a causus belli you could driving a tank through.

Here's a sampling of how Lavrov and Gorbachev have rolled over Western talking points, one by one, in their three-pronged attack through the FT, NYT and WSJ (links above).

Spoiling for war?

Gorbachev: Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president,Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.
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Lavrov, FT: Let me be absolutely clear. This is not a conflict of Russia’s making; this is not a conflict of Russia’s choosing. There are no winners from this conflict. Hours before the Georgian invasion, Russia had been working to secure a United Nations Security Council statement calling for a renunciation of force by both Georgia and South Ossetians. The statement that could have averted bloodshed was blocked by western countries.
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Lavrov, WSJ: Another real issue is U.S. military involvement with the government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Did Washington purposely encourage an irresponsible and unpredictable regime in this misadventure? If the U.S. couldn't control Tbilisi's behavior before, why do some in the U.S. seek to rush to rearm the Georgian military now?

Russian tanks rolling over small, peaceful, neighbor?

Lavrov, WSJ: Meticulously avoided in those [Western] statements: The decision of Tbilisi to use crude military force against South Ossetia in the early hours of Aug. 8. The Georgian army used multiple rocket launchers, artillery and air force to attack the sleeping city of Tskhinvali.

Some honest independent observers acknowledge that a surprised Russia didn't respond immediately. We started moving our troops in support of peacekeepers only on the second day of Georgia's ruthless military assault. Yes, our military struck sites outside of South Ossetia. When the positions of your peacekeepers and the civilian population they have been mandated to protect are shelled, the sources of such attacks are legitimate targets.
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Gorbachev: The acute phase of the crisis provoked by the Georgian forces’ assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia is now behind us. But how can one erase from memory the horrifying scenes of the nighttime rocket attack on a peaceful town, the razing of entire city blocks, the deaths of people taking cover in basements, the destruction of ancient monuments and ancestral graves?...

The news coverage has been far from fair and balanced, especially during the first days of the crisis. Tskhinvali was in smoking ruins and thousands of people were fleeing — before any Russian troops arrived. Yet Russia was already being accused of aggression; news reports were often an embarrassing recitation of the Georgian leader’s deceptive statements.

Democrat good, autocrat bad?

Lavrov, WSJ: When the mantra of the "Georgian democratic government" is repeated time and time again, does it mean that by U.S. standards, a democratic government is allowed to act in brutal fashion against a civilian population it claims to be its own, simply because it is "democratic"?
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Gorbachev: Mr. Saakashvili had been lavished with praise for being a staunch American ally and a real democrat — and for helping out in Iraq. Now America’s friend has wrought disorder, and all of us — the Europeans and, most important, the region’s innocent civilians — must pick up the pieces.

Self-determination?

Gorbachev: Those who rush to judgment on what’s happening in the Caucasus, or those who seek influence there, should first have at least some idea of this region’s complexities. The Ossetians live both in Georgia and in Russia. The region is a patchwork of ethnic groups living in close proximity. Therefore, all talk of “this is our land,” “we are liberating our land,” is meaningless. We must think about the people who live on the land.
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Lavrov, FT: Last Friday, after the world’s leaders had arrived at the Beijing Olympics, Georgian troops launched an all-out assault on the region of South Ossetia, which has enjoyed de facto independence for more than 16 years. The majority of the region’s population are Russian citizens. Under the terms of the 1992 agreement to which Georgia is a party, they are afforded protection by a small number of Russian peacekeeping soldiers....

No country in the world would idly stand by as its citizens are killed and driven from their homes. Russia repeatedly warned Tbilisi that it would protect its citizens by force if necessary, and its actions are entirely consistent with international law, including article 51 of the UN charter on the right of self-defence.

Destroying trust and partnership?

Lavrov, WSJ: Russia is committed to the ongoing positive development of relations with the U.S...However, it must be remembered that, as between any other major world powers, our bilateral relationship can only advance upon the basis of reciprocity. And that is exactly what has been missing over the past 16 years. I meant precisely that when I said that the U.S. will have to choose between its virtual Georgia project and its much broader partnership with Russia.

The signs are ominous. Several joint military exercises have been cancelled by the Americans. Now Washington suggests our Navy ships are no longer welcome to take part in the Active Endeavour counterterrorism and counterproliferation operation in the Mediterranean. Washington also threatens to freeze our bilateral strategic stability dialogue.

Likely to be punished?

Lavrov, WSJ: Of course, that strategic dialogue has not led us too far since last fall, including on the issue of U.S. missile defense sites in Eastern Europe and the future of the strategic arms reduction regime. But the threat itself to drop these issues from our bilateral agenda is very indicative of the cost of the choice being made in Washington in favor of the discredited regime in Tbilisi. The U.S. seems to be eager to punish Russia to save the face of a failed "democratic" leader at the expense of solving the problems that are much more important to the entire world.

It is up to the American side to decide whether it wants a relationship with Russia that our two peoples deserve. The geopolitical reality we'll have to deal with at the end of the day will inevitably force us to cooperate.

Lavrov in particular has been methodical, thorough and subtle in offering the Russian counter-narrative. Whatever the merits of the case -- and the Russian briefs are full of exaggerations, elisions and distortions -- one has to acknowledge that Lavrov is a rhetorical master. There's a mind there. The substance is above. The deeper framing, the construction of counter-narrative, is equally impressive. Relatively early on in the media campaign, in his Aug. 13 FT piece, he led off by going head-on after the West's broadest archetype before dissecting it:

For some of those witnessing the fighting in the Caucasus over the past few days, the narrative is straightforward and easy. The plucky republic of Georgia, with just a few million citizens, was attacked by its giant eastern neighbour, Russia. Add to this all the stereotypes of the cold war era, and you are presented with a truly David and Goliath interpretation – with all its accompanying connotations of good and evil. While this version of events is being written in much of the western media, the facts present a different picture.

That opening gambit is nicely balanced by Lavrov's conclusion in today's WSJ piece -- challenging the West to accept his inversion of that tale:

Just admit for a moment that the course of history must not depend entirely on what the Georgian president is saying. Just admit that a democratically elected leader can lie. Just admit that you have other sources of information—and other objectives—that shape your foreign policy.

Is Lavrov oversimplifying Western response to the crisis? Consider this bit of mythmaking from John McCain at the Aug. 16 Saddleback Forum:

I am very saddened here to be with you and talk about Russian re-emergence in the centuries-old ambition of the Russian Empire to dominate that part of the world — killings, murder, villages are being burned, people are being wantonly ejected from their homes, the latest figures from human rights organizations 118,000 people in that small country. It was one of the earliest Christian nations. The king of then-Georgia in the third century converted to Christianity. You go to Georgia and you see these old churches that go back to the 4th and 5th century.

My friends, the president — the present, Saakashvili, is a man who is educated in the United States of America on a scholarship. He went back to Georgia, and with other young people who had also received an education, they achieved a revolution. They had democracy, prosperity and a great little nation, and now the Russians are coming in there in an act of aggression, and we have to not only bring about ceasefire, but we have to have honored one of the most fundamental rights of any nation, and that is territorial integrity.

We must respect the entire territory of Russia - excuse me - the Russians must respect the entire territorial integrity of Georgia — and there’s only 4 million people in Georgia, my friends. I’ve been there. It is a beautiful little country. They are wonderful people.

Envision the author of this disjointed, pandering ramble going head-to-head with the Russian leadership. Looks like a Russia-Georgia scale mismatch.

100 Years of ACA Repeal

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Please, Sir, may I have my inadequate calorie ration up front?

In its initial lightly sketched form, Senator Bill Cassidy’s ACA reform plan is the least bad of several Republican proposals, in that it extends funding for the enhanced ACA premium subsidies (eAPTC) that will otherwise expire at the end of 2025, while redirecting them.

As outlined to the Washington Examiner, Cassidy’s proposal would end eAPTC but use the $26 billion estimated cost to fund Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) for subsidy-eligible ACA enrollees — that is, funds to spend directly on out-of-pocket costs (or other medical costs, e.g., dental). As Charles Gaba notes, it’s unclear whether each enrollee’s FSA would be funded with the amount of eAPTC she would have been eligible for, or whether the FSA would be flat-rate or allocated by some other formula. (Cassidy emphasizes that HRAs, unlike Health Savings Accounts, are use-it-or-lose it, saving the federal government money from enrollees who access little or no medical care in a year.)

The incentive for most enrollees would be strong to use their reduced premium subsidies to buy a bronze plan (average deductible about $7,400) and use the FSA to cover first-dollar expenses. That’s donut-hole coverage, as the FSA wouldn’t cover all expenses up to the deductible or annual out-of-pocket maximum (as high as $10,600). It would work for a lot of people, while leaving lots more who would otherwise have been in high-CSR silver (actuarial value 94% or 87%, in contrast to 60% for bronze) saddled with thousands more in out-of-pocket expense.

Strong Obama, Weak Obama: The Time Interview

Obama's interview with Time's Karen Tumulty shows much of Obama at his best: defining the theoretical framework in which he crafts politics and policy. It also highlights a weak point, which may grow out of his attempt to deflect the superstar/celebrity tagging: a reluctance to meet attacks on his character and readiness head-on, to say I have what it takes.

The good stuff first: while it may sound out of step with American politics, Obama's greatest strengths are philosophical. He has thought through and defined clearly what's useful and valid in liberal and conservative thinking, and how those elements should be balanced; appropriate and inappropriate ways in which politicians can let religious faith inform their policy decisions; and ways in which the U.S. should and should not seek to promote its national values abroad. On the latter question, in this interview, he strikes an impressive balance between universalism -- a willingness to affirm that human rights and democracy are good for all peoples -- and recognition of cultural difference:

Tumulty: The question lingered with me as I finished reading 'Dreams,' one of the many things you're wrestling with is the issue of African history, is globalism — used to be colonialism — is it, on balance, net good or net bad for the world's people? Does it even make sense to talk in those terms?

Obama: I'm not sure it makes sense to talk in those terms. I think it's inevitable, partly because of technology, partly because of travel, migration patterns. I do believe that America has a special role to play in trying to lift up a set of ideas, a set of rules of conduct for countries, that aren't imposed by force, but by example. I think our economy has helped to provide a template for other countries, our judicial system has helped to inspire other countries.

When you think about our greatest victories—reintegrating Japan, Western Europe after World War II into the free world—there were enormous sacrifices, a lot of resources, but what was really powerful was how we could hold up ourselves and say, 'Individuals are able to live a better life under this system.' And I don't think that we should be ashamed of asserting that rule of law is better than no rule of law, that democracy is better than authoritarianism, that a free press is better than a closed press. Yet how we achieve, or how we approach this, I think, has to take into account that not everybody is going to be at the same place right away, and that if we think we can simply impose our institutions through military means, that we'll probably fall short, because the world may be smaller, but it's not that small.

Obama unabashedly asserts American exceptionalism, and universalism, while carefully defining the right and wrong ways to promote the truths we hold to be self-evident.

On the other hand, I find his response to a question about his "toughness" -- that is, how he should respond to attacks on his character -- fundamentally unsatisfying:

There are Democrats who are nervous that you are not tough enough for the general election.

I don't think that's just about me. I think they are congenitally nervous because we lost a bunch of presidential elections where people felt that we should have won, but keep in mind that whatever concerns people have about me, my campaign in particular, we heard those all during through the primaries, and the reason—as I said in this town hall meeting—that I think we're going to be successful is it's not about me. It's about the American people, it's about the fact that their wages and incomes have flatlined, their costs have gone up, they are losing their homes. They are losing their health care. They are worried about the future.

The Republicans are going to want to try to focus this election on me, what I want to do is focus this election on the American people and who can actually deliver for them. There's nothing new about this approach that they are taking. This is the same approach that they took against John Kerry and Al Gore and tried to take against Clinton. And so, as I said, what I think makes the difference this time is people understand this is a big election. We can't afford to keep on doing the same things we've been doing—the same policies or the same politics.

There's something false -- or rather, dangerously half-true -- in saying the election is not about him. Yes, at this point in history, Americans strongly favor Democratic policies. That's why the election is about him. The policy debates are almost pre-won; if he loses, it will be because of judgments about his character. Yes, those judgments may be false, and Republicans will stop at nothing to promote false ideas about his character and readiness to lead. His fundamental job is to convince Americans that he has the strength, and the judgment (compensating for lack of experience), and the integrity to get his domestic policies enacted and to safeguard and promote American interests and security abroad.

In fact this is literally nonsense: The Republicans are going to want to try to focus this election on me, what I want to do is focus this election on the American people and who can actually deliver for them. Who can actually deliver? You can! It's time to convert "yes we can" to "yes I can...deliver for you." Too many Americans are not convinced of that.

It's particularly unhelpful to base his response to attacks on the premise that Republicans used the same character-attactics against Kerry and Gore and Clinton and Dukakis (as he did in Chester, Virginia today). In the period Obama referenced, they batted .750 with those tactics. In the cases of Kerry and Dukakis at least, Americans bought the character arguments. Obama likes to say not this time. Why? It's not enough to lump himself in a class of should-have-wons, implying that the electorate was fooled in every case. Why are the attacks about him false? Why is he more fit to govern than McCain?

Related posts:
Obama and the vision thing
We've been here before: How Obama frames U.S. history
Audacity of Respect: What Obama Owes to Reagan II

Sotomayor: no racist, no writer

Two notes on the statement by Sonia Sotomayor that has led to gleeful charges by such champions of equality as Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich that she is a "racist":

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

First: in context, the statement seems to refer specifically to cases of race and sex discrimination. The subtopic was set in place one paragraph above the one in which the controversial sentence appears:

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males.

Immediately following the "wise Latina" sentence comes this:

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case.

More broadly, Judge Sotomayer acknowledged that no given individual on the bench should be taken as a representative of an ethnicity, while highlighting research indicating that women and minorities on the bench are more likely to be sympathetic to issues of discrimination. Unexceptionable.

The second point, though, is that Sotomayer is a really bad writer, and it's the sheer opacity of her prose that got her into the trouble noted above. Her broad point in the speech in which she made that statement, delivered at UC Berkeley School of Law in 2001, seems to be that putting more women and minorities on federal benches will make the judiciary as a whole more empathic. Here's how she put it:

Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging.

There's a thought there, and not a particularly complex one. How long did it take you to extract it? Here's more:

This weekend's conference, illustrated by its name, is bound to examine issues that I hope will identify the efforts and solutions that will assist our communities. The focus of my speech tonight, however, is not about the struggle to get us where we are and where we need to go but instead to discuss with you what it all will mean to have more women and people of color on the bench. The statistics I have been talking about provide a base from which to discuss a question which one of my former colleagues on the Southern District bench, Judge Miriam Cederbaum, raised when speaking about women on the federal bench. Her question was: What do the history and statistics mean? In her speech, Judge Cederbaum expressed her belief that the number of women and by direct inference people of color on the bench, was still statistically insignificant and that therefore we could not draw valid scientific conclusions from the acts of so few people over such a short period of time. Yet, we do have women and people of color in more significant numbers on the bench and no one can or should ignore pondering what that will mean or not mean in the development of the law.

What does Judge Sotomayor mean by the question, "What do the history and statistics mean"? Only gradually does it become clear that she's asking whether women and minority judges decide cases in ways measurably different from white men.

On a macro level, the speech is coherent. Sotomayor suggests that as a society we can't simultaneously value diversity and pretend to be completely color blind; specifically we should openly acknowledge the value of diversity on the bench. Similarly, we should recognize that while judges must strive for objectivity, they are shaped by their cultural inheritance -- and in aggregate, women and minority judges will be more sympathetic to the disadvantaged.

But the semantic haze does not allow for much depth of treatment. Sotomayor acknowledges core paradoxes and tensions, but does not get very far in exploring how to balance them. Here's what she has to say, for example, about judicial objectivity:

While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society. Whatever the reasons why we may have different perspectives, either as some theorists suggest because of our cultural experiences or as others postulate because we have basic differences in logic and reasoning, are in many respects a small part of a larger practical question we as women and minority judges in society in general must address. I accept the thesis of a law school classmate, Professor Steven Carter of Yale Law School, in his affirmative action book that in any group of human beings there is a diversity of opinion because there is both a diversity of experiences and of thought....

That same point can be made with respect to people of color. No one person, judge or nominee will speak in a female or people of color voice. I need not remind you that Justice Clarence Thomas represents a part but not the whole of African-American thought on many subjects. Yet, because I accept the proposition that, as Judge Resnik describes it, "to judge is an exercise of power" and because as, another former law school classmate, Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard Law School, states "there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives - no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging," I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that--it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging.

Objectivity is a worthy aspiration, but"there is no objective stance." Okay -- no one's ever solved this paradox. But it's possible to cut deeper into the circumstances under which attempts to impassively follow the law might leave a judge high and dry. Take, for example, the line drawn by a certain freshman senator in 2006, explaining why he would not vote to confirm John Roberts:

It is absolutely clear to me that Judge Roberts truly loves the law. He couldn't have achieved his excellent record as an advocate before the Supreme Court without that passion for the law, and it became apparent to me in our conversation that he does, in fact, deeply respect the basic precepts that go into deciding 95 percent of the cases that come before the Federal court -- adherence to precedence, a certain modesty in reading statutes and constitutional text, a respect for procedural regularity, and an
impartiality in presiding over the adversarial system. All of these characteristics make me want to vote for Judge Roberts.

The problem I face -- a problem that has been voiced by some of my other colleagues, both those who are voting for Mr. Roberts and those who are voting against Mr. Roberts -- is that while adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95 percent of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95 percent of the cases -- what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the
world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy.

In those 5 percent of hard cases, the constitutional text will not be directly on point. The language of the statute will not be perfectly clear. Legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision. In those circumstances, your decisions about whether affirmative action is an appropriate response to the history of discrimination in this country or whether a general right of privacy encompasses a more specific right of
women to control their reproductive decisions or whether the commerce clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce, whether a person who is disabled has the right to be accommodated so they can work alongside those who are nondisabled -- in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.

We can't all be Barack Obama. But that precision -- the ability to spell out the conditions under which the law will not provide clear guidance -- is a capability I would hope for in a Supreme Court justice.

Frank-ly disgusting

There's probably no point in continuing to howl at the moon as assorted Democrats rush for the exits on HCR. But I can't help myself. Barney Frank is the latest to cut off all chance of following through:

I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform. Because I do not think that the country would be well served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the senate rule which means that 59 are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of this process.

Respect for democratic procedures? It would be "wrong" to change "the rules by which the health care bill was considered"?  "Procedure" is the cross on which the Democrats have hung themselves. It's the procedure -- dragged out for the better part of a year by Republican bad faith and Democratic accommodation and infighting -- that has disgusted voters, not the substance of the two quite well-constructed bills now pending.
Whom does Frank think he's dealing with? Respect for "procedure" means acceding to concerted Republican malpractice - in the bad faith negotiations that Baucus allowed to drag on for months, giving the Republicans in the 'gang of six' most of what they wanted; in the relentless demagoguery of the summer; in Republican rejection of a bill that is as "Republican" as any Republican with any integrity (that is, today, none) could wish, in its privatization of near-universal care and deficit discipline; in the Republicans' successful obstruction of every step of the process until they breached the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority. And of course, there is absolutely no violation of proper Congressional procedure in the House passing a bill that the Senate has already passed.

The second-biggest health insurance exchange in the U.S. is...

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Almost from the (extremely rocky) inception of the ACA marketplace in fall 2013, CMS encouraged the development of commercial Direct Enrollment (DE) platforms. These were websites hosted by commercial brokers and health insurers themselves that could collect income and other eligibility data and send it to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, which would determine subsidy eligibility and then send the application back to the private platform for completion of the enrollment process.  During Open Enrollment for 2019, CMS began approving brokers for Enhanced Direct Enrollment, EDE, which enabled commercial brokers to complete the whole transaction. At present there are 43 approved EDE platforms interfacing with HealthCare.gov, mostly hosted by health insurers.

The Trump administration encouraged DEs and EDEs, in keeping with its general enthusiasm for commercial brokers and hostility toward the federally established nonprofit Navigator program, for which it gutted funding -- not to say the government-run exchanges.  EDE promotion also dovetailed with the Trump CMS's development of a parallel ACA-noncompliant market of medically underwritten, lightly regulated "short-term limited development" (STLD) plans (which the administration rendered neither short-term nor of limited duration unless state governments make them so). Brokers that deploy DEs or EDEs can sell and promote STLD plans, though not on the DE/EDE platform per se. Development of the DE/EDE program had begun in the Obama administration, however.

Two speeches at Osawatomie

Very interesting that for his landmark speech yesterday spotlighting middle class stagnation and growing income inequality as "the defining issue of our time," Obama chose to channel Teddy Roosevelt. He delivered the hour-long speech in Osawatomie, Kansas*, where in 1910 T.R. laid down a long manifesto calling for a "new nationalism" that would empower the federal government to effectively regulate powerful business interests and so deliver a "square deal" that would "deliver a more substantial equality of opportunity." Obama cited Roosevelt at length, drawing an extended parallel between T.R.'s fight to break up monopolies and establish fair labor laws and a progressive tax code and his own quest to re-establish effective regulation and more taxes on the wealthy. E. J. Dionne does a nice job today exploring the relevance of T.R.'s agenda to our own time.

Primed by Dionne, I took a look at T.R.'s speech yesterday evening. One thing leapt out at me: Roosevelt, unlike Obama, was a fighter, bred in the bone. His speech in many ways casts the fight against the entrenched privilege of special interests as a moral equivalent of war, as William James famously called for in struggles to better the human condition. T.R. was James' pupil.  But he was less willing than James to abjure war itself as the crucible of character. While James, according to one scholar, "championed the rigor and strenuousness of his rough-riding former pupil Theodore Roosevelt," ... "he also slammed Roosevelt for his ''gushes over war as the ideal condition of human society, for the manly strenuousness which it involves.'' In the Osawatomie speech, Roosevelt addressed himself throughout to listening Civil War veterans, drawing parallels between their battle and the one he was joining to strengthen democracy and curb special interests.

More comprehensively than he has at any point since he took office (though not more so than in the '08 campaign), Obama yesterday directly confronted Republicans for their belief that "the market will take care of everything," for putting forward further deregulation as a panacea, for advocating trickle-down economics (he used the phrase), for blocking restoration of Clinton-era tax rates for the wealthy, for trying to strangle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in its crib.   But for better and/or worse, Obama will never conceive his political task as the sublimated war that Teddy Roosevelt saw himself in:

The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now.

Mitigating the Medicaid cuts

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Look for the helpers

The enactment of the Republicans’ monstrous budget bill in one sense sets politics and policy at odds, at least for Democrats. Annie Karni, congressional report for The New York Times, frames a political problem for Dems:

A challenge for Ds who expect the passage of this bill to help them win elections is that it may take a while for people to feel the full negative effects. Rs front loaded some temporary tax cuts for working people and backloaded cuts to Medicaid to hit after the midterms.

As KFF’s Larry Levitt points out in response, funding cuts and some impediments to enrollment in the ACA’s private-plan marketplace kick in immediately or almost immediately, i.e., for OEP 2026, beginning Nov. 1 this year (and Charles Gaba has tallied provisions in both Medicaid and marketplace that will take effect before the midterms). That said, Republicans will of course exploit the time lag, which extends to other benefit cuts as well (SNAP, student loans, energy credits), using it to add plausibility to their claims that, as MAGA go-along Tom Kean Jr. (NJ-7) boasted, “we protected Medicaid for every intended beneficiary in New Jersey and across the country.” That is, the bill does not change Medicaid eligibility for anyone (except various classes of lawfully present noncitizens, who are just human waste in Republican parlance). Instead, Republicans set up a thicket of administrative enrollment impediments and cuts to state funding (mostly delayed) that will increase the uninsured population by some 12 million by CBO’s estimate (with another 4 million losing coverage due to Republicans’ refusal to extend the enhanced ACA marketplace subsidies funded through 2025*). If enrollment reductions on that scale don’t happen — as many Republicans claim — neither will the cuts to federal spending that help fund the bill’s gargantuan tax cuts.

All that said, I’d like to consider Democrats’ alleged political “challenge” from the opposite end of the telescope. To what extent can Democrats in state government — and, more speculatively, in Congress — mitigate the coverage and funding losses? Administrative barriers can be erected with steel or Styrofoam — though Trump’s CMS, led by people whose chief passion in life is to ensure that someone somewhere doesn’t get a benefit to which they’re not technically entitled**— will doubtless work to insist on steel. If Democrats take the House, they may be able to delay or reduce some spending cuts — the annual ratchet-down of the provider tax safe harbor, for example, strikes me as the kind of thing Congress is prone to pause.

Egregious fraud, quasi-fraud, and not-quite-fraud in ACA marketplace brokerage

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Do they print $6,400 bills?

The outbreak of large-scale agent fraud in the ACA marketplace, in which agents have switched marketplace enrollees from one plan to another without their authorization or in some cases their knowledge, or have newly enrolled people without their consent or knowledge, has agents and the trade groups that represent them up in arms. There are multiple good reasons for this: their clients are harmed (as the plans they think they’re enrolled in are cancelled), the integrity of the marketplace as a whole is compromised — and their own incomes are denuded, as their commissions are terminated in favor of a new agent of record.

Much of the unauthorized (or inadequately authorized) plan-switching and enrollment appears to be straight-out fraud, along the lines alleged in a putative class action (Conswallo Turner et al. v. Enhance Health, LLC et al.): Leads generated by ads that misrepresent marketplace premium subsidies as cash benefits, fed to agents in call centers who obtain the minimal personal information needed (name, D.O.B. and state*) to switch the enrollee’s plan (or newly enroll her) with a new agent listed as the Agent of Record, without the enrollee’s understanding or consent. (CMS requires agents to obtain consent before acting on an account, and recently clarified that mere check-box consent is “likely not be sufficient to meet…new requirements,” but that soft prohibition seems to have been honored largely in the breach.)

Egregious fraud is happening. But the ease with which agents can alter or create an account on an EDE and collect a commission, coupled with the millions of people eligible for multiple zero-premium plans, further coupled with ads that are misleading to varying degrees, suggests a broader gray area in which some agents may be misleading marketplace enrollees to varying degrees.

Obama, dis-illusioner in chief

Obama's year-end press conference on Friday was preceded by breathless expectations, half-voiced, that he would, I don't know, call the election results illegitimate, suspend transition, call on electors not to cast their votes for Trump...the hopes were inchoate.  And the despair when Obama launched into his characteristic slow-talking, methodical, low-drama point-by-points was the Twitter equivalent of Lamentations.

Listening while watching Twitter (twistening?), at first I shared the disillusionment. But gradually I began to feel that Obama's performance was literally that -- dis-illusionment. Obama was telling us some hard truths about the degradation of our institutions. His meta-message was: Russia didn't do this to us - we did it to ourselves.

In fact he was explicit on that point. Here is where my own (wavering) reaction tipped from "he's explaining away his soft-touch response to Russian meddling" to "he's telling us the truth":

We're not cutting federal spending, we're just reducing it

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Cut? What cut?

Regarding Republican plans to cut (or theoretically, not cut) federal funding for the ACA Medicaid expansion: What’s funky about this narrative from Ben Leonard in Politico?

Some moderate Republicans and vulnerable GOP incumbents have signaled opposition to cuts to the program itself but have left the door open to supporting a reduction in the federal share of payments to the expansion states.

---

That’ a self-cancelling statement. A “reduction in the federal share of payments to the expansion states” is the only type of cut to the program under consideration. You can’t “oppose cuts to the program itself” and cutting federal funding for it. While the letter from twelve House moderates to leadership purported to exactly that, their obfuscation shouldn’t be reported as possible.

The ACA stipulated that the federal government would pay 90%* of the costs of enrollees rendered eligible by the expansion — adults under age 65 and not on disability with income below 138% of the federal poverty level — because expanding eligibility in that way would be unaffordable for states under their normal federal match rates (deemed the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, or FMAP).

That remains true today. If the 90% FMAP for the expansion population is repealed, so that each state is only reimbursed at the FMAP it receives for other Medicaid populations (ranging from 50% for high-income states to 77% for the lowest-income states), no state will able to afford the full expansion. The 50-state 10-year tab would total $626 billion, according to KFF. Some states with progressive governments might extend eligibility to all or most adults with income up to 100% FPL, as a handful did before the ACA expansion was enacted. But that’s about it. Repealing the ACA’s 90% FMAP for the expansion population will, over the course of a handful of years at most, strip Medicaid coverage from most-to-all of the 21 million adults currently covered (or those who would replace them — Medicaid has a lot of turnover).

Leonard’s formulation above has some technical accuracy in that Republicans theoretically could cut all federal funding for those rendered eligible for Medicaid only by expansion criteria — effectively barring coverage for most adults not on disability in many states. But that was never on the table. By CBO’s estimate, reducing the FMAP for the expansion population to the FMAP for all other eligible populations in that state, would reduce spending by $561 billion over 10 years. That’s the lion’s share of the $880 billion/10 year cut target established by the budget resolutions under which Republicans are writing their spending bills.

Recently, a lesser but still damaging cut the expansion FMAP has been floated: Republicans could impose a per capita cap on funding for the expansion population alone, which would mean that funding each year increases at a rate below that of likely medical inflation (and would fall radically short in a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, during which Medicaid held the line against mass increases in the uninsured population). KFF estimates that this cut would cost states $246 billion over ten years. Worse, the FMAP would keep dropping so the effects compound over decades. And again, there are no contemplated “cuts to the program itself” other than cuts to the FMAP.

Well, check that: imposing work requirements, which impose onerous reporting requirements on enrollees and therefore drive eligible people off the rolls (by design), are an indirect cut, aimed primarily at the expansion group, and supported by virtually all Republicans. But they wouldn’t call this barrier to enrollment a “cut to the program.

Promising not to cut benefits while defunding the expansion is an economic iteration of the party line, articulated by House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie and effectively seconded by House Speaker Mike Johnson, that the expansion of eligibility to the “able-bodied” diverts resources from "the disabled, the destitute, the people that Medicaid was originally designed for" — and defunding it is therefore strengthening Medicaid.

As I noted two weeks ago (time flies when you’re gutting vital programs), the April 14 letter from twelve Republican House “moderates” to leadership (alluded to in the Politico passage above) purportedly balked at steep Medicaid cuts, asserting in the first paragraph, “Balancing the federal budget must not come at the expense of those who depend on these benefits for their health and economic security.” But actually the letter endorses cutting the expansion, excluding the low-income adults insured through the expansion from the groups the signers vowed to protect (my italics):

We support targeted reforms to improve program integrity, reduce improper payments, and modernize delivery systems to fix flaws in the program that divert resources away from children, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and pregnant women – those who the program was intended to help. However, we cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations.

This gaslighting is still widely misunderstood; every day I read assertions (as above) that the letter’s signers are balking at major cuts.

- - -

UPDATE, 5/1/25: More no cuts/just reductions nonsense, via Punchbowl:

A. "Moderates" are "concerned"...

GOP moderates concerned about Medicaid cuts will meet with House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) this week as the panel struggles to come up with potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the popular program.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) told us this will be his fourth conversation with Guthrie, who has been talking to concerned members individually for weeks. Van Drew was among a dozen Republicans who warned House GOP leaders that they wouldn’t vote for a final reconciliation package with deep Medicaid cuts. 

“We’re going to hold their feet to the fire to make sure there isn’t a lasting change,” Van Drew told us. “Attitude is what matters most here. We’re not just going to roll.” 

B. "Moderates" will gut the ACA expansion...

Guthrie said the panel is still considering whether to lower the federal match rate or implement per capita caps for the ACA Medicaid expansion population.

GOP moderates are more supportive of changes to the expansion population, with Bacon, Van Drew and Malliotakis saying they would consider those proposals. However, this may cause issues in the Senate.

C. Susan Collins deploys Congress-speak to make it clear that she does not want to defund coverage for the expansion population (though she will cut it via work requirements):

“The one thing that I would support are carefully crafted work requirements for able-bodied adults without pre-school children,” Collins said. “But I want to make sure we’re not depriving seniors, children, low-income families, people with disabilities and our rural hospitals.”

No one likes to say "low-income adults" -- who could care about them? So "low-income families" is the universal designation of the ACA expansion population. It's not exactly inaccurate, as a family is hurt by stripping healthcare access from its adults. [End update]

The ACA was built on “kludges” — patches laid on an existing patchwork of programs and practices. There is no inherent reason for the FMAP for the expansion population to exceed that of the FMAP for the disabled, children, and the low-income elderly. In a political world where rational policy were possible, each state’s FMAP might be blended and unified in a revenue-neutral way. (Or better yet, the federal government would assume complete responsibility for the program, as for Medicare.) But that is not going to happen. Meanwhile, the expansion has served as the chief engine for the ACA cutting the uninsured rate in half since inception. (The ACA marketplace, enhanced by the increased subsidies enacted by the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021, may recently have reached rough parity with the expansion in reducing the ranks of the uninsured — but those enhanced subsidies expire at the end of this year unless Republicans extend them.)

Extending Medicaid coverage to 21 million low-income adults has been a major policy accomplishment, vastly increasing national well-being. To borrow a short list of benefits from Jason Sattler (aka LOLGOP):

1. It cuts crime, especially drug arrests.

2. It increases families’ entire financial well-being.

3. It creates jobs.

4. It helps hospitals.

So of course Republicans want to kill the expansion. They just don’t want you to notice.

*Originally 100%, phased down over three years.

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