Cracks in the Dam

Republicans have had great success over the first year of Obama's presidency by forming a unified block in Congress to oppose ANYTHING Obama wanted done. This froze up the Senate in particular, driving down Obama's poll numbers by keeping anything from getting done.

Finally, with the passage of health care and the rejuvenation of the democrats, it seems like some GOP senators are realizing this strategy has failed:

A top Republican player in the financial reform debate Wednesday said his Republican colleagues have made a "major strategic error" in allowing a Democrats-only bill to pass out of committee.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) effectively conceded that Republicans had squandered their leverage over the sweeping legislation by failing to rally around bipartisan talks last month and that Democrats are right in thinking the politics of the issue are firmly on their side.

Democrat Chris Dodd is saying that he's heard similar thoughts from other GOP senators.

Democrats have finally learned what generations of parents have been teaching their children: the best way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them. They'll cave.

Perverted Priests

Andrew Sullivan writes what is to me a very persuasive explanation of the child molestation scandel in the Roman Catholic Church:

What's fascinating in the steady onslaught of new incidences of previous cover-ups of child rape and molestation in the Catholic hierarchy is the notion that the hierarchs tended to see child rape as a sin rather than a crime. Hence the emphasis on forgiveness, therapy, repentance - rather than removal, prosecution and investigation. Obviously, there's one reason for this: they were defending the reputation of the church by hiding its darkest secrets, and they were using the authority of religion to do so. But I suspect it's also true that this is how they genuinely thought of child rape or abuse.

How could that be, one asks? Well: imagine you are a young gay Catholic teen coming into his sexuality and utterly convinced that it's vile and evil. What do you do? I can tell you from my own experience. You bury it. But of course, you can't bury it. So you objectify sex; and masturbate. You cannot have sexual or even emotional contact with a teenage girl, because it is simply impossible, and you certainly cannot have sex with another teenage boy or you will burn in hell for ever ... so you have sex with images in your own head. Your sex life becomes completely solitary. It can be empowered by pornography or simply teenage imagination. Some shard of beauty, some aspect of sensuality, some vision of desire will keep you sexually energized for days.

Ending the Age of Rising Inequality

This is good.

For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.

Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor.

Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction. This fact helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to spend so much political capital on the issue, even though it did not appear to be his top priority as a presidential candidate. Beyond the health reform’s effect on the medical system, it is the centerpiece of his deliberate effort to end what historians have called the age of Reagan.

Protecting the Church, Not the Children

Today in a NYT editorial:

German Catholics are questioning Benedict’s role nearly 30 years ago when, as archbishop of Munich, he allowed the transfer of a priest molester. That priest had managed to remain at work until last week when he was suspended as the scandal grew with news media scrutiny. There are also questions about Benedict’s directive as a Vatican cardinal in 2001 that bishops worldwide were to keep pedophilia investigations secret under threat of ex-communication.

The American church’s investigative board of laity cautioned “there must be consequences” for prelates who orchestrated cover-ups. This has not been fulfilled, even though the board criticized management of rogue priests by Cardinals Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest diocese, and Edward Egan, the former leader of the New York archdiocese. The pope’s expression of “shame and remorse” for the Irish scandal is not to be doubted. But what is most urgently needed was well described by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel — “truth and clarity about everything that took place.”

The Pope's expression of 'shame' is not to be doubted? Believe me, I can doubt it. Words don't matter at this point, it's actions that count. Words are cheap, and in lieu of real action, themselves shameful.

The Roman Catholic Church can go bankrupt under the weight of law suits and disappear as an institution, for all I care, unless it comes clean as to this monstrous evil it has perpetrated (and is still hiding).

Health-Care Coverage, Period

I agree with James Fallows on the significance of the health reform bill:

We'll talk [later] about the many things that will prove to be wrong with the bill, and the many more steps that will need to be taken as far into the future as anyone can see, so as to balance and rebalance the potentially-limitless cost of new medical procedures with the inevitably-limited resources that individuals, families, companies, and governments can spend.

For now, the significance of the vote is moving the United States FROM a system in which people can assume they will have health coverage IF they are old enough (Medicare), poor enough (Medicaid), fortunate enough (working for an employer that offers coverage, or able themselves to bear expenses), or in some other way specially positioned (veterans; elected officials)... TOWARD a system in which people can assume they will have health-care coverage. Period.

That is how the entire rest of the developed world operates, as noted yesterday. It is the way the United States operates in most realms other than health coverage. Of course all older people are eligible for Medicare. Of course all drivers must have auto insurance. Of course all children must have a public school they can attend. Etc. Such "of course" rules offer protection for individuals but even more important, they reduce the overall costs to society, compared with one in which extreme risks are uncontained. The simplest proof is, again, Medicare: Does anyone think American life would be better now, on an individual or a collective level, if we were in an environment in which older people might have to beg for treatment as charity cases when they ran out of cash? And in which everyone had to spend the preceding years worried about that fate?

There are countless areas in which America does it one way and everyone else does it another, and I say: I prefer the American way. Our practice on medical coverage is not one of these. Despite everything that is wrong with this bill and the thousand adjustments that will be necessary in the years to come, this is a very important step.

Drowned

The continuing reports surfacing about the failure of Catholic church officials to stop priests who abused children sexually boggle the mind.  Today's NYT has a major article on one particular case in Wisconsin, which implicates the current pope himself.

The failure of the Catholic church to come clean on this issue is a major indictment of everything they stand for.  I can think of few things more evil than molesting children.  This kind of moral perversion at the heart of the church requires nothing short of church-wide, sustained repentance.  Failure to do so brings into question their right to call anyone else to repentance, which is at the heart of their mission.

Jesus himself said, "But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."  Matthew 18:6.  

I would say they are in DEEP TROUBLE, if the gospel is true.  But true or not, to hell with these child molesters.

Hating Everything But Believing in Nothing

I just couldn't pass up this quote by James Kunstler:

It was amusing to see the Republican party inveigh against health insurance reform as if they were a synod of Presbyterian necromancers girding the nation for a takeover by the spawn of hell. This was the same gang, by the way, who championed the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, then regarded as the most reckless giveaway of public funds in human history. Along the way, they enlisted an army of nay-sayers representing everything dark, disgraceful, and ignorant in the American character. If the Republicans keep going this way, they'll end up with something worse than Naziism: a party that hates everything but believes in absolutely nothing.

At least this once a workable majority in the government has stood up to the forces of cruelty and injustice, and whatever else happens to us in the course of this long emergency, it will be a good thing if the party of fairness and justice identifies its adversaries for what they are: not "partners in governing," or any such academical-therapeutic bullshit, but enemies of every generous impulse in the national character.

I hope that Mr. Obama's party can carry this message clearly into the electoral battles ahead, painting the Republican opposition for what it is: a gang of hypocritical, pietistic sadists, seeking pleasure in the suffering of others while pretending to be Christians, devoid of sympathy, empathy, or any inclination to simple human kindness, constant breakers of the Golden Rule, enemies of the common good.

Well that didn't take long

Yesterday I predicted public opinion would swing to support health care reform. I didn't think it would happen this quickly, and the more Obama campaigns on it the higher those numbers will go:

Americans by 9 percentage points have a favorable view of the health care overhaul that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, a notable turnaround from surveys before the vote that showed a plurality against it.
By 49%-40% those surveyed say it was "a good thing" rather than a bad one that Congress passed the bill. Half describe their reaction in positive terms, as "enthusiastic" or "pleased," while about four in 10 describe it in negative ways, as "disappointed" or "angry."

The largest single group, 48%, calls the bill "a good first step" that should be followed by more action on health care. An additional 4% also have a favorable view, saying the bill makes the most important changes needed in the nation's health care system.

This doesn't say a lot for American intelligence. But it does say that we love a winner. And it says we hate the congressional process. I can imagine that a month ago when a pollster called up someone and asked "what do you think of health care?" that person was so pissed off at congress that they said "I hate it" even if they were in fact inclined to support the actual policies.

To Life!

And now, in honor of the Health Reform victory, a great song:

Today its Spring and the World Looks Different

The days after Scott Brown won in Massachussets were the closest I've come to giving up on the Democratic Party and the ability of politics to make a difference in this country. I promised myself and others that if Obama didn't give a total effort to passing health care reform, if the democrats didn't step up and deliver when they had the votes, I would never support another Democrat. Whats the point if they are willing to give up that easily?

But they didn't give up. They decided, for once in their lives, to win. Stop being afraid, and win. Its like jumping off the diving board for the first time. Absolutely terrifying, but after you've done it you wonder what took you you so long.

So now the landscape of America is changed and everything in politics will be different. Here are some observations I've had since this weekend:

1. Nancy Pelosi has been the most under-appreciated figure in politics, but not for much longer. When you think about it, why has Hillary Clinton been a feminist icon while Nancy Pelosi has not? Pelosi deserves it more in every way. She rose to the top on her own. And now she is responsible for passing the most important legislation of her generation. As has become clear, without Pelosi's fortitude health care would have died with Scott Brown's victory.

2. A prediction: the polls will soon swing around to show support for the health care bill. Republicans can no longer lie about death panels and government take-over. People will realize what a common sense and moderate bill this was.

3. Which leads to another prediction: The craziness of the Republicans will give the Democrats plenty of ammunition for 2010, as summed up by mistermix over at Balloon Juice:

The minute Obama signs the bill, the Democrats can say that health insurance cannot be denied for a pre-existing condition, and that they had to fight every single Republican for this right. That message is simple, it hits people where they live, and it addresses a universal concern.

The commercials cutting from a kid with diabetes to John Boehner yelling “Hell No You Can’t” are probably already being made. They will be the Willie Horton ads of the 2010 election.

4. The big question going forward is this: will this win on health care give the democrats momentum to use the rest of this year to take on the rest of the big legislative issues still on their plate (finance reform, energy policy, education, immigration) or will they instead be so battle-weary that they avoid the hard issues, happy to just run on health care in 2010? My hope is the former, but my fear is the latter.

My hope is that the Democrats realize they've got a big freaking hammer in their hand, and that they decide to use. Realize that if you stand up for whats right, the American people will support you. For once in your life, decide to win!