The Followspot

Broken record

In less than three days, Obama will be giving another of his make-or-break speeches. Once again, he'll be trying (and, I expect, failing) to redefine the health reform debate that has careened so far out of reason or control. On the Sunday gasbag shows, White House officials prepared the way -- for another round of insipid boilerplate and equivocation. From the NYTimes:

Three days before President Obama is to address a joint session of Congress about overhauling the health care system, administration officials on Sunday continued to characterize a new government program for the nation’s 50 million uninsured as worthwhile but not essential to legislation.

David Axelrod, a White House senior adviser, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Mr. Obama “believes the public option is a good tool.” But Mr. Axelrod added: “It shouldn’t define the whole health-care debate.”

Oh no, the public option certainly doesn't define the whole debate. The right-wing whackjobs have taken care of that and now it's insane conspiracy theories about commie-fascist death panels and withholding health care from Republicans that drive the "debate".

The White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who appeared on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” sidestepped questions on whether Mr. Obama still regarded the so-called public option as a necessity for any bill he would back.

“We’re trying to provide choice and competition for individuals and small business owners,” Mr. Gibbs said when asked if the public option was “essential.”

“The president strongly believes we need to provide choice and competition,” he said. Pressed on whether Mr. Obama would demand that a government insurance program be included in legislation, Mr. Gibbs said that it could be a “valuable component” of any health plan. And asked whether the president would reject a plan that did not include government insurance, Mr. Gibbs responded: “We are not going to prejudge where the process will be.”

[...]

And The Associated Press reported that on a call with prominent liberal House members Friday, Mr. Obama refused to be pinned down.

In his talk-show appearance, Mr. Gibbs said, however, that Mr. Obama will clarify his position in his address to Congress and is considering broadly outlining his own legislation instead of letting Congress set the terms.

It's nauseating. Just fucking make up your mind, already. Stand for something, dammit. I have this nightmare vision of getting to 2012 with a president that has spent the last four years refusing to be "pinned down" about anything of importance.

The endless parroting -- "choice and competition," "competition and choice," blah, blah, blah. What does that mean, exactly? That's right: Nothing. There hasn't been one component of actual reform (versus insignificant tinkering at the edges) that Obama hasn't supported, then "indicated" he'd trade away, and back and forth, yes, no or maybe, ad infinitum.

Are we supposed to cheer that Obama might propose an actual plan? It beggars the imagination that this "clarification" will be any less nebulous than his statements thus far when the latest trial balloon is floated using words like "considering" and "broadly outlining." If he truly wants to "clarify" this clusterfuck, he'll ditch everything and start over by first reading the riot act to the Senate Democrats and then taking a tire iron to their future electoral ambitions.

That won't happen, though. We'll probably get another mealy-mouthed paean to bipartisanship, competition and choice along with heart-felt thanks for the cooperation of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries in fashioning this historic legislation. Feh.

An aside: Not only have I called and emailed the White House, I mailed an ink-and-paper letter to the president in which I promised that he will lose my vote if a fully competitive public option is not passed. Late last month, I received a reply. It's a canned response, brimming with bland boilerplate. The letter includes this line:

There are tough choices to be made, and I will bring businesses and workers, health care providers and patients, and Democrats and Republicans together to create a system that delivers better care and puts the Nation on a much sounder long-term fiscal path.

I am then urged to "learn more about [Obama's] agenda" online. The letter ends with this:

I share the sense of urgency that millions of Americans have voiced. I watched as my ailing mother struggled with stacks of insurance forms in the last moments of her life. This is not who we are as a Nation; together, we will fix it.

Sorry, but Obama's language and tone are so dispassionate, so dry, so brittle, that the merest gust of Teabagger bullshit can easily shatter his narrative -- and that's exactly what's been happening.

Americans are dying because they can't get or afford health insurance. Americans in the hundreds of thousands are facing medical bankruptcy even with insurance. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies are posting the biggest profits on record and they're lavishing millions in salaries and bonuses on their executives while children are denied life-saving treatments. How can these fuckers be winning?

I know Obama is a cool customer. However, if he wants to change the scorched landscape of American health care, he had better get angry --  very angry and very soon. This is a life-and-death debate and Obama's got to man up and fight. Get in touch with your lizard-brain, man.

[Cross-posted at The Broad View.]

Afghanistan Outpost

Our endless floundering in the Afghan quagmire is finally commanding some attention. Miraculously, it's taken only eight years for the American public to realize that something is gravely amiss with our Central Asian Adventure. In his latest NYTimes column, Bob Herbert compares Obama's escalation in Afghanistan to Johnson's in Vietnam and concludes that both presidents listened to the wrong advisors:

President Obama is being told (as Lyndon Johnson was told about Vietnam) that more resources will do the trick in Afghanistan — more troops, more materiel, more money.

Supporters of the war offer an array of rationales in a way that reminds me of Bush's constantly mutating excuses for the Iraq invasion: Every explanation carefully avoids the real, bedrock motivation for our occupation of a hostile country.

After all the huffing and puffing about Iraq's imaginary WMD, Saddam's imaginary ties to al Qaeda, Saddam's insanity, the regime's cruelty and oppression, establishing viral democracy in the region and more, the real reason for our invasion of Iraq was as obvious as it was unspoken.

When Dick Cheney pored over maps of the Iraqi oil fields with petroleum company executives during the secret meetings of his Energy Task Force, all was clear. When our military forces in Baghdad guarded the Oil Ministry while ignoring the looting at the National Museum, it was clear that file cabinets were vital security objectives but the priceless heritage of early civilization was expendable. Securing the Iraqi oil fields was our strategic objective in the first resource war of the 21st century and establishing massive permanent bases and a friendly puppet government was how we'd do it.

Afghanistan started differently. We had legitimate objectives at first --  the capture of bin Laden and the destruction of al Qaeda's network of training camps and safe havens in the country. Once we'd botched that, the stage was set for what we have now -- a prolonged and ineffectual occupation in an increasingly hostile environment. Nevertheless, we're establishing massive bases and protecting a puppet government that, more and more, is unfriendly.

So why are we still there? Of course, we're saving face. God forbid that we have to tuck our tails between our legs and accept ignoble retreat, defeated by a bunch of violent country bumpkins in a repeat of the Soviet debacle. But again, mostly bogus excuses abound. We're saving the Afghanis from the oppressive Taliban, whether or not they want to be saved. We're watering the seeds of democracy in Central Asia, despite propping up a rampantly corrupt regime with no support outside Kabul. We're fighting the scourge of opium, even though the poppy fields are once again blooming abundantly after a hiatus under the Taliban. (Interestingly, the Taliban originally banned opium production under Sharia law, but now they embrace the trade as a way to raise both cash and allies in the countryside.)

Afghanistan looks like a dry hole in terms of our strategic interests, yet Obama is doubling down. Perhaps the answer lies next door. Our bases in Afghanistan are the launchpads for invasion should events take a very bad turn in Pakistan. I can't imagine any other reason to put the spurs to this conflict.

Bush made a precedent of "pre-emptive" war in Iraq and now Obama seems to agree that it's a good idea in Afghanistan. Thus we're drawn deeper and deeper into both real and potential conflicts in countries and cultures where our understanding is shallow at best. And nobody talks about it.

We persist in believing that we must police the entire globe through the vast network of military outposts we've established and pay for with money that might otherwise be used for universal health care, investment in modern infrastructure, R&D in energy, medicine, climate control and more. Will we ever, as a nation, grow up?

[Cross-posted at The Broad View.]

The Reaper Chronicles

Every aspect of the health insurance "debate" makes me purple with rage. This morning's AP story quotes Sibelius' claim that the wretched Obama is willing to drop the public option in favor of the useless co-op nonsense.

There are no words to describe my complete disgust with Obama and the rest of the Washington Democrats. Their gutless incompetence has in all likelihood doomed real health insurance reform for another generation. Actually, a humane, civilized health care system is probably impossible in the U.S., given our hostility to doing anything to help our fellow citizens -- especially those who aren't white -- and the opposition of a loud, easily manipulated plurality of stupid Americans. Yes, there is a significant percentage of American citizens who are proudly ignorant, gullible dolts. These are the kind of people who give Democracy a bad name.

The Rabid Right's latest cri de coeur -- "Obama Death Panels" -- has been scooped up and amplified by an equally stupid and irresponsible media class. So far, Obama has been singularly ineffective in countering the hysteria. As Maureen Dowd writes in today's NYTimes:

Sarahcuda [Sarah Palin] knows, from her brush with Barry on the campaign trail, that he is vulnerable on matters that demand a visceral and muscular response rather than a logical and book-learned one.

Okay, here's a visceral response to the idiotic notion that Obama will pull the plug on Grandma. Here's the story of a real Grandma, my husband's Grandma.(All names have been changed.)

Louise had metastatic cancer. She had survived breast cancer many years earlier but now, in her eighties, the cancer had returned. One bout of chemotherapy was enough to convince her that she didn't want to spend what was left of her life enduring painful torture. I think it was the right decision. She lasted another two years and was relatively healthy until the last three or four months. The "cure" would probably have killed her far more quickly by weakening her with poison and pain. And it is those last three or four months that concern us now.

Harry, my husband's grandfather and Louise's husband, was in his mid-eighties. He was amazingly vigorous and sharp as a tack, but old age had amplified his peculiarities. He was a miser and a hoarder. And he was totally paranoid about having strangers come into his home. That, in itself, wasn't unreasonable. The elderly have good reason to feel vulnerable to strangers. As his wife's health deteriorated, however, he insisted on coping with caring for her by himself and then, when he could no longer lift her to change her soiled bedding, he enlisted his daughter Joanne's help. My husband's mother was well into her sixties and not in great shape herself.

The combination of ignorance and despair was determinative. Joanne called me one day to ask, amazingly, for my advice. She didn't know what to do, how to proceed, how to handle an increasingly untenable situation. Her stubborn, paranoid father refused to allow anyone into the house -- no nurses, no home health workers, not even Meals on Wheels.

I advised that she convince Harry that he must allow her to have professional help. At no point, I said, should she allow her father to hospitalize Louise. I told her that once her mother was in the hospital, her agony would be prolonged. She would have the tubes inserted, the machines hooked up, and she'd be kept alive as long as possible, in misery. I advised her to contact someone about home hospice care.

All Louise needed at that point was to be kept clean and comfortable. At home, she could spend her last days with family in familiar surroundings with a view of her lovely garden outside.

Harry was an autocrat and would have nothing of it. Joanne, even in her sixties, was still a cowed and impotent child when facing her father. So Louise was taken to the large hospital nearby. She was hooked up to a feeding tube, IVs and monitors. Her view out the window was of a brick wall.

Louise spent the last forty-two days of her life on her back in that hospital. No one asked about alternatives. Standard operating procedure was to prolong her life through any and all means.

There's also a dirty little secret that nobody in this health care "debate" talks about: Doctors are paid by the procedure and there's nothing like a helpless, elderly patient for the opportunity to pile on the tests and procedures. During a patient's last days in the hospital, doctors come out of the woodwork to peek in the door, glance at a chart, order an expensive test, and walk out to bill Medicare accordingly.

When Louise wasn't staring out the window in pain, she was being hauled all over the hospital for tests and x-rays for -- what, exactly? There was no question that she had terminal disease and that the end was very near. Did they think this blood test or that x-ray would tell them something they didn't already know? Did they expect to predict the exact day and hour of her death?

So for forty-two days, Louise was mindlessly kept alive while her body was being eaten to death by the cancer. Her bones had become so fragile that some time in the last week her hip broke merely from lying in the bed. Her guts had turned to putrid goo. Finally, she died.

The hospital bill was, of course, stratospheric. Miserly Harry didn't care, though. Medicare picked up most of it and what they didn't cover, supplemental insurance did. And it was all totally, utterly unnecessary. Harry was rich enough that he could have paid for round-the-clock nursing at home. There would have been no feeding tube, no monitors, no IVs. Louise would have died weeks sooner, in her own bedroom, and been spared what passes for "care" in America's modern hospital system.

But no one in a position of authority spoke up. Louise wasn't given the chance to choose her own fate. Every day in the hospital, she begged to go home. Instead, she had a husband more concerned with money and his own paranoia, a willfully ignorant man happy to have someone take the problem off of his hands for free. She was left to a system that has perverted its mandate for mercy into a soulless, hypocritical exercise in milking the helpless for every penny that can be squeezed from Medicare.

So don't talk to me about "Obama's Death Panels." Don't talk to me about "pulling the plug on Grandma." Don't pretend to care about people when all you care about is demagoguing and demonizing humane health care reform to score political points.

I'm in despair that any real reform will ever be enacted. I'm sick of a country informed by brutality and stupidity. I wonder what all those imbecilic "Town Hell" screamers would be screaming if they found themselves in Louise's hospital bed.

(Cross-posted at The Broad View.)

This American Life

The news lately -- some sad, some farcical, some infuriating -- presents a target-rich environment for any blogger. The only problem is, "Where to begin?"

Lately every other day, it seems, has been punctuated by another celebrity death. I am totally mystified by the prolonged brouhaha over Michael Jackson's demise. I thought The Freak Show that was M.J. for the past twenty years was barely on the radar anymore. Who wanted to hear about a disgraced, unsavory pedophile addicted to self-mutiliation and an infantile grandiosity? Apparently, half the globe. Now there's a tidal wave of distraught fans ready to immolate themselves on his funeral pyre in an elaborate parody of grief? Sure, as long as the cameras and helicopters are hovering over the writhing, narcissistic mob.

Then there's the latest episode of America's Gubernatorial Freaks, the smash reality show wherein state chief executives from around the country vie for the title of Biggest Horse's Ass. Thrill to the spectacular idiocies of "Macaca" Allen, Elliot Spitzer, Rod Blagojevich, and the latest contestants -- Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin. Talk about a cage match! Just when you think you've seen the ultimate in addled egos from "Bull of the Pampas" Sanford, Madame Moosejaw Palin comes along and blows him away with a single insane presser/pity-party.

You settle in for a prolonged mocking of one elected hypocrite and before you know it, another comes along. Or a mega-celebrity death pushes the lucky pol off the front page.

Oddly enough, the one death that saddened me the most was that of pitchman Billy Mays. Some people found him totally annoying. Many more -- myself included -- thought of him as an American original. I could count on seeing Billy almost every day on tv, pitching OxiClean or Kaboom from his roster of household products, and somehow I trusted him. I never ordered anything on the phone -- the S&H charges are where the sellers make their money -- but I have bought OxiClean and Kaboom in stores. And they work!

Billy wasn't a distant, surreal celebrity like Jackson. He wasn't an ancient icon finally leaving the scene like Ed McMahon. He was the typical overnight success who worked 25 years to get there. His new reality series on Discovery, "Pitchmen", was surprisingly enjoyable.

Billy was the king of the two-minute infomercial. He was unmistakable: "Hi! Billy Mays here for OxiClean!" His voice was a gravelly shout. His smile was eye-crinklingly happy. His hand gestures were pitch perfect, pun intended. He'd reach out with both hands as if he was grabbing you by the lapels and drawing you close to him. And he always wore the uniform of the Everyman: blue shirt open at the collar, khaki pants and sneakers.

He was only 50 years old, far too young to go. He worked with his son, Billy Mays III, from his first marriage. He had an adorable three-year-old daughter from his second marriage. The people surrounding him weren't delusional egotists, sycophantic courtiers or fame-whores. They were ordinary Americans like you and me.

Billy was astonished and thrilled that he was living the so-called American Dream. He was a very rich man when he died. It's too bad he didn't have more time to enjoy his success but I believe he died a happy man. I've been surprised at the depth of affection I grew to have for Billy and his pitches. I miss him already.

Happy 4th -- make it sane and safe!

Chiaro is back! And nothing could make me happier.

I'm not back, because I'm still nursing an injured right hand and I can't tether myself to the computer for more than a short while each day -- generally just enough to check my e-mail (and not respond at length).

If I were back, I'd probably be musing (not kindly) about the similarities between the M. Jackson feeding frenzy and the Cult of Evita.

But, on a much more upbeat note...Happy Indepndence Day.

P.S. I should've known that Chiaro would be a fan of the Vermont Country Store -- as am I. I'm about to order myself some Tired Old Ass Soak. Check it out.

Saturday Night Fever

I might be dismayed and disappointed by Obama's walk-backs on Guantanamo, torture, secrecy, Iraq withdrawal and all the other issues on which he's shown something less than political courage. There is one area, however, where Obama is a gust of fresh air: He and Michelle are totally cool. I mean, after Junior and his brush-clearing and Laura's resolute avoidance of anything resembling excitement, the Obamas are shakin' it up, big-time. (NYTimes pool photo: Aude Guerrucci)

Who can not be charmed by the president's date last night with Michelle? Obama is admirably checking off his campaign promises and one promise was dinner and a Broadway show with his wife after the campaign. They took the short flight to New York yesterday afternoon for dinner at Blue Hill in Greenwich Village and a performance of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” at the Belasco Theater. 

First of all, great choices, guys. Blue Hill is a pioneer in the local food movement and well-known for its exquisitely fresh and tasty ingredients. Michelle, as we know, is championing locally-grown, organic food. The Tony-nominated play by August Wilson recounts the experiences of a group of boardinghouse residents in the early 1900s who left sharecropping in the South for cities in the North.

Obama certainly knows how to show his lady a lovely time. Michelle revealed this last week: "You know, after 20-some-odd years of knowing a guy, you forget that your first date was at a museum. But it was, and it was obviously wonderful. It worked." A museum! I love it.

Not everyone is as tickled as I am over the geek glam of our First Couple. The pursed-lip pills in the Republican Party fired off a fresh salvo of monumental political tone-deafness:

The Republican National Committee slammed the outing in an "RNC Research Piece": "As President Obama prepares to wing into Manhattan’s theater district on Air Force One to take in a Broadway show, GM is preparing to file bankruptcy and families across America continue to struggle to pay their bills. ... Have a great Saturday evening – even if you’re not jetting off somewhere at taxpayer expense. ... PUTTING ON A SHOW: Obamas Wing Into The City For An Evening Out While Another Iconic American Company Prepares For Bankruptcy."

The RNC's Gail Gitcho added: "If President Obama wants to go to the theater, isn’t the Presidential box at the Kennedy Center good enough?”

Hmm, let's see: We're supposed to express high dudgeon over a charming date that gives a very hard-working guy a break with his wife. Oh, that's right -- the guy is a Democratic president. The most recent Republican president could jet off to the pig farm in the middle of Nowheresville, Texas for more R&R time -- 384 days -- than any other president and citizens should applaud his manly man, cowboy, brush-clearin' everyman act. Forget that all those getaways were at "taxpayer expense," not to mention the fact that we paid the slacker for eight years and he spent more than a year of that time kicking back at the "ranch".

The Repugs got nothing. If they think they're going to get any traction over the Obamas' date night, the real question is which is greater -- their stupidity or their desperation? Sing along with me, boys:

Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody.
I got some money 'cause I just got paid.
How I wish I had someone to love me.
I'm in an awful way.

Time to roll the hard six

I watched Obama's online town hall this morning. It was a good performance that probably added to his considerable store of political capital. There's one issue, though, where I am extremely angry and pessimistic: health care reform.

Obama tried to make the case for "reform" that still reserves a place for "legacy interests," i.e., private insurance companies and employer-based insurance. Why? Supposedly because people are "familiar" and "comfortable" with that framework. Right. It couldn't possibly be because the insurance lobby has most of frakking Congress in its pocket. Yes, the single-payer system as it exists in Canada and Europe is just too radical and controversial for us American rubes.

It's bullshit, pure and simple. There is no way to make a case for reform, for saving money and getting the most health care delivery on the dollar as long as some of those dollars are being siphoned off for shareholder profit and executive bonuses -- profits and bonuses based on the denial of health care.

Instead, Obama kept peddling those same old bogus cure-alls: electronic medical records and preventive care, blah, blah, blah. I don't know about you, but I'm not wild about the idea of my entire medical history in online databases given the state of electronic security and the pattern of corporate abuse of private information. It's also just another thing for private companies to sell at exorbitant rates.

Obama revealed that in the administration's health care roundtables, the insurance companies (bless their hearts!) are "coming around." How are they coming around? They're willing to stop cherry-picking and excluding people with pre-existing conditions from coverage. Their price for doing the right thing? They demand universal coverage be mandated and bought from them. Nice, eh? It's like a license to print money. What business wouldn't want everyone to be forced to buy their product?

When is somebody in Washington going to come out and say it: There is no reform or affordability until health insurance companies are cut out of the mix. Obama must know this -- after all, he's no dope. But, as Admiral Adama would say, he's got to be willing to roll the hard six.

Later came a question about affordable higher education and Obama seemed unaware of the total logical disconnect between his answer on student loans and his line on health care affordability.

He made the case (an easy one to make) that the student loan system as provided by banks and other financial firms results in graduates burdened right out of the gate with payments that keep them from pursuing careers that are socially important but not lucrative or from starting families and buying houses. In other words, debt service on the student loans harm the larger economy as well as the individual graduates.

And so -- now get this -- Obama proposes that student loans should be provided primarily by the government to cut out the middleman profits ("billions of dollars") that would otherwise go to the banks. That's billions of dollars that could go toward more loans that are more affordable. As for the banks themselves, Obama said there are plenty of other places for them to make profits; they don't need to profit from students just starting out in life.

I agree. And here I would add that there are plenty of other places for insurance companies to make profits. They don't need to suck our lifeblood by profiting on health care. That would be billions of dollars that could be used to deliver more and better care rather than lining the pockets of frakking bloodsuckers. Insurance companies already have guaranteed customers for mandated car insurance. They have home and property insurance, travel insurance, life insurance and insurance on insurance. Enough. Frak 'em all. That's the one thing I'd like to see government do before I croak: Cut the insurance companies out of health insurance altogether.

Here's the transcript of the web town meeting Q&A.

Hey, Paul Krugman, your country needs you now

Found this on DKos, and I can't tell you how happy it makes me feel:

Michelle Obama channels Alice Waters

The New York Times reports that there is soon to be an organic food garden at the White House.

This is Alice Waters' dream come true. On last Sunday's Sixty Minutes Lesley Stahl interviewed Waters. This was part of their exchange:

STAHL: Now she has her sights on a new project and we would like to warn President Obama that the steamroller is on its way.

"You have been pushing for a vegetable garden at the White House for years. Rose garden? Forget that. You want a broccoli garden?" Stahl asked.

"I have been talking nonstop about the symbolism of an edible landscape at the White House. I think it says everything about stewardship of the land and about the nourishment of a nation," Waters said.

Asked if she thinks she'll achieve such a garden at the White House, Waters told Stahl, "Well, I'm very hopeful. I've always liked the idea of doing press conferences at the compost heap."

I'm not sure if Waters intended something deeper with her "compost heap" remark -- but that aside, her message seems to have resonated loud and clear. Not that Mrs. Obama and her people wouldn't have come up with the notion on their own. It's a natural for this First Family.

I'm sure some Republican jerks will find a way to make a negative out of this terrifically positive news. For those of us who live midst food stands and grocery stores selling fresh-picked locally grown produce, we know what a treat such unadulterated fruits and veggies can be. We knew that the Obamas know it too, and we're thrilled that they will be giving the "locavores" a bully, er, pulp-it.

P.S. The spinach recipe that Tristero wrote about (see the post immediately below) came from the White House kitchen!

Digging out of the rubble, instantly

President Obama has told us he will be truthful with us -- and apparently, when it comes to the economy, that's not change we want to believe in. Remember, T.S. Eliot told us that "Humankind cannot stand very much reality" and so did Jack Nicholson. After thirty years of being told we could have something for nothing, and could have it NOW!, we don't want to hear that we can't...and never really could.

Bill Clinton says Obama should be doing more cheerleading on the economy. (Compare and contrast John McCain, jerking around his pom-poms while telling us the "fundamentals are sound." ) And vying for the title of cable news' #1 Neanderthal -- see Chris Matthews, below -- Lou Dobbs calls Obama a fearmonger.

Does a tornedo spinning toward a house on the desolate plain monger fear? Or does it signal an event, indeed a frightening one, that one would be wise to acknowledge?

By not minimizing the peril we're in, Obama has become a whipping boy. The stock market's ongoing slide is his fault. What is with that?

During the campaign and since, Obama has told us that he'd keep working to find solutions to our pressing problems -- of which he gives full evidence of having a secure grasp -- and that if one thing didn't work, he'd try something else. I heard him say that. But I guess the Villagers didn't. They're yelping that he hasn't fixed things yet! Gee, he's already been in the White House for a month -- whaddya mean, the market hasn't gone all bullish? (Couldn't have anything to do with the deafening naysaying of the wingnuts, could it? Doesn't seem to occur to them.)

Chris Matthews has even suggested that Obama looks as though he doesn't know what he's doing because he's setting up study panels. Matthews suggests that Obama would inspire more confidence (in whom? in the instant-gratification gnomes of Wall Street?) if he went into hiding somewhere and studied these things for himself. Yup, he actually said that, just now on Hardball. Yup. Chris, you might consider spending some time to learn a thing or two yourself. At the least, how not to foam at the mouth as you spew your incoherence on the rest of us.

Back to that tornado. It had been growing and growing, part of a massive storm system heading our way for a long time. Why did nobody warn us, at the very least give us time to get to the storm cellar? When the funnel finally touched down it took only a moment to reduce our house to rubble.

Where oh where were the weathermen? Lou? Chris?

---

Update: Nate Silver says

One of the more unapologetically idiotic notions being advanced by certain conservative commentators is the idea that the poor performance of the stock markets represents a negative reaction to Barack Obama's stimulus package.

I love his title: "Sun rises, market falls" --