Who's Surprised Now? (And for How Long Can They Stay That Way?)

Image: Gilbert Garcin. Le moulin de l’oubli - Mill of oblivion. 1999.

Anyone really surprised, like Mr. Harkin was, that Obama didn't try and lobby Lieberman on the public option? Of course not. Not if you're paying even marginal attention to the health care "debate."

What's a supposed progressive being so gullible and credulous for anyway? Assuming Harkin actually is "surprised," it's probably painful to realize the scope of the Democratic Party's corporate give away, and know that this bill was not inevitable: It was willed that way. This corporate nanny-state mandate, forcing people to purchase insurance without a strong public option, is a kind of audacity that the market is rewarding generously. Glenn Greenwald's post today illustrates just how much health insurance stocks have gone up since Lieberman stated he'd filibuster on the public option:

*Coventry Health Care, Inc. is up 31.6 percent;

* CIGNA Corp. is up 29.1 percent;

* Aetna Inc. is up 27.1 percent;

* WellPoint, Inc. is up 26.6 percent;

* UnitedHealth Group Inc. is up 20.5 percent;

* And Humana Inc. is up 13.6 percent" -- Shahien Nasiripour, The Huffington Post's business reporter, yesterday.

He also points out just how riven the Democratic Party is with conflicts of interest relating to this bill (It's worth quoting in full):

Evan Bayh's wife, Susan, "owns from $500,001 to $1 million in employee stock in WellPoint, the Indianapolis-based insurance giant on whose board she sits." That would mean that the value of her personal holdings in that one health insurance company alone, in the last six weeks alone (since Lieberman and her husband began menacing the public option), would have increased by a value of between $125,000 and $250,000. As part of the bonanza of health care industry board positions she magically received since her husband became a Senator, Susan Bayh is given a quarter-million dollars each year in stocks and stock options from Wellpoint.

But notwithstanding the underlying corruption, the question for progressives still remains: Do the benefits of the bill outweigh the drawbacks? Greenwald astutely--and rightly--frames the choice for progressives this way:

one must weigh (a) the corrupt, mandate-based strengthening of the private insurance industry, the major advancement of the corporatism model of government...[and] (b) the various substantial benefits to many people who do not now have and cannot obtain health insurance and the risk that defeat of this bill will ensure preservation of the status quo.

A difficult question to answer, indeed. But whatever one's position, I agree with Greenwald that it is still excruciating to watch the Dems play this off as if they got the votes to pass this bill in the Senate despite all the "special interests." For more on the merits of supporting this bill or not, TPM has an excellent discussion with many smart and wonky guest bloggers.

______________________________________________

And... as if there really needs to be a defense of the notion that presidents actually can keep their promises once elected, David Sirota offers a much needed civics lesson to Obama apologists. His defense of actual, republican democracy, is centered around Obama's utterly hypocritical capitulation to the pharmaceutical industry:

the Obama administration crushed legislation that would have allowed Americans to purchase lower-priced FDA-approved medicines from abroad — legislation President Obama promised to support as a presidential candidate; legislation that would have reduced drug profiteering and saved the government and consumers $100 billion.

I wonder if Harkin is surprised by that reversal? He shouldn't be. Sadly, this president has been continuing many of his predecessor's destructive policies (state secrets privilege, tiered justice system, civil liberties violations, bailouts with no regulation, use of private contractors and mercenaries, collective punishment of civilian populations: see--Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and most recently Yemen, etc., etc.). And so this is just more of the same. As Stephen Colbert puts it, and I'm paraphrasing, "The lack of change is the change you can believe in."

In defense of reneging on campaign promises---and right on cue---a pharmaceutical spokesperson pulled out that old, tired canard: "It's about being a candidate as opposed to being president." Remember, "serious" people acknowledge, and then submit to domestic "realpolitik."

But Sirota drills this excuse---this "logic":

...it's not unreasonable to ask officeholders to at least try to honor the campaign commitments that informed voters' electoral decisions.

That's especially true on something like drug importation, whose opposition is about enlarging profits, not, as Obama aides argue, about protecting consumer safety.

Drug companies already manufacture medicines in the developing world so as to evade U.S. labor, environmental and safety regulations. They then legally import those products for sale to Americans at inflated prices. The new bill would have merely let wholesalers, not just manufacturers, also import medicines — but at the lower prices the manufacturers concurrently sell those medicines abroad.

He goes on to remind the administration (and its defenders) that wholesale importation is legal in the rest of the civilized world, and that if it were unsafe, "then where are the dead Europeans?" Do we see a pattern of behavior with Obama yet?

So in short: this major point of contention that divides progressives over the health care debate, whether to pass a bill that clearly forces people to become customers of private enterprise, is obviously part of a larger issue, and is a grave problem that Americans have to face: the confluence of private power and government. There is no escaping this fact. And Senator Harkin (and Obama acolytes) should know that, should recognize that, and stop being so (willfully?) surprised.

Thankfully, we've got Colbert, who once again, knocks it out of the park with a genius piece of satire (He is the only man who can string together both Jefferson and Mussolini).

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Spyvate Sector
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Now let's show corporate America what we think by going to the mall and celebrating the holidays!

A Perfect Semblance

With all the contentious disputation over the health care debate, I felt it necessary to educate myself about many of the main proposals and key players in the Senate. During that process of getting familiar with these advocates and their policy ideas, one invariably comes across that infamous and ignoble group of senators we've all now become so familiar with: the Gang of Six and the so-called Blue Dogs, who have been working indefatigably to stymie actual, progressive reform. Of that latter group, there is one senator, who like Lieberman, often goes about the airwaves demanding that Dems craft the health care bill in a fashion more to his liking.

And that man is Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska----to whom, despite my initial unfamiliarity and lack of sympathy for his views, I still felt some kind of nebulous connection, as if he came from some distant, dark childhood memory. That was until yesterday, when it became clear to me as I listened to David Bowie on my ipod. After several frustrating months wondering how I knew Ben Nelson, the mystery ended with a euphoric, "That's fuckin' it!"

Ben Nelson used to be an actor, and starred in one of the most profound movies ever made---one I still cherish today as an adult.

Bill Nelson played Hoggle in Jim Henson's Labyrinth.

If one has any doubts, just look at the semblance below: although---granted----the Ben Nelson of today looks a lot older and more troll-like. But in his heart, just as his character, Hoggle, Nelson has proved willing to sell out. And he'll do it again in the future. But will he ever try and redeem himself from this betrayal, as his troll character, Hoggle, did in the end? Not likely. He'll stay unrepentant.

Hoggle explains his recent vote:

“Without in any way intending to be threatening, to be more in the mode of promising,” Mr. Nelson said, “let me be clear, this cloture vote is based on the full understanding that there will be a limited conference between the Senate and House. If there are material changes in that conference report different from this bill that adversely affect the agreement, I reserve the right to vote against the next cloture vote. Let me repeat it. I reserve the right to vote against the next cloture vote if there are material changes to this agreement in the conference report. And I will vote against it, if that is the case.”

And what did Hoggle get in exchange for being the holdout? Not only will there be strong restrictions on the use of insurance to pay for abortions, but Nebraska has been excepted from helping to fund the new expansion of Medicaid:

The bill calls for broadly expanding Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for low-income Americans, and eventually most states would have to bear some of the cost – but not Nebraska.

Next, we'll look at the arguments for whether or not one should hold a candidate accountable for his or her campaign promises. And we'll peep at the "progress" Dems are making on drug re-importation, which was a major sticking point against Bush, but apparently no big deal now that Rahm Emanuel et al. are at the helm.

What is happening so that nothing substantial can possibly happen

After a long, healthy absence from ranting into the Ether----the disillusionment and fatalism gets to be a little much ("Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?)----it's time to check out where I left off...

But first: If you love The Simpsons, don't look at this extremely dismaying piece of information. Bart Simpson's voice just might not be the same afterwards. (Incidentally, the cult of Mithras was big around the time of Rome's collapse. Madonna and faux Kabbalah, anyone?)

Anyways, back to where I left off, the great swindle that is "health care reform." A lot has happened so that nothing substantial, and some things very harmful to us "consumers of health care," can also happen-----possibly.

We'll see.

But...Despite the fact that the general public, along with a 63% majority of doctors, is behind actual, God's-honest health care reform (ie---a choice between a private and public option), Congress is preparing to pass a bill that equates to unequivocal betrayal. Well, that's not exactly true, unless we're talking about the intentions of the Democratic Party because Republicans made it unambiguously clear from the start that they didn't want reform. And here they are again today repeating their intentions to obstruct. Go figure?

Unsurprisingly, the so-called Blue Dogs, the conservative small-state-dominated Group of Six, and Joseph Lieberman are all providing the GOP with a big assist: Not that the White House is flexing any muscle to help pass anything even remotely progressive. On the contrary, true to the argument of the last post, Rahm Emanuel is advising Reid to capitulate to Senator Lieberschmuck. Not only is there not going to be a strong public option, but the latest compromise, a reduction in the age at which people may buy into Medicare, looks D-E-A-D!

Rachel Maddow has an excellent piece on the hypocrisy of Lieberman's current filibuster threat. Mr. Filibuster himself, with his Droopy voice, used to lament the ability of the minority to obstruct the process, even crafting anti-filibuster legislation, only to now employ said weapon to halt reform and protect his insurance lobby paymasters. He is also flipping his position on buying into Medicare earlier, mainly because that proposal is actually possible today, with Democratic majorities in both Houses, and Obama ostensibly at the helm of the Executive (So far though, his strong, posturing rhetoric and lack of any tough regulations on the banks and private health insurers, leads me to believe he's not courageous enough to truly lead, instead of heeding the demands of Big Business, those entities that will determine in which direction corporate money will flow into the next election: power for its own sake apparently, as selling out "health care reform" will be its means).

Lieberman the scape goat? No doubt. I can already see the crocodile tears gushing from the Iron Dome of the White House. And by the way: this kind of filibustering is a new development. We're not even talking about filibustering the passage of a bill; we're talking about filibustering to prohibit a bill from going to the floor for debate. Now that is conviction in Washington that only money could buy. Although, it's not a great precedent to set, allowing this kind of filibustering in a legislative system that is inherently constricted in its ability to pass new laws.

Yes, Lieberman, and the like, will be the convenient excuse for the failure of a substantial bill, even though 81% of Dems want the senator punished. Besides, all the legislation our cynical, nominal representatives have written thus far wouldn't take effect until WAY in the future anyways----2014!* So it's all pipe dreams we're discussing right now: Welcome to mandates, astoundingly high premiums and higher subsidies for private insurance that will continue consolidating the market even further, taking more shares as it shits out its globally-inferior, incomparably expensive health care product onto us all! And if we are lucky: there will be no exceptions on pre-existing conditions. Hooray, the Congress will have finally solved the moral equivalent of making sure cancer patients aren't denied coverage because they once had acne as teenagers! That's categorical imperative for you all right.

*(Coincidentally, 2014 is also when we will first be able to read the 22 million "missing" Bush administration emails, thanks to a two-year legal battle). But, four years is forever politically---plenty of time for a new Congress and/or administration to repeal the tepid, compromise health bill should it even pass).

Lastly, how about this for a excellent illustration of just how endemic the corruption of the conservative, corporate-approved, New Democratic Party is? (Clinton's betrayal on NAFTA and "welfare reform" set an illuminating precedent; the Reagan Revolution and neo-conservatism didn't just change Republican politics). The once-Vice-Presidential hopeful, Senator Evan Bayh (Ind), whose conflict of interests sadly mirror Lieberman's in scope, has a wife who raked in $837,000 while sitting on seven different corporate boards. But that's not it:

"She's on the board of E*Trade Bank, a subsidiary of E*Trade Financial Corp., while her husband sits on the Senate Banking Committee. She is lead director at Emmis Communications Corp., an Indianapolis radio-station operator that published Evan Bayh's 2003 book."

Wait, there's more:

She is a director at Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., "which is part of a medical research partnership awarded a $24.7 million federal grant in May after Evan Bayh and his Indiana colleagues in Congress recommended the group to the National Institutes of Health,'' Bloomberg's Timothy Burger reports.

Too much. Way too much, but it only scratches the surface...

Quick, must watch "Theatre of Gatos" to repair soul...getting...weak...need to see...Gatitos...So Sweetos... No Son...Malditos....

Why Isn't Obama Doing Anything About Congress? Can He?

After ending on a cynical note in my last post----mentioning my uncomfortable suspicion that the Obama administration, Dems and Republicans, right along with the insurance companies, would like nothing more than to mandate that everybody buy insurance (expanding the market by 50 million), while doing next to nothing to bring down premiums, which would require de-consolidating the industry with a "public option" competitor----I felt slightly guilty.

Well...that was until I read the L.A. Times, which reports that expert analysts are saying that while it's true that there are many bills in circulation right now, many leading proposals have insurers "poised to reap a financial windfall."

The half-dozen leading overhaul proposals circulating in Congress would require all citizens to have health insurance, which would guarantee insurers tens of millions of new customers -- many of whom would get government subsidies to help pay the companies' premiums.

So, the public must continue paying for not only the skyrocketing premiums, which analysts say will double by 2010, but also increased subsidies (tax money that could no doubt be better spent) that go straight back to these providers so they can, in turn, support their ludicrously high prices. Does a guaranteed expansion of the health care market by tens of millions of customers and essentially government-supported consolidation through subsidies without a mechanism for ensuring competition sound like a good deal? Is that really reform? We might also ask ourselves: How much have these premiums been rising the past six years? Answer: "by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent." No competition. The government will just help pay the exorbitant health care premiums, though the percentage of cost covered is going to drop (should the industry get its way). Sounds like a perverted form of corporate protectionism. Hardly the government intervening to fix an oppressive market failure.

In fact, we could have the opposite: The Senate Finance Committee has been playing around with the idea of requiring insurers to reimburse customers for at least 76% of their medical costs, though that number has now dropped to around 65%. The current percentage that insurers cover is 80-90%, and yet the industry is still arguing for the "government [to] set the floor lower so insurers could provide flexible, more affordable plans." As a consumer, why would I want a health care "reform"bill that actually lowers the percentage of costs they're obligated to pay? Doesn't really sound like an improvement, seeing as how under the current system 50% of bankruptcies are medical related, and 75% of those filing for bankruptcy had private insurance when they filed. This haggling---whatever the result---won't help solve the problem at all, unless of course health insurance covered practically all the costs.

The question remains then: Why hasn't Obama used the bully pulpit to urge Congress in the right direction? Some have argued, like Matt Yglesias, that the president can't control Congress, which is of course very true. Although, as Glenn Greenwald points out: (1) "the President commands a vast infrastructure on which incumbent members of Congress rely for re-election." He cites Rahm Emanuel's ability to whip up votes in the past. And (2) The "Obama White House has proven itself extremely adept at compelling compliance with the President's agenda" when it came to pushing non-compliant progressives into supporting the war supplemental bill.

The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday.

Though Greenwald acknowledges that Obama can't "single-handedly control what Congress does," he notes the disparity of leverage he exerts, on the one hand "protecting" Blue Dog "centrists," while on the other, holding progressives to a different standard. And Republicans still call this guy a "leftist" and a "liberal." One thing I find extremely disconcerting about all of this, if Greenwald's correct, is that

Blue Dogs -- virtually all of whom represent more conservative districts -- are more vulnerable and thus more dependent for re-election on the White House and Democratic Party infrastructure than progressives are.

As far as the whole "bipartisan" excuse for watering down the health care bill, Greenwald is right to point out the obvious: that the GOP was not and is not interested in passing any bill, whatever its form. That has been understood from the outset: "Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) announced that Republicans will reject reform no matter what's in the bill." It makes sense that they'd try and obstruct Obama's agenda regardless of the details. Why would they be interested in passing reform?

Why would the GOP want to help Obama achieve one of his most important and politically profitable goals? Of course they were going to try to sabotage the entire project and would oppose health care reform no matter what form it took.

And now that closed-door meetings with the pharmaceutical industry have been reported, "a deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion"despite Obama's pledge to have all wheeling and dealing broadcasted on CNN (like that would ever happen)---how could the purported necessity for a "bipartisan" bill---with all the attendant, illogical excuses for the lack of a more economically practical, progressive bill----not appear like a pretext for a watered-down, industry-friendly piece of legislation?

With the quiet agreement between the White House and industry restricting savings to no more than $80 billion, compare the Urban Institute's study on public policy, which estimates "that a public plan could save taxpayers from $224 billion to $400 billion over 10 years by lowering the cost of proposed subsidies for the uninsured, while preserving private coverage for most people." That is a huge concession to private industry. No wonder they're keeping the meetings closed. Industry is in no hurry to allow substantial reform, and Democrats have only been at this since Roosevelt, so why not make it another 75 years? What's the rush? (See Bill Moyers on the heart wrenching, human cost of the current system here, and media research on the historical efforts to stop health care reform over the past 75 years here).

Everybody knows that Democrats have a super-majority. But need we be reminded that they could pass legislation, like the Republicans did with the Bush tax cuts, with only a simple majority----if they wanted to. Instead, we get more excuses, just as we did back when they were in the minority:

During the early Bush years, the excuse was that they endorsed Bush policies because his popularity and post-9/11 hysteria made it politically unwise to oppose him. In later Bush years when his popularity plummeted, the excuse was that Democrats were in the minority and could do nothing. After 2006 when they won a Congressional majority, the excuse was that Bush still controlled the White House and had veto power. After 2008 when a Democrat won the White House, the excuse was that Republicans could filibuster.

Now that they have a filibuster-proof majority, a huge margin in the House and the White House, the excuses continue unabated, as Democrats are now on the verge of jettisoning one of the most significant attractions for progressives to the Obama campaign -- active government involvement in the health insurance market.

Compounding the disillusionment triggered by the apparently inevitable, Democratic betrayal on this pivotal issue is the fact that the administration dropped the truly progressive agenda before even coming to the table: a single-payer, universal health care plan. In its absence, progressives were placated with a proposed "public option," which now looks to be dead unless the House grows a pair, or Obama retrieves his soul.

How Obama feels about the apparent loss of a public plan is unknowable for sure. But actions do matter, regardless of one's oratorical eloquence, and the bill that's most likely to make it through Congress does have some powerful supporters:

...the pharmaceutical industry is so delighted with what they think will be the ultimate plan that they are spending vast sums of money to advocate for it.

Also factor in

a secret White House deal with that same industry to ensure there are no government negotiations for better prices (a result that, when combined with mandates to buy health insurance, would vastly increase the profits of these industries)

And...with a White House Deputy Chief of Staff (and "Small-State" westerner), Jim Messina, ---who was formerly Chief of Staff to Senator Max Baucus, head of the disproportionately influential, anti-progressive Table of Six----working under the corporate-approved, Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, it seems more than plausible that Obama has been appropriated by anti-progressive forces.

Even take Tom Daschle, who, forced to withdraw his nomination as head of Health and Human Services because of $140,000 in unpaid back taxes, is serving as an informal advisor to Obama, despite the clear conflicts of interest: Since losing re-election in 2004, Daschle's clients have been those same private health insurance companies the government is ostensibly seeking to regulate.

...he remains a highly paid policy adviser to hospital, drug, pharmaceutical and other health care industry clients of Alston & Bird, the law and lobbying firm.

But don't worry because "Friends and associates of Mr. Daschle say the interests of Alston & Bird’s clients have no influence on his views," even though critics say he's "advocating the very policy which his industry clients want: namely, health care reform with mandates, but no 'public option' -- only with 'co-ops.'" According to the NYT, Daschle has been the main force behind selling "co-ops," a tepid measure that the Democrats and Obama are evidently finding very palatable these days. But then again, we'll just have to wait and see. Maybe progressive forces can push him back on a sustainable track, if they're loud enough.

If not, we can always revert to the early nostalgia phase, when Obama was pretending to be a "liberal" or "progressive," which among other things, currently means one who believes in, and carries out a commitment to transparency and public participation.

And don't miss this useful chart for understanding health care reform.

Note: Even Robert Reich is asking about the disproportionate and inappropriate power of the Table of Six, "Why has it come down to these six? Who anointed them? Apparently, the White House." He doesn't "get it" either:

I really don't get it. We have a Democratic president in the White House. Democrats control sixty votes in the Senate, enough to overcome a filibuster. It is possible to pass health care legislation through the Senate with 51 votes (that's what George W. Bush did with his tax cut plan). Democrats control the House. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is a tough lady. She has said there will be no health care reform bill without a public option...So why does the fate of health care rest in Grassley's hands?

Let's hope the administration is still susceptible to hearing those beyond the private-interest forces that have invested it.

Who Said the Public Option Was Vital?

If I were conspiratorially-minded, I might think the Obama administration is trying to lose the public option (Personally, I think it's less "conspiracy" than the corporatist confluence in government thesis, not the "revolving door" so much as the "corporate archway" that Naomi Klein describes in Ch. 15 of The Shock Doctrine). Many are wondering why he's positioning to turn his back on progressives, who incidentally, take the same position that 72% of Americans do: That there should be a public option to compete with private insurance----which, by the way, has highly consolidated 94% of health care markets . Strangely, most media are reporting this apparent shift as simply a possible betrayal to progressives, and not to the majority of Americans. That's because media like to talk about the "Left" or "Far Left" as The Other. This constitutes "centrism" and "objectivity" by their standards.

But returning to Obama losing substantive health care reform, Ari Berman of The Nation asks, "...how, exactly, was Obama's landslide victory [67 million votes] a mandate for Baucus and Grassley [1,347,000 votes combined] to hijack the president's agenda?"

Good question. And what was/is Obama thinking in trusting Baucus? This is a man who voted with Bush for Medicare privatization and massive tax cuts. On the committee, he even demonstrates an unusual amount of deference towards his supposed counterpart, Sen. Grassley.

Well, over the weekend, Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius started sending the message that the public option is "'not the essential element'" of the administration's health care overhaul." In other words: prepare to be let down, humble majority. Yet in fairness, I should say that in characteristically spineless, Democratic fashion, the White House has since triangulated away from these startling admissions----so who really knows? Still, "not the essential element" is not what Obama was saying while campaigning. It was quite the opposite. And only a month ago, he said reform "must" include a public option. At least many in the House are standing up to this seeming betrayal, with some even threatening to vote against the bill if the public option is left out. Let's hope they keep up the pressure!



*My cynical, haunting suspicion is that both political parties and the insurance companies would like nothing more than to make it mandatory for us all to have (buy) medical insurance----but not do anything (or very little) for those who can't afford it. Already, many of us with insurance can't afford it. For example, the large corporation under whose plan my wife and I are covered is already announcing higher premiums for next year: We'll be paying over $500 a month for the two of us, when we have serious problems making ends meet as it is. Talk about liberty...

**As a side note: If Republicans ever want to stop pretending to look out for and actually start to care about the elderly, maybe they should focus on a problem that actually exists, like this one.

***Lastly: Seeing that Jon Stewart will be interviewing Betsy McCoughey on Thursday, he ought to start preparing by reading this article.

Now, Why Would He Say That?

Apropos to the last post and the anti-democratic structural problems with the over-representation of "Small States" in the Senate, and their senators, who, conveniently happen to lead in corporate PAC-money and dominate the main committee responsible for health care reform legislation, the Table for Six-----we now see one of its members, Sen. Chuck Grassley, endorsing the private-insurance-lobby-created-myth about government "death panels"(Good pieces on the lie's primary author, Betsy McCaughey of the Hudson Institute, and her history of lying here, here, and here). Surprising? Just how surprising, we'll see below. But again, I think Nate Silver's analysis goes a long way in explaining the appropriate context for understanding how and why this kind of brazen disinformation would be coming from one of the committee's members.



Grassley's comments are extremely interesting considering that in the past Republicans have supported Medicare reimbursements for "voluntary counseling sessions for end-of-life decisions." Sadly, there should be no confusion about this for Mr. Grassley. The supposed "death panel" provision, introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), has recently been co-sponsored by two others in his very own party: Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) and Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio). And in his own Senate, Democrat Jay Rockefeller (W.V.) has a bill that also includes provisions for end-of-life counseling, also co-sponsored by a Republican, Senator Susan Collins (Maine). A similar bill waaaaay back in 2007 also had two Republican co-sponsors along with Collins----Richard Lugar, (R-Ind.) and John Isakson, (R-Ga.). Isakson even recently told the Post

How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that ["death panel"] is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.

While Silver's analysis does shed some light on the structural reasons that might explain Grassley's shenanigans, there are more immediate causes. One of the anti-health reform groups behind loads of this mis/disinformation, Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights, is managed by DCI, a lobbying firm formed in 1996 by a former staffer of Sen. Grassley's, Tom Synhorst (with help from Bob Dole, and right-wing operatives, Doug Goodyear and Tim Hyde). According to Think Progress, DCI's other public relations/"grassroots" accomplishments include:

1. The DCI Group was retained by the pharmaceutical industry to whip up public opposition against House legislation that would permit the reimportation of FDA approved drugs from Canada and elsewhere [free-markets, right?]. [Washington Monthly,December/2003]

2. The DCI Group worked with Republicans to form various “grassroots” front groups to amplify President Bush’s call to privatize Social Security. [Center for Media and Democracy, 3/18/05]

3. Chris LaCivita, a former DCI Group staffer, took a lead role in organizing the Swift Boat Veterans campaign to smear John Kerry and his war record. [CommonDreams, 8/31/04]

4. The DCI Group was behind spoof videos mocking Al Gore and global warming. The firm has been retained by ExxonMobil to lobby. [Wall Street Journal, 8/3/06; Exxon Secrets, accessed 7/28/09

One shouldn't think too hard on Grassley's motivations, I guess, but does it not seem eminently inappropriate for him to sit on the most important committee for deciding the fate of health care reform?

And going back to Silver: If he's right that corporate PACs target small-state senators, for all the reasons mentioned in the last post, we would see things like this: Insurance Industry Is Targeting Blue Dogs To Shape Health Reform In Its Favor.

So far $52 million has been spent on health care ads: $23 million spent on ads vaguely supporting "reform," and $29 million from the opposition. Yet, Ken Johnson of PhRMA knows where best to invest:

Most of it will come in targeted congressional districts where our companies have a significant economic presence, or in districts where members [of Congress] can still be persuaded to support comprehensive health-care reform.

Read: Blue Dogs from "Small States," with "comprehensive health-care reform" meaning barely any reform at all.

Of course, small-state senators aren't the only ones being targeted, though only one is apparently saying he'll kill reform because of all the liberal ads attacking him. After running television spots in Arkansas, Nevada and North Dakota last month, the Republican National Committee is going after "60 congressional districts in 33 states" and running ads "in the districts of four Blue Dog Democrats: Reps. Zack Space (Ohio), Baron P. Hill (Ind.), Bart Gordon (Tenn.) and Mike Ross (Ark.)." As a result, we should see a lot more ads like this one claiming that the health care reform bill will pay for abortions while denying legitimate procedures to the elderly. And we all know in which states they'll be running.

Anyways, in spite of all the irrational and irresponsible behavior surrounding the health care "debate," at least there's irony like this for supporters of substantial health care reform to discuss at the water cooler: an anti-health reform activist injured at a town hall meeting now seeking donations for his injuries. You see, he's lost his job, and hasn't got any insurance. Or maybe we can sit back and laugh while being scared to death by people like this guy:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Apparently, he agrees with Grassley that there is something to fear. Where could all this be coming from?

What Madison, Private Interests, And Small-State Senators Have To Do With Health Care Reform

Most people know that "Small States" are over-represented in the Senate, which has an extremely anti-democratic effect on our representative system of government. But according to Nate Silver, statistical genius at FiveThirtyEight,

A voter in Wyoming -- population 533,000 -- has about 70 times more ability to influence the Senate's direction than one in California -- population 36.8 million.

This is no surprise to those of us who remember high-school history because it was a major point for those who argued for the New Jersey Plan ("Small State Plan") over the Virginia Plan ("Large State Plan") when delegates were debating the Constitution: "Small States" could make up for lack of representation in the House, due to their smaller populations, by gaining equal representation in the Senate, or Upper House. However today, after 200+ years of the supposed "democratization" of our constitutional system, it looks---because it is!----strikingly unbalanced and anachronistic. Silver's article drives this home by illustrating how much more power "Small States" have when legislation---like health care----gets down to the committee level. Hopefully, you've taken the requisite amount of anti-depression drugs to swallow this.



The Table for Six, headed by Max Baucus, "is made up of members who collectively represent about 6.5 million people, or around one-fiftieth of the country's population," and yet their decisions will disproportionately influence the rest of us (the other 98%). That worry (the subject of the last post) that some of us feel about the gap between what The People overwhelmingly want in a health care reform bill (a public option to compete with the private plans), and what our legislators will most likely give us (a watered-down, pro-private insurance bill) is well justified. This is because "there is a correlation between the size of a state and how Democratic it tends to vote in elections for national office," though, of course, there are a few exceptions. And guess whose at the Table for Six? All small-state senators. But the most compelling point that Silver makes about this "structural problem" is in "the ways that small-state senators raise funds, and in turn, whose interests they are beholden to."



The Center for Responsive Politics has a chart illustrating "the highest percentage of their [senators'] campaign contributions since 2003 from corporate PACs." And who tops the list? Who are the top 10? All Republicans, except two (#7 and #8) with percentages ranging from 76.5% to 43.4%. But all of the Top 20 "come from states with below-median populations." Obviously, it's easier to get more campaign contributions from individuals in large states, so small-state senators do have a disadvantage in fundraising more non-PAC money. But PACs can----and indeed do----get a good deal on their money by targeting senators of smaller states. Silver draws some important conclusions from this structural deficiency:

What this means is that senators from small states tend to be relatively more dependant on special-interest money -- it makes up a larger share of their overall take. Senators from the ten smallest states have received, on average, 28.4 percent of their campaign funds from corporate PACs, versus 13.7 for those in the ten largest...senators from small states in fact have more incentive to placate special interests.

And how about those, like Baucus, at the Table for Six?

the six senators on Baucus's mini-committee are especially egregious in this regard. They rank #1 (Mike Enzi), #6 (Chuck Grassley), #11 (Kent Conrad), #13 (Baucus), #14 (Jeff Bingaman) and #20 (Olympia Snowe) in the share of contributions received from corporate PACs (an average of 47.5 percent of their funds overall).

Silver offers a couple suggestions to remedy the problem: restricting corporations from donating PAC money, unless they operate in the state; and, making the Internet a main instrument for donations to more populist-minded candidates. He also says that this small-state structural problem in the Senate helps explain why it "tends to be more protective than the House of corporate interests." He offers tax breaks and the second bank bailout as evidence of this (74% Senate, 60% of House approved the last bailout).



Structural problems indeed! And yet, our Madisonian constitutional system was set up to do just that: protect private, monied interests against the will of the majority---in Madison's day, the landless. Today, it is that clamorous "faction"---the majority, or the public---who wish to unseat the minority----or those private hands that have control not just over 94% of health care markets and the system as a whole, but even the individual, medical decisions about what kind of care is necessary and will be covered:

if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure...If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability---James Madison in "Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787, Taken by the Late Hon Robert Yates, Chief Justice of the State of New York, and One of the Delegates from That State to the Said Convention."

Also consider Madison's political philosophy and system here:

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority----James Madison, Federalist Paper #10.

Unlike the agrarian revolts springing up in America and Britain to which Madison was responding, a public health care competitor is in no way seeking to create "unstable" governments or to "disregard" "the public good" by "the superior force" "of an interested and overbearing majority." In fact, as many already know, it seeking to achieve----and would achieve----the opposite: stability with absolute regard for the public good. It's still early to determine whether supporters of the public option will be "the superior force" in the end, but we do know they are an "overbearing majority."

And the insurance companies are well-aware of this majoritarian support for health care reform, sharing Madison's anxiety over a well-organized majority "faction," and have begun financing and organizing faux populist protests against reform-minded members of Congress through groups such as FreedomWorks, Conservatives for Patients' Rights, Americans for Prosperity, and conservative media. This is their attempt to appear as that populist, "overbearing majority" of Madison's nightmares. Once again, The Daily Show has the most trenchant analysis of this process on the airwaves:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Master Rebators - The Crank Cycle
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Although Stewart's talking about the "Cash for Clunkers" program, the tactic or process----the Crank Cycle, if you will----is the same. (See the fantastic intro to this hilarious segment here).

So once again, if the Democrats don't pass substantial reform (i.e. a public option to help de-consolidate health insurance markets), we should know the structural and institutional reasons why. Nonetheless, with the power they enjoy right now in the Congress, and that ever-so-frightful-majoritarian support for a public (competitive) option behind them, there should be ABSOLUTELY no excuses this time! We wouldn't want to see a 21st Century Shay's Rebellion done health-care-reform style would we?

The Popularity of The Public Option v. The Unpopularity of Republicans

In honor of yesterday breaking the record for hottest day in Washington State since the beginning of the 20th Century, I'll keep this brief (I've got Pabst to drink, and an industrial-sized fan to pray to).

Glenn Greenwald, one of the best writers on politics, media, and that one outdated document some white slave owners ratified way back in the quaint ole' days of 1789, posted these figures from a recent NYT poll that I hope the media, and anyone who considers his or herself a Democrat or progressive would take seriously


Look at the favorability ratings of Democrats versus Republicans (47% to 28%) in Congress! Moreover, Limbaugh's Party has a 61% unfavorable rating!

Now, despite the incoherent fear-mongering about the public option killing grandparents and so on, look at what percentage of Americans would want "a government administered health insurance plan...that would compete with private health insurance plans."

With a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, along with a President who is advocating for a strong public option to compete with private insurers (what the majority of Americans want), we might expect to see exactly that type of bill passing after the August recess----if our representative system actually works!

But why then are many of us so nervous----especially those of us who've voted for Democrats recently?

Probably because we know, at least deep down, that Matt Taibbi is right when he says: "Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters."

So there should be no more excuses: Dems must quit the fake "bipartisan" consensus (always when Dems are in power, never the inverse of course), Blue Dog-Baucus pussyfooting nonsense, and pass what the people want and need in order to join the rest of the world's civilized countries.

Otherwise, why vote for a party whose actions belie their stated goals, and even their own name?

Democratic? We'll see!

Trying to Stay Positive on a Hot Day

Starting with the uplifting, the beautiful, and then the funny since it's so goddamn hot today...

Having recently discovered a composer I didn't know existed until moving to Prague, I'm posting this phenomenal piece from Bohuslav Martinu, the adagio from Concerto Da Camera, H 285. The first 3 minutes, especially at 2:25 (the leitmotif played throughout the piece), are some of the most beautiful, melancholic, and frightening melodies I've ever heard. Difficult to admit, but I think he's even better than Stravinsky.

I guess this adagio would qualify as both uplifting and beautiful. Necessary for times like these.

And here's something not to be missed: Obama Axing Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon. This may be my favorite video yet, although it also has to contend with this one. (This article makes a perfect companion piece)

Genius on so many levels!

Now, in case you missed Palin's farewell address, here it is performed, as god intended, with the rambling cadence of William Shatner reciting Beat poetry.



It's too damn hot today (95 degrees) to rant about the Senate predictably excluding from their health care bill a public insurance option and even the paltry requirement for large businesses to provide health insurance for their workers. Or new ways the government and military seek to and succeed in breaking our Posse Comitatus laws.



The health care bill stripping/mutation is not surprising because its main author, leader of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Baucus of Montana, is utterly beholden to the medical industries.

In the past six years, nearly one-fourth of every dime raised by Baucus and his political action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical supply firms, health service companies and other health professionals.

With 22 medical groups spending over $1 million in the 2nd quarter alone, one should be prepared for the impending Democratic letdown on health care. Top among these groups:

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, spent $6.2 million in lobbying expenditures. Pfizer spent $5.6 million, and the American Medical Association spent $3.9 million.

And how much has the "health sector" as a whole spent on lobbying since 1998? According to the National Journal: "$3.4 billion, ranking second only to the financial industry."

Ok, so my wife and I have to pay $500 a month for nominal health insurance, even though she works for a large corporation (actual fact), but at least I can soothe the pain (economic repression) by watching videos like this:


See other cuties here.

Lastly, The Daily Show deftly satirized the environmental cap and trade bill's transformation, which perfectly illustrates the same process occurring right now with the health care bill. Would love to show this alongside "Schoolhouse Rock- How a Bill Becomes a Law" to my History/Government students.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jon Stewart Jizz-Ams in Front of Children - Cap'n Trade
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Beer me; it's hot today.

The Post Dies, Obama's "Post-Acquittal Detentions," and Republicans for Consolidated Markets

After inexplicably firing Dan Froomkin, its only actual journalist that understands the profession's true role in society----to find the truth about news events and scrutinize power, both government and private----The Washington Post proceeded to abruptly die. It committed suicide a few days back by auctioning off its connections as a power broker of the Fourth Estate: a long fall from the investigative heroicism of the WaPost of the Watergate scandal and All the President's Men.

Post publisher Katharine Weymouth has decided to solicit payoffs of between $25,000 and $250,000 from Washington lobbyists, in return for one or more private dinners in her home, where lucky diners will receive a chance for “your organization’s CEO” to interact with “Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post” and “key Obama administration and Congressional leaders..."

RIP and good riddance.

Here is yet another encouraging sign of "change" (i..e. continuity with the Bush regime) from the Obama administration: that they are arguing the right to detain non-Americans even after they've been found innocent by a military tribunal or regular court. They are calling it "post-acquittal detentions."

Johnson said that “as a matter of legal authority,” the administration’s powers to detain someone under the law of war don’t expire for a detainee after he’s acquitted in court. “If you have authority under the law of war to detain someone” under the Supreme Court’s Hamdi ruling, “that is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.”

No, believe it: Here, and here also for wise commentary.

Well, remember the furor over Nancy Pelosi stating that the CIA wasn't entirely honest with her and Congress? Now we know that "CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that senior CIA officials have concealed significant actions and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001."

And with the new intelligence authorization bill up in Congress, the White House is siding with Republicans, saying a veto is necessary "if it includes a Democratic-written provision requiring the president to notify the intelligence committees in their entirety about covert CIA activities."

Today, the president only has to inform "top Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate and the senior Democratic and Republican members on each chamber's Intelligence Committee." Not even all members of our congressional intelligence committees, let alone all of our "representative government," have a right to know what the Executive branch does through its extra-constitutional, intelligence/military arm, the CIA.

Nice to see such agreement----"consensus"-----among Repubs and Obama. The former Bush administration would no doubt approve of Obama's conviction for "transparency" in this case, mainly because his actions define the term as

1. the quality of a body which renders it impervious to the rays of light;

2. want of transparency;

3. opaqueness.

Lastly, surprise surprise: According to Health Care for America Now, and based on data from the American Medical Association, 94% of health insurance markets are categorized as "highly concentrated."

So when "conservatives" like Richard Shelby cry that the public option to create actual competition in the health insurance market is the "first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known," and that it would "destroy the marketplace for health care," we, and our representatives should be quick to point out that right now there is NO competitive marketplace! They should be assertively reminded that in opposing a public option, they are actually advocating their support for consolidation, and fostering the increase of corporate, oligarchical power in society. What are some consequences of this "consolidation"?

Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

Olympia Snow of Maine went so far as to decry the very fact that a public option would lower the cost of health insurance, which one would imagine should be the goal of legislation to provide more Americans with coverage. This is implicit support for the consolidation that already exists, with its peculiarly unrivaled entitlement to exorbitant profits at the expense of peoples' health.

In an Associated Press interview in Portland, Snowe said it would be unfair to include a government-run health insurance option that would take effect immediately.

“If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market … the public option will have significant price advantages,” she said.

Poor, weak little insurance companies, like WellPoint, which control 78% of Maine's insurance market: My heart just breaks for you companies, as opposed to the "47 million people, or 15.8 percent of the U.S. population" without health insurance (Numbers from 2006 Census).

Democrats better step it up and have a truly progressive health care reform bill, especially now that they have 60 votes in the senate: There are no excuses this time!

McCainiac: Bombing Iran and "Being on the Right Side of History"

Just some (fun) thoughts on McCain's, and his party's, transformation from "bombing Iran" to being a strong supporter of the Iranian people...


Looking for some amnesiacs, walking contradictions with lots of power in the media-----self-parodies who play politicians, while sadly, being actual politicians in reality? Just take John McCain singing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" last year as a presidential candidate. And now: Here's the same man in today's self-righteous cocoon of dangerously impetuous GOP liberation theology:

"It’s not just what takes place on the streets of Iran but what takes place in America’s conscience. We have to be on the right side of history," he said. "We just need to say that we’re on their side as they seek freedom."

The artistry of the first line's beautifully apt, unintentionally ironic, depiction of a U.S. Senator's mind, particularly of the GOP persuasion, is on par with Orwell's intentionally-ironic Ministry of Love, where dissidents were meted out education through pain and torture (But hell, at least with Winston Smith, it worked, even without the Beach Boys' bombing anthem. McCain's "the revolution takes place in our conscience" platitude misses something substantial, like credibility, force----reality.)



Clearly this first line means that to the GOP opportunists of the hour, the "revolution" in Iran isn't only what their people do in the streets or the pain and oppression they receive a la Supreme Leader, but also what America's collective "conscience" experiences and says. That "conscience" used to say, "Bomb for peace," which was much more in tow with Orwellian tough love doled out by a Ministry of Peace. Kudos guys, you're unwittingly following your own dystopic artistic propensities. What the FU...?



Is he really implying that like some other purely subjective realities (LSD, poetry, coitus), the current Iranian "revolution" is taking place in our minds ("consciences") as much as it is objectively taking place on the ground. Such a profound implication would mean that, like many, if not all objective events-----for his group of partisans, anyways----occurring outside of America's collective "conscience," they are actually highly subjective. This is because, as Americans, we know our "conscience" is an objective fact. What it experiences is objective reality. What truths lie on the ground in Iran, therefore, are neatly appropriated into the American subjective experience, which can be prone to the same whims of selective remembrance, defense mechanisms of the conscience, and full-fledged self-delusion.



Well then, with such an inversion----our internal truths now being objectively absolute, and the facts of the outside world being highly subjective and hence worthy of dismissal----we shouldn't doubt that these latest events in the Gulf will be open to some highly subjective revisions, re-imaginings, and reinterpretations of cause and effect, now and in the future. The historical record, say pre-Obama presidency as far back as 1953 would also fall under America's purview of subjectivity and exclusion, of course.



The inversion of the objective with the subjective is to be expected from an "American conscience" that can only publicly acknowledge the world and all its historical facts as subjective as its own "conscience." This "conscience," with its highly selective, although mainly amnesiac memory, does not know it's completely deluded into believing itself the definition of absolute objectivity. Not surprising at all for an empire. In short: Everything that occurred before Mr. McCain woke up today is subject to the same inverse rules and regulations within its own American universe of objectivity, opposed to the outside world's chaotic, subjective facts and histories. McCain, this American universe, and its "conscience," are One----and It blithely accepts the lie of Its own, self-evident morality and objectivity. If that weren't true, a leader of McCain's caliber and "integrity" couldn't go all over the media, be interviewed by plenty of people with IQs above 80, and cry that "we just need to say we're on their side" without any historical context, and without being laughed off camera. The historical context is America's, and to America the Iranian "revolution" we're witnessing is part of our subjective "conscience." It's whatever our "conscience" says it is.



In an alternate reality, one more focused on the objectivity of historical facts, media figures would ask the senator about the apparent contradiction between bombing the people of whom's freedom you supposedly care so deeply about. This might produce a more enjoyably candid response to Bob Scheiffer's latest interview:

"Bob, I did support bombing Iran when belligerence was still cool and seemed to win elections, but now, much later on down the road, when our president has to walk a delicate diplomatic line, I feel the Iranian people are best served by making our very own, distinctly American consciences paramount with vapid, self-indulgent rhetoric. Their revolution is almost as important as our need to posture as a moral agent in the universe, even if it puts more ammo into the hands of the repressive Iranian government to squelch any foreseeable reform. At which point, I could go back to singing my 'Beach Boy Bomb Song'" and urge the peaceable bombing of the Iranian population."

After witnessing another year of America's intensely subjective understanding of the facts pertaining to itself, and its bouts of conscience and/or lack thereof, the logic becomes clear as day: While campaigning for president, McCain must have meant that it's important to bomb Iran into supporting its own future revolution because, god knows, no organic uprising could ever possibly occur without that. And what a genius idea, in a Bush Doctrine kind of way, since obviously nothing breaks a people's solidarity with their own government like being under attack (Remember Pearl Harbor? No? Just remember back then to what it was like after 911: America, ready to bend to Al Qaeda's will at any moment, "islamo-fascism" in the fluoride of our drinking water----treasonous citizens itching to oust their illegitimately appointed president, George W. Bush. Americans were just leaping at the chance to topple their own government, as treason and sedition abounded).



So what an impossibly useful suggestion coming from McCain and the GOP: to flop from "bomb Iran" to open solidarity with Iran's people. And to think it was only stupid leftists espousing their views on solidarity not but a couple months ago when the bombing craze was all the rage. McCain, the artist, has unwittingly traveled back in time to meet those leftists who are now respecting and appreciating that fine line Obama has to walk today so as not to squelch any possible reform by openly supporting the reformers.



But imagine: If only not-so-recent historical facts were as subjective as the whims of McCain and the GOP, one could utterly erase the history of U.S. intervention in Iran, especially that one inconvenient event responsible for bringing the mullahs and the Ayatollah to power in the first place! Maybe that's just it: Would McCain like to see Obama respond with our objectively- absolute American "conscience," being "on the right side of history" by spearheading a CIA-led coup, much like that of 1953, which removed Iran's democratically elected prime-minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq?

I’m not for sending arms. I’m not for fomenting violence, nothing except to say that America’s position in the world is one of moral leadership.

Whether it be threatening to bomb them, or making grandiose pronouncements against their government, or just straight-up, old fashioned regime change, Iranians right now must be really agonizing over the plight of "America's conscience," while they are endangering themselves by demonstrating in the streets. They want to succeed, not listen to our screaming "consciences" that can only embolden the reactionary forces against their reform movement. By the way, "I'm not for sending arms"? What about "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!" That was only months ago; certainly McCain can remember that expression of solidarity with the Iranian people he made way back in the dark past of 2008.



In 2008, "moral leadership" for the GOP meant bombing Iran all the way to victory at the polls. Today, it means losing this "revolution" by demonstrating just how much America intends its support to a member of a supposed "Axis of Evil."



Obama's handling this correctly. McCain and the GOP should go back to being honest and advocating a policy of "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" because Iranians, like the Kurds in the First Gulf War, understand what prospective U.S. support means: failure if not outright betrayal.



___________________________

*Oh, and don't forget Mr. Foreign Policy's major blunders about a region he's so keen on "liberating":

• At an April 2007 town hall meeting in South Carolina, McCain responded to a question about potential military action against Iran by asking: "You know that old Beach Boys song, 'Bomb Iran?' " He then sang: "Bomb, bomb, bomb -- but anyway." Asked about those comments during a September 2007 radio interview, McCain said he was "proud" of the moment's popularity on YouTube and continued: "Look, when I'm in the company of veterans, which I was, and one of them says to me, 'When are you going to send a message to Iran?' and we're joking around, I'm gonna joke around. And if someone doesn't like it, my advice to them is to lighten up."
  



• As Media Matters for America has noted, on three occasions over two days in March 2008, McCain made the false claim that Iranian operatives were training Al Qaeda for fighting in Iraq -- once on March 17 while being interviewed by nationally syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt and twice during March 18 remarks to reporters in Amman, Jordan. In Jordan, after Sen. Joe Lieberman whispered in McCain's ear, he corrected himself: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda." McCain's presidential campaign subsequently acknowledged the misstatement.
  



• In a July 21, 2008, interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC's Good Morning America, McCain referred at one point to "the Iraq-Pakistan border." In fact, Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border -- they are separated by Iran.