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Pelosi's Not-So-Robust Public Option
By John Nichols
The public option was always a compromise for serious supporters of health-care reform, who -- like Barack Obama when he was running for the Senate in 2003 -- knew that a single-payer "Medicare for All" system was what America needed to provide health care to everyone while controlling costs.
But, in the reform legislation debuted Thursday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the compromise was even more compromised than had been expected.
Pelosi says the legislation is "historic," and celebrates the fact that is does still include a public option -- a component many pundits had said was destined for abandonment.
(148) CommentsOctober 28, 2009
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Warrior-Diplomat Asks of Afghan War: "Why and to What End?"
By John Nichols
About the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan -- not merely the proposal to surge more troops into the quagmire but the occupation itself -- he says: "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.'"
Who is this radical peacenik who fails to recognize the necessity of the mission in Afghanistan, let alone the role that it plays in the broader "war on terror"?
His name is Matthew Hoh.
(112) CommentsOctober 27, 2009
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What If, Instead of Fox, Team Obama Tackled Insurance Profiteers
By John Nichols
Suppose President Obama and his aides had decided to take on the worst offender among the big insurance companies this fall.
Suppose the White House had highlighted the failure of the company to provide quality care, the abuses in which it has engaged and the behind-the-scenes campaigning by a self-interested corporation to influence the health-care debate in a manner that helps it while harming Americans.
Suppose presidential aides highlighted the initiative in broadcast and cable interviews and reinforced the message with carefully crafted talking points that said the insurance company's top officers were not helping Americans to get medical care but rather engaging in self-interested profiteering.
(176) CommentsOctober 26, 2009
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A "Premature Antifascist" -- And Proudly So
By John Nichols
Clarence Kailin, a son of the Midwest whose lifelong commitment to social and economic justice led him to become one of the first Americans to take up arms against the fascist forces that swept across Europe in the years before World War II, has died at age 95.
Kailin was one of the last survivors of the 2,800 American volunteers who fought from 1936 to 1939 as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in defense of the elected Spanish government against a coup engineered by Generalissimo Francisco Franco with the backing of Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini. His role in "the good fight" of the international volunteers -- as it was immortalized by Ernest Hemingway and W.H. Auden -- gave Kailin, a scrawny kid from Madison, Wisconsin's multi-ethnic Greenbush neighborhood, a place in an essential chapter of 20th century history.
Yet, for Kailin, "There wasn't any choice. If you were against totalitarianism, if you were against injustice, you had to care about what happened in Spain. Spain was where the fight against fascism was focused in 1936. So Spain was where I knew I needed to be."
(48) CommentsOctober 26, 2009
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Byrd's Wise Warning: Afghanistan is the Grave of Foreigners
By John Nichols
West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd refers to himself as "a student of history."
In fact, he is history.
The longest serving senator in the history of the legislative branch of the federal government, the former majority leader of the chamber, the constitutional scholar who several presidents (Democrats and Republicans) considered as a potential Supreme Court nominee, the long-ago southern stalwart who reconstructed himself as a supporter of civil rights and an early backer of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, he is an epic figure who speaks with an authority steeped in the wisdom gained from having personally experienced what others know only from books.
(86) CommentsOctober 24, 2009
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Roger Ailes for President? Er, Maybe Not So Much
By John Nichols
It would be difficult to concoct a Washington fantasy more delicious than this one: Barack Obama declares "war" on Fox News and Fox boss Roger Ailes counters by signaling that he will challenge the president in the 2012 election.
This is William Randolph Hearst, Citizen Kane stuff--great fodder for political junkies.
But Ailes is not going to be president, nor even the Republican nominee for president.
(48) CommentsOctober 23, 2009
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Congressman Grayson Wins Another Round
By John Nichols
Florida Congressman Alan Grayson keeps provoking congressional Republicans and their media allies with fact-based challenges to the lies being used to block health care reform.
The insurance-industry stooges keep taking the bait.
And the truth about the high cost of delaying needed changes in America's health care delivery system keeps getting the attention it deserves.
(154) CommentsOctober 21, 2009
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Obama to Karzai: Thanks for Recognizing Your Illegitimacy
By John Nichols
Barack Obama will have to do some awfully embarrassing things as president. The whole pardoning the turkey thing on the eve of Thanksgiving comes to mind. And then there's the taking John Boehner seriously thing -- an admittedly impossible task that must be undertaken as perhaps the most thankless burden of the republic.
On the scale of exceptionally embarrassing White House duties, however, few moments will rival the point on Tuesday when the president found himself hailing the commitment of accused election-fraudster Hamid Karzai to "ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will."
Karzai, the imposed viceroy, er, president of Afghanistan whose supporters engaged in massive fraud in order to "win" the country's recent election, has agreed to participate in a November 7 runoff election with Abdullah Abdullah – the most resilient survivor of the Karzai team's chicanery.
(42) CommentsOctober 20, 2009
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Ending Federal Lawlessness: DOJ Eases Off Medical Pot
By John Nichols
During the 2008 campaign, one of candidate Barack Obama's best applause lines was a promise to restore respect for science when it came to federal policy making.
On Monday, President Obama kept a piece of that promise when his Department of Justice issued a directive ordering agency lawyers not to prosecute individuals who use or prescribe medical marijuana in states that have legalized the drug for that purpose.
"It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal," explained Attorney General Eric Holder. "This balanced policy formalizes a sensible approach that the Department has been following since January: effectively focus our resources on serious drug traffickers while taking into account state and local laws."
(131) CommentsOctober 19, 2009
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Better a Disappointing Dem Than a Savvy Theocrat
By John Nichols
Creigh Deeds has been a disappointment as the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia.
While he was preferable to one of his Democratic primary foes -- veteran party bagman Terry McAuliffe -- Deeds lacked the ideas, the personality and the drive of the third candidate in that race, Brian Moran.
But Moran and McAuliffe beat each other up, split votes among key constituencies and assured a Deeds victory.
(85) CommentsOctober 18, 2009
John Nichols
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