Like Tax Cuts That Way

What Digby said:

This is one of the problems with health care reform, as I've mentioned before. If the economy is doing well and deficits are going down, everybody's working and the fiscal scolds insist that reform will rain on the parade and ruin everything. More people working means more people have health insurance and the calls for reform are muted. If the economy is in trouble, then the fiscal scolds insist that the sky is falling because of rising deficits and reform will make everything even worse. Fewer people working makes the need more critical, but many of them see the deficit as a sign that government is dysfunctional and so they reject reform. No matter what, "the deficit" has a stranglehold on the political discourse in ways that makes reform nearly impossible.

The economy's good? It's time for tax cuts.

The economy's bad? It's time for tax cuts.

The tax cuts don't produce jobs as promised? It just means you need more tax cuts.

It's never time for health care for all Americans.

Elsewhere on Hullabaloo:

If these Democrats had a brain in their heads they'd realize that the best way to maintain their power (and keep getting those big bucks) is to pass a good bill. Successful reform will be their only defense because the true political downside to passing a bad bill now is being out there alone selling out the American people all by themselves.

Hey, McFly! Your shoe's untied!

When are these guys going to wise up?

Do Progressives Have What It Takes To Win?

Maybe it is something congenital about the left. Faced with lies, propaganda and intimidation, liberals go to Google to arm themselves with more and better facts.

Here! See my data?

Writing on Philly.com, Dick Polman wonders "whether there is some fundamental flaw in the Democratic gene pool ..." that the Democratic leadership was caught off guard by the conservative backlash against health care reform.

Recent town hall displays -- including the swastikas and death threats, explicit and implied -- prove again that it's past time that progressives got a clue and stopped bringing letter openers to gun fights.

Read more at Huffington Post.

Back to Boise

Today I finally looked back in on Bill Cope of Boise Weekly. A few weeks ago, I saw where Cope had ventured into the mountains to get some insight on socialist health care from "Badger" Bob, the socialist. Bob is both a capitalist libertarian and a socialist, so he ought to know socialism when he sees it. Bill found Bob drinking pitchers of Oly and throwing horseshoes with his buddy, Hoot, "a straight-up libertarian."

Things got a little heated:

"Tell me something, Hoot. Were you so damned confident in the free markets back when Enron was kicking the crap out of California by manipulating the energy grid? Or how about when we found out that Halliburton bunch was screwing the military out of billions? Did that make you proud of your unfettered laissez faire? Huh? Or what we're going through now with all these damn banks and such? ... Doesn't that make you wonder even a little bit if unregulated commerce ain't entirely what it's cracked up to be? You really suppose this is what your precious Adam Smith had in mind?"

If you look further, Cope explains the common medical condition, HUHA.

Something I ran across

As for the argument that government is unable to pull off anything like health care successfully, Steve Benen at Washington Monthly recalled a memorable scene from film:

It reminds me a bit of a scene in “Life of Brian.” The People’s Front of Judea are having a meeting and considering what the Romans had ever done for them. Reg asks, “Apart apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

Health Care Debate Loses Coherence

The descent into complete incoherence among conservatives -- especially on talk radio -- has become widespread as the health care debate intensifies. The once Mighty Wurlitzer is wheezing and groaning.

One suspects, however, that behind much of the "Don't Tread On Me" rhetoric directed at Obama is a spluttering "... but, but, but, you're black!"

Read more at Huffington Post.