Our White House Photo Blog caught this one from President Obama’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire earlier this week (when I was in neighboring Vermont, and well outside the range of any kind of signal). So, Swampland commenters , what do you think that last question should have been? (I’m looking at you, commenter deconstructiva.)
Domestic Policy
Sarah Palin, M.D.
The former Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin, better explains today why she is concerned about President Obama’s support for allowing doctors to offer living will consultations to patients with government funding. It is, I believe, a must read, if only as an exercise in logic. Palin is arguing in plain terms that doctors cannot be trusted to …
Obama’s Mexican Press Conference
For a few minutes Monday, the cable news networks turned live to a presidential press conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, an event most American viewers experienced as a brief respite from the regularly-scheduled health care reform horror show–the looped videotapes of angry protesters screeching at town hall meetings, the attack ads …
More Fact Check: The Obama Flip-Flop On Medicare Drug Prices
The New York Times reported Saturday that the pharmaceutical industry has “authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul.” By all appearances this seems like clear payback for Obama’s decision to, among other things, reverse his campaign promise on …
The New White House “Reality” Website
The White House has released a new website, the “Reform Reality Check,” the latest “fact-check” sites, aimed at debunking some of the more egregious characterizations of the still-amorphous health care reform effort. It is a signal that the Obama Administration is settling in for a long slog against its conservative critics, a fight not …
Health Care Mobs: Week #2
A week ago, Lloyd Doggett, a Democratic congressman from Austin, Tex., became an instant YouTube sensation when his “office hours” at a South Austin grocery store turned into a mob scene. It was one of the first indicators of what a lot of his colleagues would see in their own districts over this very rocky August recess. But Doggett …
#deathpanel on Twitter
Sarah, Sarah, Sarah…
Sarah Palin, via her Facebook page, is the latest to spread the most bizarre rumor about what is in the health care legislation that is being drafted on Capitol Hill.:
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his
…
With Great Hope Comes Great Responsibility
Comparing the national mood in the summer of 2009 with the national mood in the summer of 2001 is a bit like comparing bald eagles with chickens. Not only are they different birds altogether, but they live in entirely different environments. In the summer of 2001, the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. In the summer of 2009, it stands at …
Obama and PhRMA: Deal or No Deal?
Yesterday’s New York Times report of a behind-the-scenes deal between the White House and the drug lobby is causing no small degree of consternation among Democrats on Capitol Hill. Over at HuffPost, Ryan Grim is reporting that Senators received assurances from the White House that there was no deal that would prevent Medicare from …
Obama’s Secret Deal With The Drugmakers
Shrewd politics–or cynical ones? In today’s NYT, David Kirkpatrick shines a light on the secret deal that the Obama White House made with the pharmaceutical industry to keep it at the table in health reform negotiations. It turns out that even as they were applauding their deal to find $80 billion in savings, they weren’t telling us …
Health Reform: Euthanasia and Other Rumors
Harold Pollack dispenses with them (and their sources) here.
Re: YouTube Wars…
That “Shock Uncovered” video is from the very same health care forum that I posted about yesterday. And as I noted then, there was indeed a shock — to Obama, who showed up unprepared, and (I am convinced) without any real idea what, specifically, he wanted to do about health care reform.
As I also noted yesterday, that was not the …