New York Times correspondent agrees with 'Waterloo' author for calling out Repubs on health care reform

Edmund L. Andrews, a business and economics correspondent for The New York Times, wrote the following piece in response to David Frum’s firing from the American Enterprise Institute after publishing a critique of the Republican Party subsequent to the passage of health care reform:

‘We shouldn't be surprised that David Frum got fired from the American Enterprise Institute for violating the Republican Party line on health care.   Notwithstanding the Palin/McCain campaign rhetoric, the GOP has been hostile for years to mavericks, independent thinkers and, frankly, almost any kind of thinkers. 

 Even so, I was struck by this post from Frum's wife, Danielle Crittenden:

“We have both been part of the conservative movement for, as mentioned, the better part of half of our lives.  And I can categorically state I’ve never seen such a hostile environment towards free thought and debate–the hallmarks of Reaganism, the politics with which we grew up–prevail in our movement as it does today. The thuggish demagoguery of the Limbaughs and Becks is a trait we once derided in the old socialist Left.  Well boys, take a look in the mirror.  It is us now.”    

It's hard to believe that this revelation came like a bolt out of the blue.  The Republican arguments on health care, the economic stimulus and financial regulation have become so convoluted and degraded that they only make sense from the perspective of raw political strategy and Tea Party pandering.

 What holds the Republican Party together isn't anything remotely like a coherent philosophy or set of values.  The only things holding it together are group-think based on a cold calculation of how best to block the Democrats and rile the base.  It's an intellectual circling of the wagons.  Small wonder that it becomes oppressive.

I am tempted to think that the revulsion expressed Crittenden is part of a bigger ferment among Republicans.  I'd like to think that there is a group of young Turks or moderates who agree with Frum that the GOP health-care rejectionism will turn out to be the party's Waterloo.  I'd like to think that there is a new generation GOP that is ready to take a chance on constructive engagement.  

 But my good friend Bruce Bartlett is skeptical.  Republican leaders think their strategy since the 2008 election has been a great success.  If they win back House and Senate seats this fall -- as they almost certainly will -- they'll argue that their strategy has been vindicated.   And the truth is, the Young Turks are among the most fervent of the hard-liners -- the Jeb Hensarlings, Paul Ryans.  The moderates are disappearing faster than ever, and the ones who stay are disdained.

So: tough luck, David Frum.  I'm sure you'll do just fine.  But don't be shocked that you've been bounced from AEI. The surprise is that you kept the job for so long.’

NY Times journalist questions whether everything that the Bush Administration did on counterterrorism was illegal

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times alleged the Bush administration's entire warrantless surveillance program may have been illegal, after a federal judge's ruling that the Bush administration illegally wiretapped an Saudi-based Islamic charity and two American lawyers. "Plaintiffs must  and have put forward enough evidence to establish a prima facie case that they were subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance," US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker declared Wednesday.

James Risen, who broke the story for the Times in 2005, told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Wednesday night that the ruling raises serious questions about the underpinnings of Bush's entire war on terror.

"You could argue that virtually all the programs that the Bush Administration used, rendition, torture, wiretapping, you know, setting up secret prisons, all were in one form or another, an invasion of congressional power," Risen said.

"If by saying the Bush Administration had no right to avoid congressional mandates and congressional legislation, That raises real questions about whether everything that the Bush Administration did on counterterrorism was illegal," Risen added.

Former Governor Sarah Palin left Alaska with the highest state debt burden in the United States

Former less than one-term Governor Sarah Palin has long sold herself as a fiscal conservative, arguing against the Democrats' health overhaul on the grounds that the nation simply can't afford it.

But when the former losing vice presidential candidate resigned as governor of Alaska in the summer of 2009, she left the state with a 70 percent debt-to-GDP ratio, the highest state debt burden in the United States.

By comparison, crisis-stricken California has a debt ratio of less than 40 percent. All the more confounding about Alaska's debt is the fact that it is an oil-producing region with a small population to share in that wealth. 

Palin did face similar debt problems while mayor of Wasilla, and those appear to be of her own making. Wasilla's municipal debt went from around $1 million when she came in to office, to around $22 million when she left.