The loudest voices on the right never tire of telling us that they are the truest patriots. They claim to be the deepest believers in our system, the strongest defenders of our Constitution, the most upbeat, bold and courageous Americans anywhere.
Within hours after the House of Representatives approved health care reform by a narrow margin, Republicans predicted retribution at the polls next fall. They promised to make every Democrat regret that historic vote as the first step toward the reversal of power in Washington.
When Newt Gingrich warned Republicans that they were making a grave "mistake" by driving out moderates and enforcing the angry orthodoxy of the far right, the sober tone of his remarks was stunning.
The Senate leadership's decision to include the "public option" in its health care reform legislation seemed at first almost miraculous, especially to anyone who believed the hundreds of obituaries recited in the media over the past several months. But by acting on their convictions rather than their fears, the Democrats could ultimately find that the politics of consumer choice can be turned to their advantage for years to come.
Popular disgust over the fat premiums that financial executives bestow upon themselves is burgeoning, and rightly so. Those Wall Street piggy banks are filling up with billions upon billions of government-subsidized dollars.
Outraged babble and sanctimonious tut-tutting over President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize will pour forth until the very evening he accepts the prize in Oslo, and then for years afterward. His critics are infuriated, they say, because he didn't earn the prestigious award, or because he didn't refuse it -- or just because those left-wing Norwegians have a lot of nerve. How dare they insult us by bestowing their highest honor on the president of the United States and inviting him to deliver a lecture?
The latest signals from the White House suggest that President Obama now realizes he must do more -- and quickly -- to ease the economic suffering of working families. He knows that most Americans believe his administration and Congress have so far provided more help to major banks and Wall Street investment firms than to workers and small companies, as a survey released by pollster Peter Hart reported recently.
Listening closely to the politicians with the most clout in the debate over health care, it is startling to discover how little they actually seem to know about the subject.
With admirable calm, President Obama has sought to deflect the supercharged politics of race by expressing his optimism about American attitudes and ignoring the most extreme statements by his critics. For his own sake, as well as the nation's, he is wise to give a pass to the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. That is not, however, what they deserve.
The stupid misconduct of entertainer Kanye West and politician Joe Wilson demonstrated, if any fresh proof is necessary, that thoughtless rudeness isn't confined by ethnicity, ideology or background. With their highly public episodes of misconduct, both earned sharp public censure.
The wild furor over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren raises many questions, but there is only one that really matters. How did America surrender its political discourse -- not to mention the news cycle -- to the most unreasonable and unstable elements of the far right?
Predictably as always, the Republicans in Congress and in the conservative media are berating Attorney General Eric Holder for deciding to investigate the CIA's use of abusive interrogation methods on terror suspects.
If the Democrats fail to pass real changes in the health care system this year -- rather than a sham that mimics and mocks reform -- they will have nobody to blame but themselves.
When Republican politicians and right-wing talking heads bemoan the fictitious "death panels" that they claim would arise from health-care reform, they are concealing a sinister reality from their followers. The ugly fact is that every year we fail to reform the existing system, that failure condemns tens of thousands of people to die -- either because they have no insurance or because their insurance companies deny coverage or benefits when they become ill.
On Aug. 4, President Barack Obama celebrated the anniversary of his birth, an event that occurred 48 years ago in the state of Hawaii. This is an indisputable fact, as sane critics on the right, such as the editors of the National Review and the veteran pundit Patrick Buchanan, acknowledge.
In his struggle to change the nation's health care system, Barack Obama again faces certain obstacles that almost stopped his amazing march to the presidency. Aside from the Washington chattering class and the right-wing media, which always oppose progressive reform, Mr. Obama is losing his grip on the middle class and working families in swing states. He is losing Democratic senators and members of Congress in places like Florida and Arkansas. He is losing the propaganda war with his professorial style of explanation.
"Fiscal conservative" is one of those terms used by politicians of all sorts to describe themselves, without any real justification. Parroted mindlessly from one news cycle to the next by major media outlets, that phrase is often used to mislead the public about the priorities and policies favored by those who claim to embody budgetary prudence.
Very soon, Congressional leaders are expected to announce the creation of a new commission to investigate the real causes of America's crippling financial disaster.
The new senator from Minnesota is a comedian, writer and actor who lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and raised a lot of money from friends in Hollywood.
Americans hope to discuss health care, climate change, green economics or public infrastructure with any degree of realism, then the time has come to acknowledge that hearing someone say "a trillion dollars" is no reason to panic. Politicians and pundits cite that figure to argue that we cannot afford health care reform, following recent cost estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), but the plain truth is that we spend (and squander) more than that on purposes not nearly so wise and humane as universal quality health care.
