tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post6889638857008859898..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: The NYT Should Be Ashamed of ItselfJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-22191727882562363122011-11-01T13:51:39.525-05:002011-11-01T13:51:39.525-05:00I can't find even a little hint of what he doe...<i>I can't find even a little hint of what he doesn't like about the law might help make sense of his complaint.</i><br /><br />.<br /><br />That's because verbalizing his REAL complaint puts the Left on the opposite side of the American electorate, which is in the process of punishing the Left for ObamaCare. <br /><br />The Left did what he and everybody else understood would lead to their electoral annihilation. He and they wanted the sugar, but along with the sugar comes annihilation, unfortunately.<br /><br />60 lefty senators voted for ObamaCare. The day it passed the House, I predicted that a minimum of 20 of those lefties would be whacked by election 2014. I think I may have undercalculated my annihilation rate, however.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-74764891301515077432011-11-01T07:06:47.434-05:002011-11-01T07:06:47.434-05:00>Can the Weston-type be persuaded to re-assess ...>Can the Weston-type be persuaded to re-assess their impoverished understanding?<br /><br />I've encountered people with Westen-type views who are open-minded and persuadable. My impression of Westen himself, however, is that he's an attention-seeking hack. He has avoided providing serious responses to any of the substantive criticisms he has received. And just look at his face during his appearance on <a href="http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/93582/watch-chait-charlie-rose" rel="nofollow">Charlie Rose</a> from a couple of months ago: he has one of those insufferable, smug expressions that does not suggest the sort of person who is open to becoming better informed. You may call that superficial, which it is--but it's backed up by the way he has conducted himself since his initial piece appeared.Kylopodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06932528611103718373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-8181895115522389212011-10-31T14:14:21.639-05:002011-10-31T14:14:21.639-05:00Westen is useful as a primary source: he's a r...Westen is useful as a primary source: he's a record of how the partially informed, comfortable contemporary American liberal comprehends the functioning of democracy and the nature of partisan politics.<br /><br />The question is: does that make him useless for people who think seriously about politics and democracy? Can the Weston-type be persuaded to re-assess their impoverished understanding? Or is the Weston-type an enduring, perennial creature of democratic politics, incorrigible, and part of the ongoing challenge of politics is to gain this person's support and commitment even though he/she has no idea how to diagnose the sources of political problems?PFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00263515090451316188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-60060894160241712022011-10-31T12:05:55.117-05:002011-10-31T12:05:55.117-05:00Westen is a total joke, and painful to watch and r...Westen is a total joke, and painful to watch and read. Anything he gets right as a prognosticator is merely by accident. Dude should stick to clinical psych and leave political pontification to others.TapirBoy1https://www.blogger.com/profile/11327586630549189956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-28907039275844298662011-10-31T10:50:01.545-05:002011-10-31T10:50:01.545-05:00I think the core problem isn't complexity as s...I think the core problem isn't complexity as such, but that the good stuff mostly <i>hasn't</i> kicked in yet. Compare to the stimulus bill, which wasn't that complex, but has a bad reputation because happy days aren't here again.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-7699002357042322322011-10-31T10:11:41.123-05:002011-10-31T10:11:41.123-05:00I suspect what he means when he says it's &quo...I suspect what he means when he says it's "stitched together poorly" is that it's really complicated and hard to explain. One of the few legitimate complaints about the bill is that it's more convoluted than it had to be - the weird phasing-in periods where different benefits start at different points in time, the complicated sliding scale of subsidies based on multiples of the poverty level, the complex definitions of what makes up the exchanges. Obviously there were good reasons to make the bill that way, and also some not-so-good ones (the silly focus on the 10-year CBO score which brought the even sillier 10/6 talking point into being and reduced the bill's popularity because very few people are actually benefiting from it right now). I find, though, that even people who follow politics fairly closely are often highly confused as to what the bill actually *does*. Maybe that was inevitable with a bill of such massive scope, but I understand where he's coming from there.Adamnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-18652457396489231922011-10-31T10:06:28.006-05:002011-10-31T10:06:28.006-05:00How many months was it from LBJ's victory in 1...How many months was it from LBJ's victory in 1964 to the riots in Chicago? <br /><br />I think you are overestimating how many Democrats like Obama and his style of leadership. Yes, perhaps the economy is controlling that.<br /><br />It is really more expectations. A lot of those two million people standing in freezing Washington came to see a black man elected president. A lot came to put an end to Bush nightmare. But a lot came because they were hoping for some real change in this county, and Obama hasn't delivered on that. Maybe he couldn't.charlienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-57520209460242250502011-10-31T10:01:14.897-05:002011-10-31T10:01:14.897-05:00It seems like, generally, a lot of old school comm...It seems like, generally, a lot of old school commentators (who rely more on feelings and gut sense than data), subscribe to and propagate a mythology that there's a higher plane of bi- non- post-partisanship centrism (or whatever they decide to call it) that they believe can solve all policy impasses in a way that will satisfy the equally mythic infallible Independents. Certainly my parents and friends (reliable Dems, all) parrot that mythology on a regular basis. Aside from recommending Plain Blog to them, what can be done about this?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com