Ezra Klein says health care rationing ain't so bad

Ezra Klein is frustrated.

Opponents of socialized medicine just won't shut up. They keep saying that government-run health care would lead to rationing, and they keep saying it like that's a bad thing. So Ezra scolds them, and us: "We Ration. We Ration. We Ration. We Ration."

Somehow, it's supposed to support his argument to repeat it four times. It's all Charles Krauthammer's fault. He said socialized medicine inevitably leads to rationing, because Britain and Canada have health care rationing, so Ezra says:

So do we. This is not an arguable proposition. It is not a difference of opinion, or a conversation about semantics. We ration. We ration without discussion, remorse or concern. We ration health care the way we ration other goods: We make it too expensive for everyone to afford.

.. and thereby displays his own fundamental misunderstanding of the word "rationing" and his preference for the Left's impossible and immoral dream of equality of outcomes. So, believe me, Ezra, I'm just as frustrated as you are. Please forgive me if I think mine continues to be an "arguable position."

Ezra goes on to cite (by recycling a full four paragraphs from a June post) a 2001 survey that says 38 percent of Britons and 27 percent of Canadians reported waiting four months or more for elective surgery, but for Americans it was only 5 percent. But -- aha! -- the same survey says 24 percent of Americans reported that they did not get medical care because of cost, and 26 percent said they did not fill a prescription because of cost, and 22 percent said they didn't get a test or treatment. But in Britain and Canada, Ezra says, only about 6 percent said costs had limited their access to care.

Come on, Ezra. If the government makes sure that "everyone can afford" health care, the percentage of Brits and Canadians who say that costs limited their access to care should be zero percent. You just said that even with full-blown national health care, 6 percent of the people can't even afford that.

Concerning that same survey, Ezra said previously:

In Britain and Canada, in other words, they ration actively: The government tells you that the resources are scarce and you'll have to wait. In America, we ration passively: You can't afford the cost of care, and so you go without.

That's why Ezra is frustrated. He thought he had foreclosed the entire "rationing is bad" line of attack back in June. But I'm just some kind of neanderthal conservative motherfucker, so let me see if I've got this straight. If you're British or Canadian and you have to wait four months to see a doctor, you just get to suck it up and deal like a good comrade. But if you're an American and you can't afford to see the doctor -- or if you just choose for yourself not to spend the money -- you must be oppressed by the evil greedy capitalists.

Either the government doesn't have enough resources to get you a doctor appointment when you need one, or else you don't have enough resources to get yourself a doctor appointment when you need one. But either way, you have to wait or do without. As Ezra says, the Britain/Canada vs. U.S. numbers are "almost mirror images of each other." But how does that make the case for government-run health care? To say that the outcomes aren't any better if the state is running the hospital?

It doesn't. Ezra's just ticked because our side keeps talking about "rationing" like it's evil. See, one side has actual rationing -- the government decides how to allocate scarce resources. The other side has, at least to some degree, the people making their own decisions on how to allocate resources, which Ezra thinks is also "rationing." But it's not. Socialism is not the same as a free market. Allocation of resources by government edict is not a free market. What we have now in terms of health care is not a free market, but it's still not rationing. No matter how many times you repeat your argument, Ezra, it's just not.

'Journalism' doesn't mean what Howard Kurtz thinks it means

Without really intending to, Howard Kurtz lays bare the mainstream media's monolithic liberal bias, and does so without apology or much of a hint of self-awareness. In its reporting regarding the "death panels" story, Kurtz writes, the media did not "retreat" to the "studied neutrality" of giving both sides their say -- instead they "tried to perform last rites on the ludicrous claim about President Obama's death panels" and tried to tell Sarah Palin to shut up. And they failed.

Get that? The media set out not to inform, but to "debunk." Not to clarify and encourage greater intellectual honesty among the partisans, but for no other purpose than to nail Sarah Palin for lying. And yet, somehow, they fucked it up.

Let's take a moment to review the offending quote. Palin wrote that she did not want to see an America "in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care." Kurtz writes:

"While there is legitimate debate about the legislation's funding for voluntary end-of-life counseling sessions, the former Alaska governor's claim that government panels would make euthanasia decisions was clearly debunked."

And there you have it. The media's judgment was swift and sure and can be summarized as: "WTF? Death panels are not in the bill! There's something in there about end of life counseling, so that must be what that Alaskan hick is talking about." Kurtz doesn't mention whether the media bothered to analyze Palin's statement or the media's own judgment any further than that. Because the media didn't. The media just took a position -- one that just happened to square perfectly with the Obama administration and liberal orthodoxy -- and rather than question its own biases, set to work trying to discredit the other side.

There's no way to make it any more plain than that. Mainstream journalism has evolved to the point where no one in the exclusive club can even manage to comprehend the opposing viewpoint from the Right. This isn't anything new, of course. It's merely amusing to watch Kurtz wring his hands on behalf of the media establishment that its best efforts to slam the door on an opposing viewpoint failed to move the public-opinion needle.

Allow me, Mr. Kurtz, to explain where the media really went wrong.

First of all, the "she's talking about end of life counseling and she's wrong" argument is quickly disposed of by anyone who bothered to read what Sarah Palin actually wrote. Her note on Facebook was only a few paragraphs. Anyone who reads the "death panels" passage in the context of the full note will understand that she is talking about health care rationing as an inevitable consequence of the complete government takeover of medicine. And as for "that's not in the bill," well that's just hiding the football. It is deliberately ignoring the fact that the Left has been pushing for government-run health care for generations. And if the government runs health care -- top-down, cradle-to-grave -- rationing is inevitable.

So read what Sarah Palin wrote and decide for yourself whether Kurtz's summary of it is supported -- he says she wrote "that government panels would make euthanasia decisions." Yet she didn't. She said that bureaucrats would judge whether a patient was worthy of health care and they would make that decision based on the government's subjective judgment of the patient's level of productivity in society. She didn't say the bureaucrats would euthanize her baby or her parents. She said decisions would be made by bureaucrats which would ultimately result in the patient's life or death. Apparently, to Kurtz, it's not a "death panel" unless it kills you outright. It's not a "death panel" if it just lets you die.

Again, under socialized medicine, rationing is inevitable. They know that. We know that. So was Sarah Palin's 'death panels' comment "over the top?" Inflamatory? Maybe. But it still squares with everything that conservatives have been warning about socialized medicine for generations now -- rationing will result, and life-or-death decisions will be made not by you but for you by bureaucrats.

Saying "that's not in the bill" is a talking point aimed at nothing less than dismissing the entire conservative position. The "reform" bills are a bridgehead from which liberals intend to continuously expand federal authority -- and the media know this. It is, in fact, why they thought "it's not in the bill" would not only be effective but also helpful to the progressive position.

But Kurtz goes on to list all the ways in which the media piled on against Sarah Palin. He describes this episode as "a stunning illustration of the traditional media's impotence." But he means that as a lament. He's not sorry that the media was blatantly carrying water for the Left's long-cherished dream of taking over health care rather than objectively reporting the news.

Fun with the Obama-icon-maker

Yep. It's still up. Upload a picture and have some fun.

Explaining the Right's cynicism about Ted Kennedy

Carl M. Cannon of Politics Daily on Teddy Kennedy, post-Chappaquiddick:

The idea that Edward M. Kennedy could be a viable national politician – let alone a much-admired and lionized political figure – has convinced millions of everyday citizens and succeeding generations of conservative activists that among the elites of academia, politics, and the media two standards of behavior exist: One for liberal Democrats and another for conservative Republicans.

And to put it plainly:

Not reporting a fatal traffic accident is a felony in most places. On Martha's Vineyard, if the driver is a Kennedy, it's not even a matter of official curiosity.

Liberals never saw Chappaquiddick as any sort of stain on Ted Kennedy's character. It was just an "incident," notable not for the death of an innocent young woman, but for tragically denying Ted's birthright to become President. It denied them the Camelot II they felt they deserved, and all those who raised it were uncouth at best and mouth-foaming right-wing cranks at worst.

Chappaquiddick will always be an emblem of Liberal Entitlement and the privileges of wealth and connections. Consequences are for little people. If you or I were to drive drunk and ram a car into a concrete barricade in full view of police officers, there would be consequences. But if you happen to be a Kennedy, not so much.

P.S. Such delicious snark from the ungrateful proletariat. Have a larf before it gets pulled down.

Sharon Begley proves that I am stupid

In her recent column in Time, Sharon Begley opens a big ol' can of condescension whoop-ass on the opponents of government-run health care. You can almost hear Sharon saying "Oh, for Pete's sake! You other liberals can't make this 'death panel' thing go away by just claiming that the people who buy into it are stupid! Here. Let me do it. I can prove scientifically that they're idiots!"

The Mainstream Media, you see, has exhausted itself in "debunking" the myth of Sarah Palin's "death panels." They're all out of ideas. So Sharon takes it upon herself to show that people who won't let go of the notion that "health care reform" is a Trojan horse for full-blown socialized medicine must suffer psychologically from confirmatory bias and cognitive dissonance. And we caught these diseases from the Internets, apparently.

She goes on to prove that "people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe" by spending half of her editorial space rehashing her own confirmatory bias in opposition to the Iraq War.

And here's this gem:

First of all, let's remember that 59,934,814 voters cast their ballot for John McCain, so we can assume that tens of millions of Americans believe the wrong guy is in the White House. To justify that belief, they need to find evidence that he's leading the country astray. What better evidence of that than to seize on the misinformation about Obama's health-care reform ideas and believe that he wants to insure illegal aliens, for example, and give the Feds electronic access to doctors' bank accounts?

Sharon apparently didn't get the memo -- the "that's not in the bill!" line of reasoning for calling reform opponents liars has gone by the wayside. Your faster-paced, Twitter-connected leftie isn't even trying that one anymore. No, this year's "reform" bill, whatever it turns out to be, is the leading edge of a government takeover of cradle-to-grave medical care -- economic costs, Constitution and any opposition be damned. To summarize: We can read, Sharon! The Lefties have confirmed all of our biases for us!

But that's beside the point. Sharon points out that nearly 60 million Americans voted for not-Obama. So, since Obama won, those people now must 1) "find evidence that he's leading the country astray" in order to justify their failure to vote for The One, or 2) acknowledge that their side lost the election and get with the program. Principled opposition to the downward slide to socialism isn't part of her diagnosis. Therefore, her hypothesis is that those choosing option #1 are "seizing on the misinformation" about wise President Obama's utterly benign "reform" plans. Thus is displayed an elegant academic proof that those opposed Obama are crazy or stupid.

Read the whole thing -- her lack of self-awareness is absolutely breathtaking, evidenced by her use of the Iraq War as an example. Sharon: The "Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11" line was a line of the Left, honey. It was a slogan of the anti-war Left, for whom "confirmatory bias" is a knee-jerk reflex -- "If America needs to fight somebody, America must be wrong and we want America to lose!" (Furthermore, if you want to talk about irrationally seeking to confirm one's own biases, let's mention Hillary Clinton still spreading the lies about the "stolen" 2000 election, or Andrew Sullivan's never-ending obsession with Sarah Palin's vagina, and go from there.)

The "conservatives are metal defectives" meme is one the progressives just cannot stay away from. Like clockwork, every couple of weeks it occurs to one of them -- and they write about it as thought they've just discovered it. Presumably there will be generous coverage for victims of "confirmation bias" under ObamaCare, and Sharon will not have to turn to the icky free market for help with her Liberal Superiority Complex.

Mr. Beam analyzes the Redskins vs. New England matchup

Quarterback Is Not a Job for Pussies

by Jim Beam
Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Hey! It's your ol' pal Jimmy Beam here! Your old friend. The one you count on more than ever when football season rolls around. Why, "Game Day" is my middle name! You've attended more sporting events with me -- high school, college, right through to the pros -- than with anyone else, and you know it! So who better than me to break down the Redskins' exhibition game tomorrow night?

Let's get right down to it: Jason Campbell has not played well at all. And that's going to be a big, big issue if he doesn't have a good game tomorrow night. Not just "Oh, well. Jason did OK. 50% completions, no INTs. Ho-hum. He's our starter." NO! He needs to get out there and kick some ass against a very good team and in a serious manner, or else, I tell you, it's time to go to Plan B.

And I do not mean Todd Collins.

If Campbell can't crank it up and look like a winner rather than a place-holder against the Patriots in a preseason game, what do you think is going to happen in the opener against the Giants? We're going to start the season by getting buttfucked again, that's what.

Campbell and most of the A-Team are supposed to get the whole first half to make something happen. After that, I say it's time to look at all four QBs and look at completions, look at first downs, look at third-down efficiency, look at yards-per-catch, and make a call.

If it's not Campbell, he's gone. We can't afford to have him pouting on the sidelines while he watches someone else play. I say, if he gets a fair shot at keeping the starting job and he doesn't go out and make the plays, it's time to cut bait.

If it's Collins.. Well, shit. Whatever. Give the clipboard to Chase Daniel or Colt Brennan and let them learn a few things and we'll get them going next year. With a little luck, Collins can probably steer us to 9-7. Could be worse.

If it's Daniel/Brennan -- then just give the kid the ball and let's go for it. If one of those dudes looks outstanding and the incumbent and the old man are looking flat -- it's time to roll the dice, baby. You know how I love to gamble. And you know how when you and I get together you love to gamble. So why stick with a placeholder? That's loser thinking. Losers talk about playing it safe. Remember when I told you to shoplift that canned ham? You didn't think we could get away with it -- and we totally did! Just as there is no ham which tastes better than a free ham, likewise having a quarterback that gives a team hope of victory is better than having a quarterback you're only hoping isn't a screwup. And I am hungry for victory. And ham.

Coach Zorn says Collins already has the #2 job locked up. But you and I know that's not true. There are two more scrimmages left, and Zorn knows he has to win this year. A statement like that, it don't mean shit. Coaches lie all the time, just like the police. And you know my motto is Fuck tha' Po-lice! Know what I'm sayin'? All those times I told you to run from the cops, it was for a reason.

So settle in tomorrow night, pour a big ol' Stiffie of me, and let's see who the starting QB will be -- or ought to be.

Mr. Beam's opinions are his own and do not reflect the policy of The Brewdog Blog or the James B. Beam Distilling Co.

Animal-rights activists burn Philadelphia to the ground

Yeah, remember how the word was that no team would sign Michael Vick because they were worried about the "publicity?" About the inevitable legions of animal-rights "activists" who would descend upon the unwary team? Why signing Michael Vick would be nothing short of public-relations suicide for an NFL team? How people would turn back their season tickets in droves, in disgust at the idea of that unrepentant dog-killer quarterbacking their team? How a team that signs him would destroy any accumulated goodwill with the community at large, would invite an epic shitstorm of unfavorable media coverage, and on top of all that he's probably not any good anyway?

Yeah, I remember that. I called bullshit on it a few weeks ago.

Now it looks like the Philadelphia-frickin-Eagles have picked up their QB of the future -- a rather proven commodity, if you recall -- for a song. And they get to look good doing it, those rat bastards.

The 'right' to health care does not exist

Here's hoping Team Obama accepts Johnathan Alder's advice to "reframe" the health care debate as "the most important civil-rights bill in a generation." You're damn right it is, Alder.

The main reason that the bill isn't sold as civil rights is that most Americans don't believe there's a "right" to health care. They see their rights as inalienable, and thus free, which health care isn't.

The truly committed progressive left has it in its collective mind that creating the "right" to health care is, or ought to be, not terribly controversial and a moral imperative. In fact it is the opposite. It is immoral. It is also impractical. And with any luck at all it will be the very thing that causes a majority of the American public to never trust a progressive/liberal/leftist near the levers of government, at any level, ever again.

Alder's column carries the obligatory picture of the angry-shouting-white-senior, driven to hysterics by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Like the rest, Alder assumes that if Obama just does a better job at selling, and debunking Rush and Sarah Palin, then Gramps there will just STFU and fall in line. And like the rest, Alder assumed that health care "reform" would be so non-controversial, and Obama so popular, that Obama would never have to talk about real specifics (or long-term consequences) and could just continue to spout double-talk about how this plan would miraculously "save" money. (Here's a thought -- if it has the potential to save so much money, let's just provide health coverage to the entire world and erase our national debt.) The Left's conventional wisdom is that town hall mobs were misinformed by the Evil League of Evil Conservatives and now the answer is for Obama to make a comprehensive case for reform. And let us all hope that Obama takes up the challenge, because that might just be the strategic blunder that saves the country from descending into socialism.

As far as the Left is concerned, the underlying "case" for reform, the logical and moral underpinning for the need for government intrusion, is your "right" to health care. A "right" which doesn't exist. Alder wants to enshrine it in a piece of landmark civil-rights legislation comparable to Social Security or the Voting Rights Acts. Once it's there, the courts will make sure that liberals never have to go through this debate ever again. So if they can just make the "case" for people to sacrifice their real rights -- like self-determination, or private property -- on the altar of Obamacare, they can win.

But in doing so, in making that case for a "right" to health care, the Left will have to forever abandon the guise of "incremental" health care reform. You can't build a logical case for a "right" to health care and not call for single-payer and more. Making this "case" strips away all of the liberal rhetoric and leaves nothing but a naked call for full-on socialism.

If Obama plainly states that reform is imperative because people have a "right" to health care -- an inherent human right, which therefore existed all along and now will be recognized (and enforced) by government -- then by necessity the government would be called upon to barge into the marketplace and assume complete control over it in order to ensure that "right," and everyone else is going to have to pay for it, no matter what the cost in blood and treasure.

Liberals will certainly no longer be able to talk about a "public option" as some sort of benign entity, merely created "to bring market discipline." Just your helpful, friendly little government program. Nothing to worry about. No, if there's "right" to health care, any private participant in the health care marketplace is living on borrowed time. Any private participant is no longer private at all, but merely an extension of the federal government. The "public option" will, by necessity, rule the marketplace. All others will be invited guests.

One more reason why I want Obama to follow Alder's advice -- the conservative side has been fighting this war for generations. We were right then, we're right now, and our side is the side that squares with fundamental American principles of liberty. If this is the battle we have to fight today, our side is ready to plant the flag. We are ready to die on this hill, and always have been. So here's a flashback -- a video of Ronald Reagan spelling out the case against socialized medicine back in 1961. It's been making the rounds on YouTube, but the interesting thing is that this was the guerrilla "social media" of the day -- rather than relying on the media, the American Medical Association pressed LP records and sent them out for people to listen to and pass around. Taking the case over the heads of the chattering class and directly to the American people worked then, too.

Chase Daniel and Colt Brennan

Interviewed by Chris Cooley.

Get your Chase Daniel jerseys now!

An entirely different Washington Redskins team showed up tonight. I don't know who those guys were last week, who couldn't find their ass with both hands back there in Bawlmer. This was a team with an offensive line that had it together and a defensive line that was manhandling people and chasing people down. But the big story and all the highlight clips are going to be about Chase Daniel.

And after tonight's performance by Chase Daniel (6 for 8, 2 TDs, 134.4 QB rating), if Jason Campbell (1 for 7 (WTF??) 10 yards, 39.6 QB rating) doesn't step it up in the next game, dare I say we are going to have a quarterback controversy?

Why are we still talking about who's going to be the No. 3 quarterback? Who gives a shit who is the third-stringer? The Redskins need an actual big-time starting quarterback. We do not have the luxury of an "insurance policy" experienced QB standing on the sidelines, holding the clipboard, ready to go in and keep things steady. That's not us. Teams that have a brand name like Brees or Peyton or Brady have that luxury. They need a quality backup who is a quality backup. Jason Campbell is just not good enough for us to be worried about who is going to be his caddie.

We need to be worried about having a QB who can step up and kick some ass and do it now.

And as far as I am concerned, that man is Chase Daniel.

I'm looking to the future. Jason Campbell, good though he might be, is not going to suddenly turn into the Next Great Redskins All-Star QB. It's just not going to happen. He has room to improve, and that's it. He could be an entirely serviceable NFL quality quarterback. But that's the ceiling. Todd Collins is fortunate to still be getting paid to play football. Colt Brennan has the tools but like a lot of young QBs he's now two seasons away from competing regularly. All he gets are a few preseason series with the down-the-line backups and camp fodder. And then there's Chase Daniel, who looked like a leader. Chase Daniel, who looked like a guy making smart decisions, moving around in the pocket, finding open guys and moving the ball.

To me, if I'm the coach, unless Campbell steps it up in the last couple of exhibition games and gives me something to get excited about, I roll the dice and give the ball to Chase Daniel. If Campbell gives us more of the same, keeping him as the starting QB to me seems like saying, "Let's just stick with the status quo and maybe we can go 8-8."

Americans are just too stupid to accept socialist utopia

I realize that most reporters and columnists don't write their own headlines and subheds, but those from Gene Lyons' column in Slate are succinct and to the point:

You won't win the healthcare debate by calling people stupid racists
Elite right-wing foes of healthcare reform are telling lies. The folks listening to them are mostly just scared

Lyons says to his fellow liberals: We cannot win the health care debate by calling people stupid racists. We can win the debate by just calling them plain stupid! Or, more accurately, just by renewing our efforts at treating them as such. For they are stupid people who have been scared into utter helpless irrationality by liars.

Just to make sure you clearly understand how the liberal anointed elite perceives its relationship to the lumpen proletariat, Lyons opens his column with five and a half paragraphs describing his experience in dealing with a skittish horse. Presumably, once Lyons and the left get us saddle broke, they will proceed to ride us to wherever they want to go without regard to our opinions on the matter.

It is inconceivable to Lyons and his readers that at least some of the angry people who show up to town hall meetings just might 1) be educated consumers of health care who have a clear understanding of their own interests, and 2) have evaluated the counter-arguments and remain unpersuaded by talking points that say this year's "reform" bill is not a Trojan horse for single-payer.

While the elected Democrats and the liberal punditry have tried to paint the "reform" bills as limited, the leftist nutroots have never made a secret of this effort being anything other than the camel's nose under the tent. First "public option," then the public "option" becomes less and less optional, and then we have single-payer and top-down federal control over health care. Elected Democrats from across the wide spectrum of crazy-leftist-liberal to just-kind-of-liberal are now entering the bare-knuckled negotiation phase in order to try to pass something this year. Here's how TalkLeft advises the congressional left to negotiate:

Think of Kent Conrad as the party across the table in this negotiation. Or even Barack Obama. How do you negotiate with them? You tell them, and mean it, that you will not vote for a health care reform proposal that does not include a robust public option. You protest that you have already made the biggest concession anyone has made in the entire process - single payer. You ask for their best offer.

Get that? Did you think that this push for health care "reform" wasn't supposed to be about single-payer? Well, it was. It's always about single-payer. Single-payer is the Big Rock Candy Mountain of the progressive left's most cherished dreams. Giving up single-payer short of a bloodbath was the progressive left's big concession, for this round. In exchange, they want a "robust public option," which becomes the floor for next year's negotiations, putting them another step closer to taking over health care.

Ah, but those who oppose health care "reform?" Those talking about the consequences of a government takeover of the health sector? Those people are liars! And they're scaring the horses! So to fight back, Lyons recommends to progressives the following:

What's needed, however, is a strong counter-narrative informing voters that they're being had: conned, tricked and manipulated by, yes, New York, Washington and Hollywood "media elites" who lie for money. Vulgar? You bet. It's called "populism," and it once dominated the very states where talk-radio bombast now holds sway.

So the answer to getting all of the skittish horses in line is for the Left to double down on its narrative that the public is being lied to by conservatives. And it might not be bad advice, considering that the alternative is to come clean and just say flat out that liberals have always wanted and always will want nothing less than a complete government takeover of health care and they don't give a damn who it hurts or who has to pay for it.

Whole Foods feels the wrath of the yuppies

Here is the best lesson one could ever have in explaining the true mindset of today's sophisticated yuppie progressive liberal:

"Dear Store Manager," a member of the Boycott Whole Foods Facebook group wrote, "The 30 risotto cakes that I purchased from Jenkintown Whole Foods, last Friday, were scrumptious. But today they are giving me indigestion of the soul as I realize that my money may have funded the demise of the public option in the nation's health care reform legislative debate."

This is what Whole Foods gets for building a major retail business around this crowd. John Mackey, the CEO, caters to their assumptions about organic foods and free-range chickens. He indulges their nonsensical whims on everything from "fair trade" coffee to paper-not-plastic to New Age herbal tea and whatever else they're willing to pay too much for. Yet all that did was confirm in the minds of his liberal customers that they truly are the anointed. They are the ones who "care," unlike those slobs who buy their bologna and American cheese and Wonder bread at the Wal-Mart. By shopping at Whole Foods, they weren't just buying organically grown lentils and grass-fed Kobe beef -- they were buying confirmation of their own inherent moral superiority.

Then Mackey did a bad, bad thing. He wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal expressing his personal view on the debate over health care reform and proposing ideas that he feels would "lower costs for everyone" and not require a "massive new health care entitlement." Eight bullet points. Several of them good ideas. And yet, in the minds of many of his liberal customers, and despite the Obama White House call for a civil and substantive debate, Mackey crossed a line. To make those sins even more egregious, he uttered this anathema:

Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

So now comes the backlash, along with the inevitable apologies. Whole Foods sent letters to customers "apologizing for any offense" and created a forum on its website to discuss the issue, which has drawn more than 10,000 posts (compared with 77 posts on the raw foods thread).

Think for a moment about the sense of entitlement someone must have in order to become outraged over that WSJ column. It would be one thing to simply disagree with Mackey's point of view, and write a letter to the editor to express one's opinion. That's not what happened here. These people are so emotionally invested in Whole Foods and what it represents to them that they actually feel betrayed because its CEO expressed his own personal opinion in favor of a reasonable alternative to government-run health care.

Naturally, the leftie blogs went off on him. From TPM:

Here's a thought: If you own a major supermarket chain that caters to a great deal of liberal-minded people with money, don't rail against the evils of health care reform in the Wall Street Journal.

Note that Mackey never "railed against the evils" of anything. He never even came close. At most, one could take away that Mackey feels government-run health care is, on the whole, unwise. A fair reader would find his rhetoric quite reasonable and his arguments marshaled in a logical and highly civil manner. He began by acknowledging that health care is a serious issue -- and touched on the ticking time bomb of Medicare and Social Security, an angle that the Democrats conveniently ignore -- then offered market-based alternatives to ObamaCare. Again, he did not write a column blasting ObamaCare, although clearly the Left views it that way. He wrote a column giving constructive alternatives. But that doesn't matter. The message the leftie blogs repeated over and over again is that Mackey should have been aware of his customers' political leanings, implying that he should therefore restrain his speech accordingly and never, ever publicly express a contrary opinion.

In offering an alternative, and in the course of supporting of his arguments, he challenged the basic, underlying assumptions of government-run health care -- in particular, the idea that there exists an affirmative "right" to health care, and all that that implies. As it turns out his customers, although they presume otherwise of themselves, do not like having their beliefs challenged at such a philosophical level.

These are people who had been dead certain that anyone who shopped at Whole Foods (naturally including the person running the company) must obviously be of like mind, and therefore in lock step with liberal orthodoxy (and gifted with inherent moral superiority). So after reading the Wall Street Journal article, the response was not to generate a counter-argument in favor of government-run health care entitlements, the response was "let's get on Facebook and boycott his business, and then we will force him to back down and agree with us."

This is the mindset from which the progressive operates. If they buy risotto cakes from you, they own you, and they brook no dissent.

_________________________________
P.S. Football posts will return when there's something to write about. I hate the exhibition season so much. And there's nothing much coming out of the college camps except injuries.

Joseph McCarthy has risen from the grave

Richard Cohen is your basic, standard-issue, left-of-center newspaper columnist. He happens to write for the Washington Post, which is a pretty decent seat to occupy as the dead-tree newspaper industry descends on final approach. The Post has done a better job than most other newspaper companies at diversifying its sources of income. Which is good, because if they had to rely on writers like Cohen, it would all soon be over.

I say this because his latest column is, shall we say, lacking in intellectual heft and contains a leftist's willful disregard for and reinvention of history as he compares Sarah Palin to Joseph McCarthy. So in Cohen's analogy, since Palin is McCarthy, that means her opposition to government-run heath care equates to McCarthy's "paranoia" over the hobgoblin of Communism.

So when he conjures up McCarthyism and ooo-spooky Communism, Cohen expects all of his readers to already accept the left's mythology surrounding McCarthy and the progressive view of communism. And that mythology states that this Republican Senator from Wisconsin was the worst person in the entire history of the human race. If Satan fucked Hitler they could not have made a baby that was worse than Joseph McCarthy. And everyone who is anyone knows this and no person of serious intellect or prestigious Ivy-League education ever argues otherwise.

McCarthy is a stain on the country itself, and on every Republican, and his very name is an epithet. And after McCarthy drank himself to death, a thousand screaming ghosts came flying out of his dead mouth, and then his black blood ate through the ground and later coalesced into Karl Rove... and it was all because he had accused people of being Communists:

McCarthy exploited the public's fear of communism and communists. Not only were they abroad, but they were here in America -- spies, fellow travelers, pinkos, apologists, intellectuals and short, bespectacled minorities. It was their very ubiquity and invisibility that made them so dangerous.

Cohen further expects his readers to already buy into the idea that there never was any need to fear communism. The left has spent generations building its McCarthy myth, and McCarthy could only be made into an unholy, irredeemable demon if he were hounding people for doing something that was not actually bad or wrong. So in the Left's version of history, communism was at most a made-up threat. Nothing more than a bogeyman invented purely to keep the public paranoid and supportive of spending millions on missiles and bombers. This is what liberals derisively call the "Red Menace."

In real-life, however, ideologically committed and traitorous communists did infiltrate the U.S. government at its highest levels, they did steal its nuclear secrets, they did work to take over entertainment and academia, and they did have taking over America and killing their adversaries as their stated goals. But those are just facts. Cohen is making the Palin=McCarthy analogy by saying that while McCarthy was spooking people about the Red Menace -- a made-up lie -- Palin has spooked people about "death panels," which in the judgment of the progressive left is also a made-up lie.

I want to leave aside that whole debate over the "death panels." My point is that Cohen, and the establishment liberals whose opinion and favor he values, have realized that Sarah Palin may have just sunk not just some obscure provision about "end-of-life counseling" -- she may have just sunk government-run healthcare.

And government-run healthcare is the progressive left's version of Manifest Destiny.

It is big and perfect and pure and doesn't require any justification or cost/benefit analysis, and it certainly won't let the 10th Amendment stand in its way -- it's just there, like the big shining Pacific Ocean. It is nothing less than the bedrock foundation of the old-school liberals' Utopian dream. And this hillbilly from Alaska may have just killed it. Hence, Cohen's column-length, largely content-free, name-calling temper tantrum.

Liberals seem to think that if they just pour enough scorn and derision on Sarah Palin, she will disappear. Literally. She will just vanish into the backwoods. In building its McCarthy myth, the Left was fortunate in that he died in 1957, utterly without friends and allies in Washington to defend his name, and never living to write books or give speeches to point out the fact that he never did falsely accuse anyone of being a communist.

But Sarah Palin is still around. Cohen cites her falling poll numbers -- and it is almost comical to watch the Left fretting over the "favorable" rating of a private citizen, more than three years out from the next election -- hoping she will "fade into fringedom." Of course, these polling figures are contradicted by the fact that a mere Facebook note from her may have been the torpedo that ultimately sinks ObamaCare.

Sarah Palin: Gamechanger

You want to know why I love Sarah Palin so much? She makes liberals batshit crazy. All they have to do is get one look at her and they lose all cognitave ability and are reduced to screaming and waving and cursing. And their obsession with her may have just sunk health care "reform."

Think of it this way: Of all the voices out there resisting and criticizing the Democrat health care bill(s), they chose to hit back the hardest against Sarah Palin. And they chose to hit hard, with the full treatment -- direct White House criticism, full-bore attack by the leftie blogosphere, the full circuit of talking-point repetition from their mainstream media outlets.

And they lost.

Sarah Palin didn't say much that had not already been said. At most, she was among the biggest names to make the argument about "death panels" being part of the Democrats' long-range plans for remaking the nation's health care system. Leave aside the argument about whether "death panels" would or would not exist under the Democrats' plans. Personally, I think that the true, fully nationalized, "single payer" health care program that Democrats have envisioned since at least 1944 would inevitably include bureaucratic agencies in charge of making such decisions. If there is one thing that other countries' experiences with national health care should have taught us, it is that rationing is inevitable. But leave that aside for right now.

Sarah Palin put out a rather brief comment on her Facebook page. It got forwarded around, contradicting to some degree the idea that conservatives don't "get" social media. And, because it was Sarah Palin, the left was unable to control its reaction. Suddenly, the debate became Sarah Palin and whether Sarah Palin was lying about there being "death panels" under the Democrats' health care vision. Liberals tripped over one another to prove that "death panels" were not in the bill anywhere. Why, the words "death panels" do not even appear in the bill, they scoffed. (Lies! Damnable lies! the New York Times says.) Now the approved liberal Internet meme became "clearing up misinformation" and discrediting Sarah Palin, rather than trying to sell a still un-sold public on the need for health care reform and the extent of any such reform. Effectively, all momentum toward passing Obamacare ceased while the left wing swung into attack-mode against Sarah Palin.

And then the Senate Finance Committee caved and said there would not be any end-of-life provisions in the bill. Rather than fight this battle any further, they would strip out the nearest thing to "death panels" that existed in the bill language. Sarah Palin and her Facebook page won, and won decisively.

Obama and the Democrats seem not to have learned that they cannot make an affirmative case for health care reform by demonizing Sarah Palin and calling the other side obstructionists. It's just not going to work. Ultimately, it never mattered whether this particular bill called for "death panels." All of the solid support for "reform" is coming from people who want much, much more than is included in this year's bill(s), and they have never made a secret of it. They have said over and over again that the American public would never accept an abrupt turn from private-sector insurance to Uncle Sammy national health care -- they've always known it. They knew they would have to take it slow, bite off a little more and a little more of the private sector through regulation and government intrusion into the marketplace, until we all wake up one morning with a single-payer system. It's disingenuous at best to say that, when the other side likewise extrapolates from today's first-bite bill to the future's inevitable federal health care leviathan, they must be "lying." Only the partisan true-believers are buying that.

So now, to their dismay, they've made Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and Facebook poster, into a major player in the continuing "debate" over health care reform. Because they cannot stand her, they've given her momentum. And she's followed that up with lots more Facebook posts.

Welcome to the Washington Redskins Festival of Suck

Holy living crap! What did we ever do to deserve this?

Redskins fans have suffered for a long time, but this has to rank among the most horrendous, irredeemable suckfests that my team has conducted in a long, long time. This was the kind of offensive hoplessness that one would think could only have been engineered by Marty Schottenheimer. It takes a "genius" coach to make an NFL offense look this disorganized and clueless.

The Skins never got closer to scoring than the Raven's 30. Not one trip to the Red Zone. Not one.

Okay, but was it really that bad? After all, the offense had to rely on Rock Cartwright and Marcus Mason for most of the carries, and they're not Clinton Portis. Likewise, the passes went to the up-and-coming receivers and the camp fodder. So it's not like Coach Zornie was pulling out all the stops to move the ball and score points. He wanted to see what the rest of the roster can do, and that's fine, that's what exhibition games are for. Baltimore, in contrast, gave a lot more work to projected starters.

But come on. One for 11 on third downs? There need to be some successes to give the team (and the fans) some reason for hope. Not to mention the need to make some drives happen so the offense can get some live reps. The Skins ran 51 plays -- the Ravens ran 80. The Skins' time of possession was just over 24 minutes.

Oh, and no Chase Daniel? Not even one series? What's the point in giving that kid a helmet and pads if he's not going to get some snaps?

Get ready for the Colt and Chase show!

It's time, at long last, for the Redskins' first exhibition game. Yes, they were once called "exhibition" games for a reason -- they don't count. One day, the NFL marketing department decided that it would make them sound a whole lot more exciting if they called it "the NFL Preseason." This was important because the team owners started to force their season-ticket holders buy full-price tickets and full-price beer and parking for these glorified scrimmages in order to keep their season seats.

And now, after a long, long offseason, we get to watch one. Tomorrow night, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, along the rotten-fish-smelling and whore-infested Baltimore harbor, against the Original Cleveland Browns.

What I am going to be waiting for is Colt Brennan and Chase Daniel. Jason Campbell, I wish him well. I want to see a couple of good offensive series out of him. Nice crisp passes, moving the ball efficiently, whether we score or don't score I don't care I just want to see some first downs. Then we will probably see Todd Collins. And I feel like a bad Redskins fan for saying this, and I mean no disrespect to Todd Collins, but there ain't no one in burgundy-and-gold land who wants to see Todd Collins as the Redskins quarterback. I would hope that Coach Zornie doesn't waste too many snaps on Collins -- he's already as good as he's ever going to get.

Then, bring on Colt and Chase. Give them the entire second half, at least. Consider these college stats:

• Colt Brennan: 14,193 yards, 131 TDs, 42 INTs, 70.5% completions, career QB rating at Hawaii=115.0
• Chase Daniel: 12,515 yards, 101 TDs, 41 INTs, 68.0% completions, career QB rating at Missouri=148.9

Oh, but they were "system" quarterbacks in college. Yeah, well, the "experts" on who can and cannot make it as an NFL quarterback are wrong more than they are right. The name "Vince Young" leaps to mind. Enjoy some highlights --