March 11, 2010

Ezra Klein grasps at straws after the Senate parliamentarian rules that if the House passes the Senate bill, it must go to the Prez for signature, before any reconciliation bill.

He says:
If Republicans figure out some nuclear level of obstruction that could actually derail the reconciliation process, then they will effectively own the worst elements of the Senate bill, and Democrats can just spend their time hammering Republican obstructionism that has so lost touch with reality that they'd rather keep legislation they're against than let Democrats fix it. Or so goes the argument.
"Or so goes the argument." Does that mean he buys the argument? Or is that just what others are saying? Because it's ridiculous to think that people won't hold the Democrats responsible for the bill they produce. Klein's readers are flaying him in the comments. E.g.:
Ezra do they actually pay you for this drivel or do you get supplemental pay from Acorn or the SEIU? You are a complete shill for Obama and have lost all objectivity. What a worthless piece of tripe. Please start posting a warning label on your articles that people may actually lose intelligence after reading your it.

To clarify, if the democrats ram this through with reconciliation they will be hammered in the November and 2012 elections. Trying to say the Republicans are responsible for this stupidity is so convoluted it is simply breathtakingly stupid....

47 comments:

Methadras said...

Klein and his ilk are breathtakingly stupid because they are leftists, which we all know are some of the dumbest people on earth.

chickelit said...

Who is this little Klein anyway?

Sprezzatura said...

Isn't the bigger hole in his argument that the Senate likes their bill as it is. So, why would the Ds in the Senate get all hot and bothered because the Rs made it so that they couldn't change their bill to make it more like the House version.

The only exceptions would be the set asides (e.g. for NE and LA) which the Ds in the Senate do want to dump. And, if the Rs actually voted to keep those in, it is conceivable that they would take heat for it.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

The Post should consider replacing Ezra with the reader that wrote that comment. Those few sentences display more intelligence than Klein has cobbled together in his entire career.

prairie wind said...

"...stupidity...so convoluted it is simply breathtakingly stupid......"

There's been so much of that since Obama was elected.

SteveR said...

The included comment sums up the problem with people like Ezra Klein, who is unfortunately not in a small group.

Come on dude, you can't be taken seriously when you write crap like that.

Sprezzatura said...
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Chennaul said...

What's really funny about this was not a few minutes after I read about the Senate Parliamentarian's ruling story someone commented-

"How long before Ezra Klein comes out with a column in support of the Democrats going full speed ahead?"

Unknown said...

The Senate Democrats can remove the parlimentarian, like the Repubs did a few years ago

Scott said...

All of this is academic, however...

The House isn't going to pass the bill (Nancita cannot find enough votes), so the Senate isn't going to have the chance to reconcile it in the first place...

Should be fun to watch Ezra's head explode when that happens...

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

If Republicans figure out some nuclear level of obstruction that could actually derail the reconciliation process, then they will effectively own the worst elements of the Senate bill, and Democrats can just spend their time hammering Republican obstructionism that has so lost touch with reality that they'd rather keep legislation they're against than let Democrats fix it.

Ezra Klein is simply saying that Ford and GM could be blamed for the bad Toyotas Toyota produced.

Makes prefect sense to me ;)

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

sorry, I meant perfect sense.

kent said...

Ezra Klein is to intellectually honest political commentary what the Bugaloos were to speedcore.

Fen said...

I've slipped a provision into the health care bill declaring me Dictator for Life. Please prepare your estates and daughters accordingly.

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
John Stodder said...

I want to parse this word, "obstructionist."

What do the people using it take it to mean? Is there some moral or political principle that says a politician should vote to approve something he or she opposes, just because his or her opponent really, really wants them to?

Should Paul Ryan call the House Democrats "obstructionists" because they won't vote for his plan? No, because he sees he's in the minority and unless he rewrote his plan to suit the majority, he won't get it passed.

So, okay, the Democrats are having trouble wrangling the votes needed for this bizarre situation they've created. Are Republicans under some obligation to lend a hand? Why? Because they feel sorry for the Democrats? Because there is some principle of momentum that compels their vote? Because they're afraid the charge of being an "obstructionist" will go into their permanent records?

In just a few short weeks, reconciliation has gone from a risky tactic that even many Democrats claimed was inappropriate for health care reform to a fundamental American value that Republicans not only shouldn't complain about but should facilitate.

In Klein's fantasy, do members of the GOP secretly agree that Obamacare is better for America but they are too perverse to vote for it?

I just don't get this "obstructionist" charge. Call it what it is: Conservatism. A preference for small government. A concern about nationalizing an important industry. And that's the clue to Klein's real problem. Those are popular positions with deep roots in America. So we can't attribute what the GOP is doing to conservatism. It has to be this strange, perverse tendency toward "obstructionism."

Nagarajan Sivakumar said...

Ezra Klein is so breath takingly dumb, that he may as well be related to that other joker Joe Klein. Surprisingly, they are not.

He is a 25 year old liberal who "secretly" started JournoList- enough said.

This guy and Matt Yglesisas are easily the most overrated bloggers out there.

dave in boca said...

Najarian,

Klein & Yglesias will actually permit well-reasoned opposition comments, unlike the turnip-truck drivers Benen & T-Faux-MV who blackball people to the right of Joe Biden. Lil Ezra's JournoList Cabal[leros] are a secret wall of shame, conniving in their online backroom to flood the zone with insanity [e.g., the Pentagon Truther was a "right-wing" extremist].

Hearst & Henry Luce were paragons of journalism compared with these tenderfoot agitpreppies.

Jason (the commenter) said...

The Democrats seem to be enamored with the idea of throwing good money after bad; both literally and figuratively. They can't waste the political capital they spent on health care so far, so they throw in every last bit of it they have.

They are left grasping at straws like Ezra Klein. They are a product of the bubble economy and have learned nothing from it.

Throw the bums out.

AllenS said...

You will waste your time reading, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum. There are others of course, but those three are either completely wrong, or are making shit up.

AllenS said...

Continuously, may I add.

Opus One Media said...

"To clarify, if the democrats ram this through with reconciliation they will be hammered in the November and 2012 elections. Trying to say the Republicans are responsible for this stupidity is so convoluted it is simply breathtakingly stupid...."

It is going to rain 5-8 inches here on eastern long island during the next 3 days. the st. patrick's day parade in town is cancelled. that is more important than the opinion of some putz who trys to defend the republican way of life.

Opus One Media said...

Jason (the commenter) said...
The Democrats seem to be enamored with the idea of throwing good money after bad;"

no you godforsaken putz. the democrats want to get something done in an area that is going to drown this nation in debt and expenses. what is your friggin alternative? what do you suggest?
give it up right here..name it...what is your alternative. the ship is sinking and you want to complain that you don't like water.

get a life. get an idea. do something other than just whine and piss upwind.

Opus One Media said...
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Opus One Media said...
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Opus One Media said...
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A.W. said...

You know for all the discussion of do they have the votes, etc. I think Laura Ingraham had a good insight. She said if Pelosi had the votes, she would have brought the bill to a vote. The second she thinks she has the votes, she'll bring it, because she will not bring it unless she knows she will win, and if she knows she will win, she will strike while the iron is hot.

Hoosier Daddy said...

Sheesh hdhouse, does crapping your diaper this early in the morning result in triple postings?

Scott M said...

Trying to say the Republicans are responsible for this stupidity is so convoluted it is simply breathtakingly stupid....

Stupid would imply that he's not got the mental capability to know better. This is worse. This is a person who is supposed to be able to discern both sides of an issue and think critically on them. Maintaining his argument requires the largest ideological blinders available.

kent said...

Sheesh hdhouse, does crapping your diaper this early in the morning result in triple postings?

Someone may have to place the poor sod on suicide watch, come November.

Someone who actually cares, I mean.

Anonymous said...

I put more stock in the view of the pollsters for Presidents Carter and Clinton, whose joint editorial in the Washington Post is aptly titled: If Democrats ignore health-care polls, midterms will be costly

Hoosier Daddy said...

In the P&C insurance world, most if not all states have what they call a residual insurance program. This is where you go for auto or homeowner's insurance when you can't purchase it from the commercial market due to being a shitty high risk driver or using your homeowner's policy as a maintenance plan.

So you go to the residual market where you get a very basic auto or homeowner's policy (collision, liability, fire, wind and that's about it.) You won't be turned down but you're also going to be priced based upon the risk you present.

In essence this is what could have been done for health care in which the uninsured could purchase a basic catastrophic care policy which would keep people from going bankrupt because they got cancer or fell down their front steps and broke their leg. This could have been accomplished for a whole helluva lot less money than the trillion dollar debacle The Won is wanting to foist on us. Then again that means The Won would not have been able to usurp 1/6 of the economy for the State.

garage mahal said...

I weep for my country. Sadz.

Anonymous said...

But then, casting a vote for Obama back in November of 2008 was breathtakingly stupid.
Right, Althouse?
Right, David Brooks?
Right, Chris Buckley?
Right, Susan Evans?

MayBee said...

The "fix" for the Cornhusker Kickback proposed by President Obama is to expand it to all states. Not to repeal it.

I don't know how the fix can possibly come without an enormous price tag. Who will vote for it?

I'm Full of Soup said...

I saw a interview on CNN with Paul Ryan and the chick talking head who is on at 8PM. I forget her name.

She listened to Ryan explain his ideas and then essentially laughed at him and said "but you are in the minority party so what good are your ideas hahaha".

kent said...

She listened to Ryan explain his ideas and then essentially laughed at him and said "but you are in the minority party so what good are your ideas hahaha".

The 'rat approach towards dialogue and debate, in perfect miniature.

Hoosier Daddy said...

I weep for my country. Sadz.

The Soviet Union has been defunct for almost 20 years now garage. Get over it.

TosaGuy said...

Klein's analysis may make sense to some in the political junkie class.

However, the majority of Americans got their understanding of the legislative process during breaks between ABC morning cartoons -- a process where bills are debated and voted upon in the open.

While most people intrinsically know it's not that easy in real life, they still want the reality to be closer to the ABC version than the Klein version.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The desperation and dececption streaming from the left is breathtaking.

A clear majority of this nation doesn't want one-party-only trillion-dollar tax-payer funded government controlled health care.

Carol_Herman said...

Here's the dilemma. "IF" this monstrosity passes, why the time delay? Wouldn't it have made sense to pass it long before now?

Isn't it possible the House would no more support the Senator's bill, than a snowball wouldn't melt in hell?

Is being in the spotlight so enthralling, that Pelosi didn't see the downside? So, there ya go. Being on TV was a rotten experience for Nixon. Doubly so for Bill Clinton,for just getting embarrassed (while ducking his wife's tossing of ashtrays). We're just led to believe these people live for the camera.

Not true. Backstage time takes up more time that hitting your markers. We don't hear the screaming from backstage (yet). Because the curtains are super-thick.

garage mahal said...

Why is it taking so long to hurry up and jam this down our throats???????

kent said...

Why is it taking so long to hurry up and jam this down our throats???????

"I'll take 'Things Most Often Heard Whimpered in Eric Massa's Apartment at 2:00 A.M.' for $500, Alex."

Hoosier Daddy said...

Kent wins the thread.

AllenS said...

Why is it taking so long to hurry up and jam this down our throats?

Because a lot of Democrats have realized that if they shove it down our throats now, when they run for reelection they'll be taking it up the ass.

Bruce Hayden said...

I will second what John Stodder said about being obstructionists.

I think that the Republicans might benefit this election cycle by campaigning on "Just Say No", piggy backing on all the anti-drug advertising that we have seen over the decades.

What must be remembered, whenever this subject comes up, is that the Republicans have the high ground here. This is a representative democracy, and that means that the politicians are supposed to vote the will of the people. The people are becoming ever more adamant - they want this monstrosity stopped.

So, the Democrats yelling obstructionism are essentially saying: ignore the will of the people here, and vote with us, because we won a big majority as a fluke in the last election.

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