Bill O\u2019Reilly was elaborating on the \u201cineffective Obama\u201d meme last night:<\/p>\n
This guy\u2019s been paralyzed on Afghanistan for two months,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
he sneered.\u00a0 Apparently, if you were to possess the insight of Mr. O\u2019Reilly, deciding whether to escalate or deescalate a war in a tribal, backwards country, each of which options comes with considerable, if not massive, geopolitical repercussions, would be a straightforward decision, kind of like that other no-brainer of invading Iraq.\u00a0\u00a0 I mean, what could you possibly learn in two months about as transparent a spot as Afghanistan that you couldn\u2019t have brushed up on in a week?\u00a0 Two months, after all, is several lifetimes on the \u201cno-spin zone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the stretching-on of the health care debate:<\/p>\n
How long has health care been going on?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
O\u2019Reilly asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not even going to make Christmas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now the simplest way not to have a months-long negotiation over health care reform is not to engage in such reform at all, or at least, not to seek a total transformation of the system in one stroke.\u00a0 Some would argue, with justification, that such inaction is precisely the proper course.\u00a0 But if you do set yourself such an ambitious goal, leaving aside whether it is a wise one, spending months debating and working out the details hardly seems excessive.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Right launched the \u201cineffective Obama\u201d meme a few weeks ago, and even the MSM has picked it up.\u00a0 It happens to conflict with the \u201cObama is rapidly turning us into a socialist country\u201d meme, but what the heck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Karl Rove today tallies the costs <\/a>of the Democratic health care bills as a self-evident argument against the plans.\u00a0 Such an argument seems to me to circumvent some possible prior points that first need to be established: Either a. Covering more people is not a sufficiently pressing need to justify the costs of doing so, or b. There are cheaper ways of doing so, or c. Covering more people is a pressing need, but we can\u2019t afford it at the moment.\u00a0 But if you believe that it is morally (see the great Kausfiles) or even, over the long term, fiscally imperative to cover the uninsured, the present costs of doing so is not a slam-dunk argument against so-called reform.\u00a0 I doubt whether National Greatness enthusiasts would ever be deterred from military actions designed to maintain America\u2019s rightful (or, as some see it, divinely mandated) world hegemony by arguments of cost.\u00a0 Certainly, in nearly all cases of public action, proceeding incrementally is far preferable to huge new legislated rearrangements of social and economic relations.\u00a0 But conservatives don\u2019t always eschew the totalizing attack on a problem: vouchers are intended to blow up the public school system,\u00a0 for example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bill O\u2019Reilly was elaborating on the \u201cineffective Obama\u201d meme last night: This guy\u2019s been paralyzed on Afghanistan for two months, he sneered.\u00a0 Apparently, if you were to possess the insight of Mr. O\u2019Reilly, deciding whether to escalate or deescalate a … Continue reading