The Health Care Divide

It seems like all this Republican obstructionism amounts to them saying, "Hey, pass a Republican bill!" to which Barack Obama replies "but I'm a Democrat." Then they say "but America hates that." But we had a whole election with three debates for each side to share their ideas on health care in detail. Barack Obama shared his vision for reforming health care, and then won the election, and then tried to enact health care that largely resembled his campaign positions. He is still a Democrat. And I don't think he's going to change party and/or ideology any time soon.

A Few Random Thoughts on 'Inglorious Basterds'

As I see it, there are primarily two kinds of complaints against Quentin Tarantino's 'Inglorious Basterds.' The first is that the film makes a joke out of and/or takes the events of the Holocaust and World War Two lightly. This is improper and problematic. The second complaint is a typical Tarantino complaint: the movie is about nothing, a mere exercise in style over substance.

Frankly, when I take the time to evaluate both of these arguments, I find them to be pretty compelling. And yet I must say, when I sat down to watch 'Inglorious Basterds' I became immersed in its story and characters. Simply put, it was a thrilling moviegoing experience. Trying to evaluate or process the movie through the context of WWII seems pointless; in my view, the movie has nothing to do with the war outside of using it as a setting in time and space. (Still, the argument goes, Tarantino is making use of events and places that he shouldn't be. I can't argue with that.) If the movie is about anything at all, it's about movies.

Which brings me to my main point. Is this movie nothing but an empty, substance-less, stylized exercise? The very fact that I enjoyed a movie this much compels me to think that there must be something interesting going on there. (I know I didn't enjoy it the same way I enjoy, say, Die Hard or Old School.) I suppose it deserves a second viewing, but I think there is definitely something to be discussed relating to the idea of the power of cinema. Both within the movie (in the final scene) and the movie itself, there is a suggestion that the movies can serve as a means of extracting revenge, righting wrongs, and revising history to create certain myths.

Believing movies have this sort of power would make sense coming from someone like Tarantino, who seems to have grown up in a movie theater. But for those who haven't had the luxury, their belief in the power of cinema probably isn't as strong. They're probably right, and that might be the ultimate problem with the film.

Could Sarah Palin Pass the Turing Test?

Watching Sarah Palin respond to her questioners, whether it's her most recent Tea Party sit-down or her Katie Couric interviews from two years ago, I can't help but think of the infamous Turing Test, devised by Alan Turing to test a machine's ability to demonstrate intelligence. According to the test, if a machine and a human were to engage in a (text only) language conversation with one another, and an observer was unable to tell which is which, the machine passes the test. For Turing, this was sufficient enough to be deemed "intelligence." Certainly, by these standards, Sarah Palin passes with flying colors. But still, there's always something a bit off about Palin's canned responses; it almost sounds like a conversation you'd have with a computer that gives normal sounding answers, but not ones that totally make sense, because, after all, it's been programmed. (For example, when Sarah Palin looks at her hand and then says "we've gotta reign in the spending, obviously" or when Katie Couric asks her an entire set of questions about McCain and the economy, she kind of just says "what we need now is regulation," or "Washington really needs to be shaken up," or "reform" followed by a few more indefinite articles and so forth.)

There are, by the way, a number of challenges, questioning the effectiveness of the Turing Test in capturing intelligence. The philosopher Hilary Putnam, for example, made the point that if the world had ceased to exist, a programmed computer would still refer to things in the world, simply because its been programmed; so a computer could communicate that "the grass is green," or "we need more regulation on Wall Street" even if grass, or Wall Street, had ceased to exist (both plausible in the future). The point is, a computer has never actually experienced green grass, and so it's not actually referring to anything, the way a human being indeed does refer to things it has experienced with its sensory perceptions.

Similarly, John Searle argued that a computer could manipulate language that it actually had no understanding of, and so it could not be described as "thinking" the way a human would. If, for example, a person simply looked up Chinese words, and followed instructions on how to draw Chinese symbols so it appeared on paper as though the human could converse in Chinese, we'd be inclined to argue that the person doesn't "know" Chinese. And that, Searle argues, is what a computer is doing.

And with Sarah Palin, I fear we have a very well programmed person that can manipulate language that it sometimes has very little understanding of. She might pass the Turing Test, but for Searle and Putnam, she's yet to prove she's ready.

Music Break

Why is Health Care Reform Unpopular?

Here's Clive Crook's take:

If healthcare reform was popular, Democrats could revoke the filibuster rule, pass the legislation and be applauded for it. But if reform was popular there would be no need to revoke the filibuster rule in the first place, because Republicans would not dare to use it the way they have.

Everything the Democrats say about the Republican use of the filibuster is correct, except for that one awkward detail: most of the public does not like the Democrats’ proposals and wants them blocked. If Democrats change the rules to press on, they will be outmanoeuvring not just the Republicans but the country. The constitutional case for doing it might be impeccable. In my view, it is. But the party fears the price it would have to pay in November’s elections – and so it should.

Hmm. This would be true assuming that health reform wasn't popular from the outset of the process. But if health reform was unpopular because Americans perceived it as a set of quiet deals to placate enough Senate Democrats to get 60 votes, then Crook's reasoning would be circular. "If reform was popular there would be no need to revoke the filibuster rule in the first place." But maybe reform is unpopular as a result of the filibuster being invoked (because, again, it results in Harry Reid scrambling to cut shady deals with the last few Democratic holdouts). If that were the case, his argument would amount to this: health care reform is unpopular because of the filibuster, but if it was popular, there would be no need for the filibuster.

I'm going to go ahead and assert as a premise that health care reform is unpopular, largely (though not solely), due to the problems caused by the filibuster. Therefore, Crook's argument is circular.

The Great Deferrer

An addendum to my previous post on my grand theory of Obama as a great deferrer.

Ross Douthat, similarly, (but more succinctly) summed up Obama's leadership style in a recent column:

Obama baffles observers, I suspect, because he’s an ideologue and a pragmatist all at once. He’s a doctrinaire liberal who’s always willing to cut a deal and grab for half the loaf. He has the policy preferences of a progressive blogger, but the governing style of a seasoned Beltway wheeler-dealer.

Douthat continues,

Both right and left have had trouble processing Obama’s institutionalism. Conservatives have exaggerated his liberal instincts into radicalism, ignoring the fact that a president who takes advice from Lawrence Summers and Robert Gates probably isn’t a closet Marxist-Leninist. The left has been frustrated, again and again, by the gulf between Obama’s professed principles and the compromises that he’s willing to accept, and some liberals have become convinced that he isn’t one of them at all.

They’re wrong. Absent political constraints, Obama would probably side with the liberal line on almost every issue. It’s just that he’s more acutely conscious of the limits of his powers and less willing to start fights that he might lose than many supporters would prefer. In this regard, he most resembles Ronald Reagan and Edward Kennedy. Both were highly ideological politicians who trained themselves to work within the system. Both preferred cutting deals to walking away from the negotiating table.

It's worth reading the whole thing because I think it is a pretty accurate characterization of Obama. Douthat concludes by observing:

This leaves him walking a fine line. If Obama’s presidency succeeds, it will be a testament to what ideology tempered by institutionalism can accomplish. But his political approach leaves him in constant danger of losing center and left alike — of being dismissed by independents as another tax-and-spender, and disdained by liberals as a sellout.

This is absolutely right, with one minor exception. If Obama loses the "center" and left it will be for the same simple reason: independents and liberals alike will perceive, rightly, that the president's continued deferral to powerful interests means he is not acting in their own. And this of course only helps Republicans politically. They can go out and make the argument that big government means bad government. And at this rate, they'll have the evidence to prove it.

Sometimes a Little Populism is a Good Thing

Who is Barack Obama? This seems to be a question that animates political pundits more than your average president. I don't think there were as many people spending time trying to capture the "essence" of George Bush or even Bill Clinton, for that matter. And understandably so. Barack Obama, by way of his personal story and personality, perhaps demands more scrutiny. Is he a centrist? Is he Stalin plus Mao multiplied by Castro? Is he just a pragmatist? Or maybe just something in between?

Obama happens to possess many traits that (like his own lineage) live on the boundary between two subtle, but crucially different, worlds. He is incredibly self-confident, comfortable in his "own skin," a trait which his opponents see simply as arrogance. Similarly, he has a much talked about "inner calm" and coolness, which both supporters and opponents misinterpret as aloofness. And finally, he is incredibly cautious. He takes things slowly (witness the year it took to put a forth a year-long review of Don't Ask Don't Tell). There's more to this caution: not only does he take things slowly, but when he does take on an issue, he does so incredibly judiciously. He plays it safe. He's not around to ruffle feathers. He is an incrementalist.

It is this particular aspect of Obama's leadership and rhetoric which conservatives like Andrew Sullivan find so appealing and prompts an author like Sam Tanenhaus to describe Obama as a "conservative" president. He is conservative in the sense that he seeks to strengthen and work within existing institutions (see: private insurance market) instead of tearing them down and beginning anew. He is in the business of accommodating, not revolutionizing. (For the best investigation on this topic, see Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article, which was all but forgotten in light of the silly cover cartoon controversy).

But here's the catch: Obama's accommodations--to Congress, interest groups, and institutions altogether--all serves a larger strategy. For Obama these accommodations are merely a tactic in achieving larger liberal goals, on health-care, the climate, and education. The approach is sort of utilitarian--accommodate people who, in a perfect world we wouldn't, in order to achieve the greater good. Give in to the imperfections in our political system, Obama tells his liberal supporters, so American lives can get that much closer to perfection. Obama often makes this pretty clear to his supporters: it's worth giving up some worthy goals, like the public option, for the overall greatness of health-care reform.

And this approach makes sense, to an extent. It's hard to believe it now, but I believe Obama took essentially the right path on health-care reform. He let Congress write the legislation, cut deals with interest groups like Pharma in order to get their support, and was a few days away from passing historic health-care reform. Who would've thought Ted Kennedy would die and the special election to replace him would take place just as health-care was about to be agreed on by both chambers? (And why the heck are there two chambers anyways? A question for another time.)

But while I think his accommodationist approach was largely appropriate on health-care, it is this same approach on another issue that makes him largely to blame for whatever more general unpopularity he currently suffers. Here, I am talking about Obama's handling of the financial crisis. Obama, to be sure, inherited both the crisis and bailout, but his approach to the crisis exhibited the same kind of deference for entrenched interests and institutions. But in the case of the financial crisis, one must ask what these accommodations were in the service of? Obama (under the guidance of Robert Rubin proteges like Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers) chose to throw money at banks instead of nationalizing them and breaking them up, a path preferred by everyone from Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz to Reagan treasury secretary James Baker and McCain economic advisor Douglas Hotz Eakin . Now, Obama, Geithner, and company tell us that the bailout averted a total financial meltdown. Is this really meant to be either reassuring or convincing? First, telling the townspeople that we had to kill everyone in town because they were spreading disease, shouldn't make them happy. Secondly, just because the bailout worked (and we are not sure of that yet), doesn't mean that the alternative plan wouldn't have worked better and saved taxpayers a lot more money. And most importantly, even if it hadn't, the execution of the bailout could have been executed with far more transparency and care for the interests of the taxpayer.

Underlying this entire story, one can't help but be drawn again to Obama's deference for entrenched interests. He doesn't want to ruffle our largest bank's feathers, so he throws money at them--a policy which they embrace because it allows them postpone writing down their balance sheets instead of dealing with their devalued assets. But this is bad policy and bad politics. People see large banks get handouts and yet Obama still attributes populist outrage merely to a poor economy. Yes, that's an important part of the picture, but it obfuscates his own responsibility for his unpopularity. In the 2008 election, pundits considered if Americans were changing their attitude toward a more positive view of the role of government. And yet when they watch our government act only to protect and perpetuate aristocracy, they rightly distrust the federal government. Why should they support a large government when that large government only acts on behalf of the powerful? The Tea Partiers, as crazy as they might be on everything else, are right to be angry about the bank bailouts.

When it comes to the financial crisis, populism, as a matter not only of politics, but policy, is a good thing. David Brooks in a recent column assails populism observing that "simply bashing the rich and the powerful will still not solve the country’s problems." True enough. But with the financial crisis, it is an issue of both fairness and good policy, not punishment. Simply falling back on "populism is always simplistic and ignorant," is sometimes, ironically enough, a bit too simplistic. Populism can also save taxpayer money.

On this issue of the financial crisis then, unlike health care, the times called for confrontation, not accommodation and incrementalism. And the problem is made worse by Obama's never ending rhetoric on "making tough decisions." It makes one wonder: who will Obama fight? The teachers union? Big whoop. He has deferred to the banks, Pharma, Ben Nelson, and Joe Lieberman already. I hope for a change of course when it comes to financial regulation (another welcome change would be some personnel moving: remove Tim Geithner and bring Paul Volcker into a more substantive role, in addition to Joe Stiglitz. And replace Robert Gibbs with Bill Burton).

In assessing President Obama's current political stature, many outlets, like this cover article of Newsweek, speak to Obama's failure to communicate. This, finally, takes us all the way back to Obama's own character traits. His inner calm can be easily interpreted as aloofness--a failure to connect to the people, to "feel their pain." And this is a part of his problems, but so are his policy failures, particularly with the financial crisis. And this returns us to that third aspect of his personality: his extreme political caution. But much like his traits of self-confidence and inner calm, President Obama's caution also walks a fine line. And that caution, if it hasn't already, might soon turn to a nightmarish timidity.

Blog Wasteland

This is my inaugural post. In my attempt to find a name for this blog, I searched the interweb high and low for a blog title that has not already been taken. What I've noticed during my search is that the blogosphere sort of resembles the scene when you step out of your apartment on a rainy day in Manhattan. On those rainy days, you encounter dozens of cheap umbrellas that have been destroyed by the wind and abandoned by their owners, who must've only purchased them in vain just hours before. See where I'm going with this? Blogs too, seem to be sought out by ambitious writers, eager to share their thoughts about the world, only to be abandoned by their owners a few weeks later. Like those umbrellas, the elements are just strong to keep the project afloat; in the case of blogs, people are busy and need to do things, like watch movies and go to work. It seems to me like the only blogs that remain intact are those fancy, expensive umbrella types: the ones that are written by people who make blogging a full time occupation, for publications that pay them to do so.

Having said all that, I'm starting a blog! I don't know what will come of it, but hey, it's worth a try while I'm still ambitious. The name I've given it for now is The Kiddush Club, which, according to Wikipedia "is a slang term applied wherever an informal group of people leave a synagogue's sanctuary during Jewish services on Shabbat (Saturday) morning to congregate, make kiddush (frequently over liquor) and socialize. Participants often leave services during the Haftorah reading or the sermon." I thought it was apt.

I am interested in politics, and particularly enjoy the writings of what I consider to be more thoughtful political writers: Michael Lind, John Judis, and Sam Tanenhaus, to name a few. They tend to write about American political history, which is crucial to understanding mere "politics." I also enjoy going to and discussing movies, Judaism, stand-up comedy, history, and philosophy. Enjoy.