The Massachusetts Race

Having only spent 9 months or so in Massachusetts, one would probably argue I shouldn't care who they elect. And in one way, I don't. If they today choose to elect a Republican, that's on them. If that breaks the 60-40 Democratic majority, it isn't the end of the world. What is actually the problem is who they would be electing. Take a look at Keith Olbermann's response from last night:

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Unqualified, fringe candidates, when liberal, are often characterized as dangerous and when conservative, they are characterized as fresh. I get that. But isn't the "fresh" breed of conservative seem just a tad more dangerous? Shouldn't we do everything in our power to prevent just this kind of candidate from getting elected? People are that willing to compromise their political principles just to stick it to a local tone-deaf politician? Are we that petty and small? I guess we're about to find out...

Transformers 2: the Rise of the Moderates

Let me see if I’ve got everything:

“Once-in-a-generation” healthcare bill is proposed to transform a failing healthcare system. Liberals shout with joy and conservatives shout with outrage. First draft of plan leaked in late spring shows concessions to conservative arguments before conservatives can argue against it. New draft comes out of finance committee chaired by Congressman Max Baucus to outrage by Left because it eliminates the biggest cost-saving principles (competition) and its instrument of fundraising may reduce the quality of care (tax on “Cadillac plans”) as well as by the Right on principle. The House cleans up this now weaker proposal, but soundly passes it with an eleventh hour draconian anti-abortion amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak (who I once voted for). Sarah Palin posts on her Facebook page that this bill transforms the country into the Soviet Union by creating imaginary “death panels” and rationing. August is spent watching confused Americans scream “take your government hands off my Medicare” and other nonsensical things. The Senate reconvenes and takes up the debate, starting with Majority Leader Harry Reid courting the two Republicans that they got to cross over last time as well as members of his own party that are apprehensive. They believe that something should be done, but not for another 5 years or so and not anything that would actually change anything or cost anything or actually do anything after all. Sen. Joe Lieberman says that he’s in favor of Medicare expansion, lowering the retirement age—a suggestion bouncing around Washington since Gov. Howard Dean’s proposal on the campaign trail in 2004. As Republicans continue to stonewall and talk about those imaginary “death panels” and communism and socialism and the state taking away your guns and wanting to kill grandma, the two Republicans signal that all of those bipartisan discussions were for nothing since they won’t break ranks. Sen. Lieberman now opposes Medicare expansion. Now Reid and Pres. Obama have a bill in which they are forced to compromise with their own party—or more specifically, the four holdouts in Nebraska, Louisiana, and Connecticut. The compromise brokered this weekend brought back the original complaints in the Baucus bill and seems even more compromised than Liberals feared and many are now talking about rejecting the current compromise bill.

Did I get it all?

There are several storylines in this mess that are worth noting, especially the basic political eventuality of many of the issues within it, but I’ll hold to this one thing: what the self-described moderates have managed to create is a bill that changes very little.

I’ve blogged before about the problems with moderates (including my first one on the myth of the political center, this one on the myth of the U.S. as "center-right," this one on the scandal of centrism, and this rant), but mostly that in their practical application as a subgroup (and not “liberal” or “conservative”, but as a third option) they have a truly and classically conservative impact on the discussion by minimizing the change to the status quo. Where conservatives act to maintain the status quo (or revert back to a previous status quo), the moderates serve to avoid significant alterations to the status quo in either direction. In many ways, this is a much deeper form of conservatism because it avoids transformative change, while conservatives are willing to transform the culture to better embody an idyllic past.

Chris Hayes of The Nation recently pointed out that the healthcare bill is not a transformation of a bad system into a better system, but the patching up of a bad system. I’ll bite at the obvious analogy. It’s like treating cancer with orange juice or a broken leg with a Band-aid: yes, it is helpful, but doesn’t combat the underlying problem. It’s the medical equivalent of treating the symptoms without attacking the presenting illness.

In some ways, the most masochistic part of the president’s demand for bipartisan support is that, in doing so, he gets no true transformation. To transform the system, the president would be better served reaching out to Conservatives, not Moderates, as they would be more willing to see dramatic change to the system. This may seem counterintuitive, especially in light of the two Republican Senators from Maine (Collins and Snow) who, in their willingness to even have a conversation, were treated as a revelation. Moderates, however, look to minimize the impact and drive unyieldingly after compromise, when better solutions may be negotiated without compromise—or perhaps come through compromise, not in compromise.

I’m not suggesting that the President miscalculated anything or that what the current bills offer isn’t significant change. They are. But it isn’t transformation. It isn’t a radical change in the behavior of Americans toward their healthcare system. Some of the symptoms will look better: fewer medical bankruptcies, expansion of care opportunities, and perhaps more standard expectations of care. But the presenting illness will remain unchanged: it protects the profit-making of insurance companies, corporate hospitals, and entrepreneurial physicians while limiting the recourse of those citizens seeking medical treatment, which means that today corporate CEOs get to decide whether Granny lives and dies (to use Sen. Chuck Grassley’s obsession with Grandmothers).

Perhaps before the story ends on healthcare reform, the leadership will be able to tell the difference between Re-Form and touching up.

It's the context, Stupid!

NOTE: I originally published this on another blog, here.

There’s a reason people don’t trust journalists anymore.

OK, there are several, many of which have to do with political hacks arguing about bias, but there’s a more fundamental problem with journalists. The pursuit of objectivity creates subjectivity.

It’s easy for most of us to look at a situation and say “here’s how it happened…” and much like the game of telephone, how the story is told depends on who is telling it. This is how it works. The complexity in our brains means that no two people tell a story the same way without a script.

And there it is: the script. The common component. The one thing that can make my version of the story the same as your version. But what if the script is flawed?

This morning I listened to a story on NPR’s Morning Edition. A very trusted news source with trusted journalists that anchor the show. One of the stories that came out had to do with new figures that came out yesterday. Now, I don’t remember the precise wording, but this is the form they used to present the information:

“Medicare fraud more than doubled this year from 3.7% to 7.8%. Officials claim that the increase is due to new (more strict) accounting rules.”

The journalist argues that the news of the day is the higher percentage of reported fraud. The changed accounting rules is the rationale given by the officials, whose word must be seen in light of their potential bias. But there’s a gigantic hole in this argument: namely the context. The context for the news of the day is just as important as the news itself.

Context is important. If we think about it, the increased number, by itself is not news. Imagine this weather report:

“The Doppler projects 72 degrees. “

When? For how long? When won’t it be 72? Will it always be 72? And what about precipitation? In this way, the context for the fraud is the important part of the story. Now imagine this:

“The Doppler projects 72 degrees. The guy who reads it claims that the unseasonable warmth is due to weather coming from the south, off of the Gulf.”

Suddenly, the obvious conclusion about the nature of weather becomes someone’s claim or projection. Does this mean, that when the temperature only reaches 71, we’ll complain about ‘the guy who reads it’ and how completely wrong he was?

If we were honest, we’d adopt the story’s context as natural, just as we do with most anything else. Here’s what they could have said:

“Changes in accounting rules adopted earlier in the year have revealed a significant higher number of Medicare fraud cases from 3.7% to 7.8%.”

This statement adopted all of the information given in the previous statement, but places “today’s news” (the increase) in context with “yesterday’s” (the changed accounting rules). If we think more deeply about what was done in the first statement, a true event (the changed accounting rules) was placed within the contexts of an argument for why things changed. This not only calls into question the government’s defense for its new number, but it compromises the actual facts themselves. It suggests that “some people” think it has do with changed rules—and further implying that others might not. But did the rules actually change? Yes! Of course they did! Would they affect the number? Yes! They’re more strict! They are intended to actually find more cases of fraud. That the number grew means that the rules and the regulative body are actually doing their jobs! Today's news reveals that yesterday's news is succeeding at its intended purpose and what is revealed today must be taken as more accurate. This would then generate new thinking on fraud and the like.

So, despite the obvious context of the story that they could be writing, the journalists, in their effort to avoid subjectivity, present the news in a way that actually contradicts the nature of the event. By compromising the context of the story and projecting bias onto the regulatory agency, the journalist turns a story about more accurate numbers of Medicare fraud into a misrepresentative story about increased fraud. That this year’s number is larger does not demonstrate increased fraud when the measurements have changed, only that we should adjust our understanding of fraud to recognize a different percentage. Let’s go back to my weather analogy:

“The Doppler projects 72 degrees.” Was yesterday’s report.
“The Doppler projects 20 degrees.” Is today’s report.

Hmm. We might be tempted to wonder why these numbers are so drastically different. Our first inclination is to blame the Doppler itself. But along comes ‘the guy who reads it’ who explains that the Doppler was on Fahrenheit yesterday, but was switched to Celsius. In fact, ‘the guy’ actually told us yesterday that he was switching the numbers, but we didn’t think it would make very good news, so we buried it at the end of the report. So what does the journalist do?

“The Doppler projects 20 degrees. This is a 52 degree drop-off from yesterday. The guy who reads it claims that he switched the analysis from Fahrenheit to Celsius.”

Of course this scenario is absurd, but no less absurd than the notion that we can talk about today’s events without talking about its context, let alone an accurate accounting of yesterday’s events. Because the rules changes themselves are less sexy, we don’t actually process them as happening. We don't adjust the reality then, when we should. This means that when the results of the change differ from our pre-existing expectations, we’re perplexed and turn into inconsolable weepers.

There is an obvious connection to our churches and their existing expectations. For many, our evaluation tools haven’t changed from the 1950s or ‘60s. This provides for inaccurate assessments of the current base of Christians as well as potential members. For some, the switch over from membership to Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) was seen in just the same light as these changed accounting methods. The numbers are compromised because we attack the messenger or we see it as the work of “those higher-ups in New York”. When we do that, we don’t take all of the conversation in context, and we fail to recognize the truth of the situation.

But I think this speaks more broadly to the way we interact with the world. We actually do have a subjective view of the world: we’re optimists that believe in Jesus’ coming to save the world, and in our part in building up the Kingdom of God here on earth. We aren’t called to be objective about this.

But we’re also called to better understand the Scripture and God’s call for us. We shouldn’t get ourselves into the he-said/she-said style of journalism. If we did, we might find ourselves presenting the gospel from last week this way.

“Jesus left the Temple with his disciples. The Jewish Rabbi claimed that the Temple would be destroyed. Critics of the Rabbi and his followers protested this evaluation, suggesting that…”

I can’t imagine any of us wants to see The Story reduced in that way.

Huckabee politicizes Kennedy

Now, this is just sick.

"Hi, Kettle, have we met?"

The West Wing, leadership, and how easy it is to offend the Right

I've been watching The West Wing again.  We got rid of cable, so my wife and I now spend that time watching TV on DVD.  It actually seems pretty silly.

Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the show is that it seems to be a show about leadership.  We get to see how people act when times are good and bad.  We get to learn about repercussions and expectations.  And more to the point, the show was perpetually timely.  Watching the first season, you just know that it is 1999-2000.  You can feel it in your bones.  The issues they are discussing, the popular wisdoms, and even the way the parties respond represents that time period.  It is a wonderful time capsule.

As I watch through the seasons, I also watch/listen to the commentaries.  I like to know what goes into the making of the show, where the writer and director are coming from, and getting to know some of the actors' personalities when they aren't in character.  One thing that keeps popping up from Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme is that they received heavy criticism about the show's "politics".  They discuss it a bit, but cast it off.  I, however, want to challenge this--even if it is a few years past.

I just watched the episode "The Two Bartlets" from the third season.  The two primary issues in the episode are about friendship and affirmative action.  In fact, the only thing that was of particular interest in terms of "issue politics" was the debate over affirmative action that was had between C.J. and Toby (two democrats) who take very different positions.  In fact, Toby refrains from tearing down C.J.'s arguments (con), even though I, a viewer, could.  The show, in fact, proclaims two positions and refrains from saying either one is better.  I can't see what the problem is here.

They also have a secondary issue in which Josh is asked to take advantage of a friendship he has with someone to solve a national defense issue (long story).  Josh does make an impassioned plea on the part of his friend, the demonstrator, and bringing up his stance (which seemed pretty solid from where I sit).  Again, what is not at stake was a clear policy position taken by the people running the show, because Josh is still being forced to convince his friend to stop protesting.  This not only avoids a rendering on the issue, but says something instead about the workings and priorities of governments, which is often in action, not argument.

But the crux of the episode is not the issues in and of themselves, but a discussion about the people that are given the authority to deal with them.  In the case of the show, that is the White House staff and the elected officials that lead them.  In the climax of the episode, Toby takes his concern for the president not taking a stand on the affirmative action debate into the Oval Office.  He wants the president to take a stand.  He also raises the question of why he didn't take a stand: Pres. Bartlet doesn't want to be smart.

Viewers of The West Wing know that Pres. Bartlet is brilliant.  He has a PhD in Economics and is a broadly-read and classically-trained scholar.  He is smart.  Toby suggests that there are two Bartlets: the nutty and jovial professor and the impassioned and determined reformer.  What Toby is getting at is that the President tries to be the nutty professor because, of all things, he was smarter than his father, and it cost him love.  The implications of this are that he only expects to get love when he avoids looking smart.

What is both timely (2002) and timeless about this episode was that we were in the midst of 'frat-boy' politics.  We had a president in real life that many would have preferred to have a beer with than the other guy.  We didn't like people looking smart.  Just like my best friend in grade school that hid his report card because he didn't want people to know he got all A's.  Just like I am told that I occasionally preach over the heads of people.  I won't call it an anti-intellectual agenda, but something worse.  This is the politics.

In the show, the "plain-spoken" everyman Republican candidate wins the Iowa primary, setting him up to be the one true challenger to the president in season 4's election.  What this represented was Karl Rove (as a disciple of the Barry Goldwater school of politics) and his strategy to challenge an opponent's greatest strength, thereby weakening the whole candidate.  In this case (like what happened in 2000 and would get replayed in 2004), the candidate not only runs a campaign that suggests that an 'average joe' has worthy skills, but that it is preferable to intelligence.

This strategy only works if the intelligent one is reluctant to show his intelligence.  I'll overlook the fact that many Americans prefer smart people in the White House, to take this argument: what is Pres. Bartlet if you take intelligence out of the equation?  What happens to his identity?  What is even left?  The very notion that this president would shy away from an intellectual challenge demonstrates truly poor leadership on his part.

The reality of the show in general was that the politics were very fair, even when they didn't need to be.  The president himself demonstrated a hawkish foreign policy and a neo-liberal economic policy, both of which should clearly appeal to conservative and pro-corporate sympathies.  And the one area that he was most liberal were on social issues, which always took a back seat when the times got tough.  In fact, the Left-Wing was thoroughly abused in much of the show's run.  While fairly representing the Democratic Party of the 1990s and 2000s, it also seems to be a less problematic position for conservatives, I would assume, as it matches or complements their positions on issues than a platform more Rooseveltian or Johnsonian.  Instead, the real problem many conservatives had with the show was simply that it was told from a Democratic administration's perspective and the viewer was asked to root for Democrats.  The horror.

For me, I still look at the examples of leadership.  You stand up and shout whenever the President or staff take a stand.  The times you feel good about them are when they say what they believe.  There is a reason the first season's "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet" is one of the show's best episodes: it's about taking a stand.

Why I don't care about the Insurance Lobby

Here's just a quick thought.

Over the last decade we have seen a mass exodus of American manufacturing overseas. As of 2007, New Balance, the last holdout of a company producing shoes in the U.S., was manufacturing in China. They have since re-established some of their manufacturing in the U.S. But that is only one shoe company.

Also, check the labels on your shirts, pens, coffee mugs, and anything else you touch on a daily basis. Not much "made in the USA".

We allowed the manufacturing sector to shed tens of millions of jobs and General Motors and Chrysler to file for bankruptcy (after shedding tens of millions of jobs since the 1960s themselves). We watch our IT and customer service work shipped to India. In fact, as we learned last fall, we placed the entire health of our economy on those beacons of altruistic thinking: Wall Street, Bankers, and Real Estate.

Like the decision of the Big Three to focus on high-margin luxury SUVs while abandoning the small car and alternative-energy industries, our entire economy has been turned away from providing for the small needs of the many and toward the big wants of the few. If you don't believe me, call a lobbyist.

So here's my quick thought: why do we care what health insurance companies have to say? They don't provide the care or seek it. They don't provide the new technologies that provide better access to life-saving methods. They aren't working on new drugs that are revolutionizing patient care. They take money from people in hopes that they never have to spend it. Is this an industry that is essential to the livelihood of this nation? Why should we preserve their existence? Why should we ignore the displacement of millions of Americans from their stable jobs, but suddenly care about the insurance industry? Why should we place the future of the medicine on the bottom-line of Blue Cross and Met Life?

Isn't there a place for my right to quality care? Shouldn't we have a medical system that actually puts saving lives before saving the jobs of the insurance lobby? Shouldn't people be encouraged to go to the doctor and not worry about whether or not their crappy insurance will cover the visit, or worse, what is found when they get there? How many have walked into a doctor's office and prayed that nothing is wrong, not because they want to stay healthy, but because they can't afford for something to be wrong? I for one have. Isn't that more important than the insurance industry?

You can scream and rant about free markets till the cows come home but the statistics are staggeringly against the status quo on this one. If we actually crafted a HEALTH-care system, none of us would need to worry about finding new jobs for all of those insurance agents--they could get jobs helping facilitate care.

Defense briefings manipulated Pres. Bush

Leading off last night's Countdown, Keith Olbermann reveals that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made cover pages for his presidential briefings that combined scripture with pictures of military personnel in Iraq. The full story can be viewed here:

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The pages revealed such pairings as:

"Whom shall I send, and who will go for us."
A picture of soldiers praying--the day before the invasion.

"It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men." -1 Peter 2:13
A picture of Saddam Hussein.

"Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, The nation that keeps faith." --Isaiah 26:2
A picture of the crossed swords, the entrance to the ceremonial parade route.

These cover pages are pretty sick.

Olbermann's discussion and conversation with Richard Wolffe were quite good and covered the purpose and repercussions of their use. But there is one thing that they failed to mention. In their attempt to describe how brazen and manipulative this was on the part of Rumsfeld, they missed one specific opportunity: Bush is famous for not reading what's handed to him.

Rumsfeld isn't simply using Biblical quotes to manipulate a devoutely religious president, but giving a visual "summary" for a leader that wouldn't read the interior pages.

The pages themselves are constructed in a highly visual manner. They contain a photograph taken on the previous day, and a quote from the Bible that is made relavent to the photograph to tell a story of righteousness on the part of the United States. This is, in itself, a disturbing thing. But paired with Bush's tendency to rely on the good intentions of his subbordinates, reveals an incredibly dangerous opportunity for manipulation and deceit.

As governor, Bush famously suggested that he could decide death penalty cases in 15 minutes (despite dozens of pages of documents per case), and then part-way through the term, he reduced the time to 10 minutes. When setting foot in the Oval Office, Bush changed the protocol to include single-page summaries so that he would not be responsible for reading the entire document. Conscious of this tendency on the part of the then-president, Rumsfeld was able to color the summary he was giving the president to fit the schema that they had developed: The United States is acting righteously, boldly, and with God's support in its attempt to bring down the forces of evil.

What we do with this evidence, I don't really know. It does continue to reinforce our fears that their was a shadow-government in the White House, run by the Vice President and assisted by the Secretary of Defense to convince the president to start a phony war. Or it could be a disturbingly crass misuse of Scripture. But does it really matter? The damage is still done.